Progressive disclosure
Enough to be discoverable first; more during evaluation; protected Evidence after an authorized request; contractual detail once participants reach that relationship state.
Integrators
Integrate through the boundary.
Do not shortcut the model.
Most participants will not replace their ERP, farm-management, laboratory or financial systems to join RSM. A connector lets them take part through RSM semantics and protocol. It is an adapter boundary, not a semantic shortcut, and the specifications that govern it are the Runtime & Federation Architecture (05) and the Canonical Model & Protocol (04).
THE PATH EVERY EXTERNAL FACT TAKES (source: 05 §12)
Connector boundary
An existing system integrates through a connector that maps its concepts into RSM operations and projections. The source system stays authoritative where it legitimately is; RSM becomes authoritative only for admitted canonical RSM state.
- identity mapped
- meaning mapped
- provenance kept
- admitted through protocol
- 01Existing system
Remains authoritative for the state it legitimately governs.
- 02RSM Connector
Maps external identifiers, schemas, vocabulary and authorization into governed RSM semantics, with provenance.
- 03RSM Protocol
Evaluates authority and idempotency. The connector proposes operations; it never writes canonical rows.
- 04RSM Runtime
Admits operations, journals them and maintains projections.
- 05Canonical and semantic state
Authoritative only for admitted canonical RSM state.
SOURCE AUTHORITY (source: 05 §12.2–12.6)
What an integrator may and may not assert
A connector carries facts across a boundary. What it may claim about those facts depends on who is authoritative for them.
Map external identifiers to canonical identities, recording how≠Treat a matching name as the same identity
Read a value from an authoritative source≠Assume that source governs every RSM interpretation of the value
Propose canonical objects or protocol operations≠Write external records straight into canonical storage
Change a mapping, versioned and traceable≠Change what a field means as if it were a refactor
Report that an action was transmitted≠Report transmission as successful execution
Disclose an Assertion that criteria were met, where policy allows≠Disclose the underlying Evidence without authority
Reading a value from an ERP does not make that ERP authoritative for every RSM interpretation of it, so authority mappings should be explicit (source: 05 §12.3). A connector also may not bypass validation and authority (source: 05 §12.2) because its own system trusts the user.
SELECTIVE DISCLOSURE AND DATA SOVEREIGNTY (source: 05 §11)
Disclose only what the purpose needs.
RSM supports coordination without assuming global transparency. A node can be discoverable while revealing more only as a relationship progresses.
Purpose-bounded projections
A disclosure decision considers Actor, Principal, purpose, Subject, relationship, role, sensitivity, Consent, Delegation, policy and time. The result may be a filtered Projection, not the canonical object.
Broad and precise Place
A farm can disclose its county or watershed for discovery and withhold the exact parcel, without changing the Subject's identity.
Evidence behind an Assertion
A laboratory or certifier can establish that criteria were satisfied without publishing the confidential Evidence, where policy permits.
Receipts
Purpose-sensitive disclosures produce auditable receipts of who saw what class of information, for whom and why, without copying the protected content.
More than ownership
Custody, processing rights, disclosure authority, authorship and canonical authority can sit with different parties for the same Subject. One owner field cannot express that.
FEDERATION (source: 05 §2, §8–9)
Federation without a center.
Federation connects independently governed RSM Nodes through common semantic and protocol boundaries. There is no mandatory central node. Each node stays authoritative for its own state (source: 05 §3.4), and hosting a participant's data does not make a platform authoritative for it.
Discovery may use cached or federated projections, but anything consequential, such as a Capacity a Formation will depend on, is confirmed with its authoritative node first (source: 05 §9). When that node is unreachable, the state is unavailable, not false, and the Derived reasoning built on a stale value is invalidated and revised rather than rewritten. Cross-node coordination does not assume a global transaction: Commitments, including conditional ones, are the coordination primitive.
PLATFORMS, NODES AND AGENTS
Joining the Metamind is not handing over data.
RSM is not a centralized intelligence provider entitled to absorb everyone's data. Participants take part in the Metamind by making enough governed meaning available for authorized discovery, reasoning and coordination, and they keep authority over everything else.
Existing platforms
Connect through a connector, as above. The platform stays authoritative for what it governs; RSM admits only what passes canonical admission.
Sovereign RSM Nodes
Operated independently, by any eligible participant. Each node holds its own authoritative state and federates through the protocol; no central node is required.
Participating agents
Reason over what they are authorized to see and propose operations through the protocol. An agent operated by one participant gains no access to another's state by being capable or by being discovered.
Discovery through R2D2
The discovery, directory and federation network lets participants find one another and locate authoritative services. Discovery is not disclosure: what a node reveals is still decided by its own policy. R2D2's integration with the protocol is proposed.
SHARED WITH DEVELOPERS
The same rules, at the connector
Integrators follow the six rules that keep the ecology trustworthy, which apply to every consumer of RSM. At a connector they take a particular form. Identity mapping happens at the moment a record crosses into RSM, so uncertain matches must stay uncertain. Provenance must include the mapping version, because a mapping change can change meaning. Canonical admission means the connector proposes operations and waits for the result. Authentication in the source system grants no authority in RSM. Anything the connector computes about possible arrangements is Derived. Anything it caches is a disposable projection, reconciled before use.
Conformance requires at least one participant to take part through a connector, which is how the specification proves that joining RSM does not mean replacing existing systems. See Gate F, connector and agent integrity (source: 06 §16.6).
NEXT
Connect a system.
The specification sets out connector responsibilities, mapping provenance, inbound canonicalization and outbound action in full. Conformance shows how a connector is proven.