KFD-12 Implementation Notes
Authoritative decision · Formal reference · Discovery and qualification · Documentation map
KFD-12 is a numbered draft for a software-development Domain Profile. It is an application of KFD-7 through KFD-11, not a cross-domain mandate.
Domain boundary
KFD-12 names its software-domain work context Initiative and its bounded
responsibility Assignment. An Initiative turns declared intent into durable,
coordinated work by preserving scope, participants, Pursuits, Assignment
relations, lineage, and settlement policy. Its purpose summary does not replace
the intended-change semantics of its Pursuits. An Assignment proposes or binds
one holder to accepted responsibility under exact Initiative, Pursuit, Atlas,
Warrant, acceptance, evidence, and settlement boundaries.
Intent is content of an Initiative, not a substitute for its identity. An Initiative is not identical to a Pursuit, project, or repository. An Assignment is not identical to a task, Warrant, Episode, or claim. Products may project a simple session onto these roles without exposing every role as a separate UI object.
Another domain may use different objects, omit this exact lifecycle, or define a different settlement sequence. It conforms only to the KFDs it explicitly adopts and qualifies.
Discovery lineage
The founding move was not to derive more controls from Pursuit, Atlas, and Warrant. It was to adopt the real participant’s view and ask what object helps software work continue. That KFD-4 transformation exposed a continuing work context and a bounded accepted responsibility. KFD-5 deletion, fuse, alternative, falsifier, and dogfood tests then accepted Initiative and Assignment as distinct software-domain Primitives. The acceptance is narrower than activation of KFD-11 and does not claim these names for other domains.
Implementation sequence
- Admit the relevant Fact cut and resolve an Atlas.
- Create or continue an Initiative and bind its relevant Pursuits.
- Propose an Assignment with one holder, bounded responsibility, exact Initiative, Pursuit, Atlas, and Warrant roots, acceptance boundary, evidence obligations, settlement policy, and typed lineage.
- Record whether that participant accepts, refuses, or requests revision.
- Record realized work as one or more Episodes.
- Publish a claim without treating it as self-certified.
- Assess that claim for a declared purpose under KFD-11.
- Issue an authorized decision and record Admission separately.
- Settle the Assignment or create explicit continuation responsibility while preserving the Initiative.
One physical record or command may carry several roles when source, cut, authority, state, and derivation remain independently inspectable.
Machine adoption path
Publish a
schemas/kfd-12/adopter-witness.schema.json
record for the software Domain Profile. It binds Initiative and Assignment
identity, proposal and acceptance, exact Pursuit/Atlas/Warrant coordinates,
the Claim-to-Admission lifecycle, continuation lineage, and a passed
simple-session round-trip that can recover all eight decision roles.
The package-level activation-contracts.json
manifest is the stable human and agent discovery surface for this witness and
the shared qualification and activation schemas.
Qualification
Test negative cases where an Assignment is treated as accepted merely because it was proposed, occurrence lacks a claim, a claim lacks evidence, an assessment passes for one purpose but not another, a decision lacks authority, Admission fails after a valid Decision, or continuation is required after technical success. Also test that a simple session remains low-friction and that complex work exposes the responsibility whose independence has become material.
Use the Field Responsibility Matrix to keep Pursuit direction separate from Initiative coordination purpose and Assignment acceptance or settlement fields.
Qualification records structural, implementation, operational, independent review, and activation readiness separately. Passing the schema or one implementation level never upgrades a later level automatically.