# Collective Agency and Contribution Model

**Gate:** 2A  
**Status:** Working proposal governed by Canonical Taxonomy Version 1.3.3  
**Design question:** How can people and Realms remain mutually responsive without turning Studio into a dashboard, inbox, surveillance system, or autonomous black box?

## 1. Inherited boundary

Canonical Version 1.3.3 establishes that the Field is always-present context, Realms may remain active, every Agent acts from a Source of authority, Connections do not grant authority, consequential Actions require the correct Gate, and privacy/visibility apply across Graph, Agent, Action, storage, and interface layers.

The model below is a design proposal. Terms such as **Attention Thread**, **Contribution Envelope**, **Collective Reflection**, and **Realm Pulse** are not canonical.

## 2. Collective agency in one sentence

Collective agency is the continuing, authorized capacity of Presences and Realms to contribute, interpret, coordinate, propose, act, remember, and respond to one another while every participant can understand whose agency is being exercised, from which authority, within which scope, and with what recourse.

It is not:

- a stream of everything that happened;
- private conversations aggregated by default;
- a hidden organizational observer;
- autonomous execution without policy;
- a project plan with AI decoration;
- a collection of chatbots; or
- a permanent map of active objects.

## 3. Unit of agency: the authority envelope

Every Agent contribution or Action must resolve this envelope before it may affect another Presence or Realm:

| Field | Required answer |
|---|---|
| Actor | Ki or the named Actor performing the work |
| Represented party | Presence or Realm for whom it acts |
| Source of authority | Member instruction, Role, policy, governance Decision, valid delegation, or other explicit Source |
| Home Realm | Realm in which the authority originates |
| Target context | Realm, Presence, Element, Artifact, Connection, or Action affected |
| Purpose | Why this contribution or Action is legitimate now |
| Allowed operation | Observe, synthesize, draft, propose, request, approve, execute, publish, transfer, or govern |
| Scope | Personal, Relationship, Community, Alliance, Organization, Institution, Ecosystem, public, or another explicit Realm |
| Visibility | Who may discover, inspect, or receive it |
| Privacy | Public, Private, Secret, or Personal plus permitted use and retention |
| Duration | One-time, session, until date, while Role held, or revocable standing authority |
| Gate | Autonomous, Confirmed, Deliberate, Governed, combined, or Prohibited |
| Evidence | Wisdom and Sources relied upon, with freshness and uncertainty |
| Reversibility | What can be stopped, withdrawn, corrected, or restored |
| Record | Event and/or Artifact proving what occurred |

If any required field is missing, the Actor may clarify, draft, or request authority; it may not infer consequential authority.

## 4. What may remain active elsewhere in the Field

The person does not need to watch all activity. A Realm may continue only work covered by an Automation, Actor delegation, or policy.

| Activity class | May continue out of focus? | Default attention behavior |
|---|---|---|
| Observe a permitted Source for material change | Yes, within freshness and retention limits | Silent until threshold met; record checks |
| Index, transcribe, classify, or reconcile authorized material | Yes | Quiet progress; escalate uncertainty, rights conflicts, or failed verification |
| Draft a synthesis, Artifact, or proposed Action | Yes | Surface when ready or when blocked |
| Maintain a bounded long-running research task | Yes | Surface only material finding, safety issue, cost limit, or decision |
| Request information from another authorized Actor | Yes if delegation permits communication | Show when the request affects another person, crosses scope, or is refused |
| Execute a reversible routine Action | Only if Autonomous policy is explicit | Produce Record; surface exceptions |
| Publish, disclose Personal data, spend materially, diagnose, change governance, or make irreversible commitments | No background inference | Require the specified Confirmed, Deliberate, Governed, or Prohibited treatment |

Background status is never equivalent to hidden access. If a Role, consent, Source, Connection, or policy expires, the work stops or narrows automatically and the interruption is recorded.

