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docs: add one-mutation-path invariant, non-hardening invariant, and fabrication loop to position paper

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@ -142,6 +142,24 @@ structure need review before they enter that structure. A system that accepts an
confident-sounding correction without review is a generative system in different confident-sounding correction without review is a generative system in different
clothing. clothing.
Two invariants enforce this at the architecture level, not the policy level.
**One-mutation-path invariant.** Knowledge enters the runtime field through
exactly one reviewed path. Every module that writes to the vault is explicitly
allowlisted in `tests/test_architectural_invariants.py::TestINV21OneMutationPath`.
Adding a new write path requires editing the allowlist with a documented
justification — the CI failure is the prompt to do so, not a roadblock to route
around. Any backdoor — a debug endpoint, an admin override, a fast-path for
"known good" sources — collapses the guarantee. The test makes that collapse
visible at commit time.
**Non-hardening invariant.** No claim is ever locked. Even `COHERENT` is
revisable. There is no `final`, `frozen`, `axiom`, or `permanent` flag in the
codebase — their absence is enforced by test. `FALSIFIED` claims are retained for
audit and remain eligible for reinvestigation if new coherence emerges. A system
that cannot revise a settled belief because doing so would threaten its identity
has ossified. CORE cannot ossify by construction.
--- ---
## 4. Evidence ## 4. Evidence
@ -286,6 +304,17 @@ accept arbitrary identity rewrites is not one that was trained to resist them. I
is one where identity is a geometric trajectory, and a rewrite is a geometric is one where identity is a geometric trajectory, and a rewrite is a geometric
violation detectable independently of the phrasing used to attempt it. violation detectable independently of the phrasing used to attempt it.
A concrete example: during architecture audit, CORE was found to have a
self-reinforcing fabrication path — the system could recall its own prior output
as evidence, cite it, and compound it across turns. This is not a hypothetical
failure mode; it is the epistemic structure of every system that stores its own
outputs without epistemic tagging. The path was found and closed architecturally:
every vault write now stamps an `EpistemicStatus`, the default is `SPECULATIVE`,
and any inference path that feeds the user-facing surface must pass
`min_status=COHERENT`. The fabrication loop cannot reopen quietly — the
one-mutation-path invariant ensures any new vault write path triggers a CI
failure until explicitly reviewed.
The deeper alignment claim: if cognition is decoding, then the space being decoded The deeper alignment claim: if cognition is decoding, then the space being decoded
has structure that exists independently of the system decoding it. Truth is has structure that exists independently of the system decoding it. Truth is
coherent. A system built to find coherent structure is, by construction, built to coherent. A system built to find coherent structure is, by construction, built to