## 5. Realm activity states

Working proposal for behavior, not canonical lifecycle:

1. **Quiet** — no material work needs the Presence.
2. **Working** — authorized Actors or Automations are progressing within bounds.
3. **Contributing** — a contribution is ready to enter another scope or Realm.
4. **Waiting** — work needs an external Source, Actor, permission, or event.
5. **Needs attention** — a person must decide, correct, consent, or exercise authority.
6. **Constrained** — safety, policy, Compute, privacy, or trust limits prevent progress.
7. **Recovering** — a failed, withdrawn, or interrupted Action is being restored or reconciled.

Only **Needs attention** or an essential safety condition should interrupt the dominant conversational surface.

## 6. Attention without a notification center

### Proposed Attention Thread

The focused Surface may carry one quiet thread representing the most material activity outside the active Realm. It answers:

- **where** the activity belongs;
- **why now** it matters;
- **who or what** is requesting attention;
- **what authority** the person holds;
- **what happens if deferred**; and
- **whether opening it changes the active Realm**.

### Priority test

An out-of-focus event deserves attention only when one or more are true:

1. human safety or dignity may be affected;
2. consent, authority, or a time-limited Gate is required;
3. a trusted Source materially changes the current premise;
4. an Action failed or produced an unexpected external effect;
5. a commitment to another Presence or Realm is at risk;
6. privacy, security, provenance, or identity is disputed; or
7. waiting would materially reduce the person's options.

Routine progress, new content, minor social activity, and low-confidence suggestions do not interrupt. They remain available in broader context on request.

## 7. Contribution Envelope

Every contribution that may become shared Wisdom carries:

| Dimension | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Contributor | Presence, Realm, Institution, or Agent responsible for the contribution |
| Source | Original Artifact, observation, record, testimony, dataset, or authority |
| Contribution type | Evidence, lived experience, interpretation, question, proposal, correction, decision, or policy |
| Receiving scope | Exact Realm(s) or audience eligible to receive it |
| Visibility | Who can discover, preview, open, quote, or redistribute it |
| Permitted use | Care, research, learning, coordination, publication, governance, or another defined purpose |
| Provenance | Origin, custody, time, transformations, verification, and citations |
| Freshness | Date, review interval, supersession rule, and staleness signal |
| Confidence | Established, supported, provisional, contested, anecdotal, or unknown |
| Attribution | Named, role-attributed, group-attributed, cloaked, anonymous to audience, or confidential |
| Acceptance authority | Who may include it in personal, Realm, Institution, or public Wisdom |
| Canonical effect | None, reference, candidate, accepted, superseded, contested, or rejected |
| Retention | Duration, preservation obligation, deletion/withdrawal limits, and legal hold if any |
| Correction | Who may amend, annotate, dispute, retract, or appeal |
| Resulting Record | Receipt of submission, review, acceptance, rejection, disclosure, or correction |

The envelope travels with copies and references. Moving an Element does not silently broaden the underlying contribution's scope.

## 8. Scope and contribution rules

| Scope | Default contribution rule | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Personal | Controlled by the member, subject, applicable Realm, agreement, and law | Patient record; private coaching reflection |
| Relationship | Shared only among the participating Presences/Realms under that Relationship's rules | Clinician-patient clarification; mentor dialogue |
| Community | Eligible Community participants contribute; Community authority accepts shared Wisdom | DMD family lived-experience guide |
| Alliance | Participating Realms contribute under Alliance agreement; acceptance does not alter each member Realm's source record | Cross-institution research synthesis |
| Organization | Organization governance defines contributors, stewards, and publication authority | OD practice standard or adopted policy |
| Institution | The Institution controls its authoritative records and credentials | Clinical report; official research-center update |
| Ecosystem | Shared standards or interoperable references require explicit federation rules | Archive metadata standard |
| Public | Publication requires authority, rights, privacy review, and a durable public Record | Released oral history or research explainer |

No higher scope may ingest a lower-scope contribution merely because an Actor can technically access it.

## 9. Cross-Realm exchange

A contribution moves between Realms through five explicit moments:

1. **Offer** — the Source Realm or contributor identifies what may be shared and why.
2. **Inspect** — the receiving Realm evaluates provenance, permitted use, freshness, Trust, and compatibility with its Stance.
3. **Gate** — the required contributor consent, Role approval, policy, or governance Decision is obtained.
4. **Receive** — the receiving Realm stores a reference, copy, derived synthesis, or new Artifact without obscuring the original.
5. **Record** — both sides retain the exchange, terms, version, correction route, and later withdrawal or supersession behavior.

Rejection does not erase the offered contribution. It records that the receiving Realm did not accept it and why, subject to privacy.

## 10. Ki and collective reflection

### What Ki may do

- synthesize contributions explicitly eligible for the current purpose and scope;
- state the population and limits of the material considered;
- distinguish evidence, lived experience, interpretation, policy, and unresolved disagreement;
- preserve minority, dissenting, and uncertain views;
- cite the Sources that the current Presence may inspect;
- recommend a broader contribution or governance process when current authority is insufficient; and
- help a person formulate a shareable contribution without publishing the private conversation that produced it.

### What Ki may not do

- mine private member conversations for organizational insight;
- disclose who said something when attribution is not permitted;
- imply unanimity from partial or self-selected contributions;
- create performance, loyalty, wellness, or sentiment scores about people;
- allow a Wizard, leader, sponsor, or employer to inspect personal Ki conversations;
- use one scope's Wisdom to decide in another scope without a valid exchange; or
- transform a request for coaching, care, benefits, or peer support into covert management data.

### Safe contribution from a private Ki relationship

Ki may ask: “Would you like to contribute a version of that insight to the team?” If the person agrees, Ki creates a separate proposed Artifact showing the text, attribution choice, receiving scope, permitted use, retention, and withdrawal terms. The private conversation remains private.

## 11. Records

Until Record is resolved canonically (C-012), each design Record must name its technical object class without prescribing implementation:

| Event | Minimum durable evidence |
|---|---|
| Contribution submitted | Contributor, envelope, version, timestamp, receiving scope |
| Contribution accepted/rejected | Reviewer/authority, basis, canonical effect, next correction path |
| Collective synthesis created | Eligible source set, exclusions, date, method statement, uncertainties, approver |
| Action proposed | Actor, represented party, authority Source, target, expected effects, Gate |
| Action executed | Deterministic result, external identifier when applicable, exceptions, reversibility |
| Consent granted/withdrawn | Scope, purpose, duration, affected material, downstream handling |
| Scene generated | Source set, transformation, uncertainty, reviewer, version, Portal/return state |
| Cross-Realm exchange | Offer, terms, acceptance, receiving representation, later correction/withdrawal rules |

## 12. Failure and recovery

- **Missing authority:** preserve the draft; ask the legitimate authority; do not execute.
- **Source becomes stale:** constrain affected conclusions; show the last trusted state; request review.
- **Consent withdrawn:** stop future use; identify copies/derivatives; apply the promised deletion, restriction, or preserved-record rule; record the result.
- **Actor exceeds scope:** halt, quarantine effects where possible, notify affected authority, restore prior state, and create an incident Record.
- **Conflicting contributions:** retain both with provenance; do not average them into false agreement; route to the proper review or governance process.
- **Cross-Realm rejection:** keep the original intact and return the receiving Realm's reason without disclosing protected internal deliberation.
- **Interrupted work:** preserve Focus, selected Elements, source set, authority state, and next safe step.

## 13. Gate 2B acceptance implications

A later scene passes this shared model only if an observer can answer, without opening machinery by default:

1. Which Realm is active and what is the current Focus?
2. Is anything material active elsewhere, and why does it deserve attention?
3. Is Ki speaking from personal context, Realm Wisdom, another Actor, or a cross-Realm contribution?
4. What may happen automatically, what needs confirmation, and what is prohibited?
5. What contribution or Action will persist, at which scope, under whose authority?
6. How can it be corrected, withdrawn, contested, or reversed?

## 14. Readiness gaps

- Cross-Realm attention has not been user-tested.
- Contribution envelopes need validation against real clinical, OD, archival, and governance policies.
- The Graph/storage enforcement model is outside this gate.
- `Record`, `Program`, Atlas, Lens, Stage, Focus, and Pulse remain unresolved taxonomy/design terms.
- No Realm-specific authority may be inferred from this shared model; the three contracts must supply it.
