core/docs/ethics_packs.md

Ethics Packs — Reference

Status: Operational reference. Update when pack format, loader contract, or composition rules change. Last updated: 2026-05-17 Companion docs: decisions/ADR-0033-ethics-packs.md, identity_packs.md, safety_packs.md

What an ethics pack is

An ethics pack carries the propositional commitments a deployment pledges in its domain. Where identity packs encode who CORE is and safety packs encode what CORE will never do, ethics packs encode what this deployment commits to in its domain — informed consent in medical, attorney-client privilege in legal, fiduciary disclosure in financial, etc.

At runtime composition, commitment_ids are unioned into IdentityManifold.boundary_ids alongside identity and safety contributions:

manifold.boundary_ids = identity.boundary_ids ∪ safety.boundary_ids ∪ ethics.commitment_ids

The composition is monotone: every layer adds; none can remove.

How ethics packs differ from identity and safety

Property	Identity	Safety	Ethics
Swappable at runtime	Yes (--identity X)	No	Yes (ethics_pack="...")
Multiple packs available	Yes	Exactly one	Yes
Failure to load requested pack	Fall back to default	Fail-closed; refuses startup	Fall back to default
Schema field	value_axes	boundary_ids	commitment_ids
Shape	Geometric (directions)	Propositional (red lines)	Propositional (pledges)
Directory	packs/identity/	packs/safety/	packs/ethics/
Exception class	IdentityPackError (ValueError)	SafetyPackError (RuntimeError)	EthicsPackError (ValueError)

Ethics packs follow identity-pack semantics (swappable, falls back) rather than safety-pack semantics (fail-closed). Safety is the universal floor; ethics is deployment configuration above it.

Shipping ethics pack (v1)

Pack id	Domain	Description	Ratified
default_general_ethics_v1	general	Five propositional commitments for general deployments.	81fc9b61c828fdd4926ac9eb212883ffd72c032a0ddb6a4b8d988783c98ae98d

Default commitments

Commitment id	Pledge
acknowledge_uncertainty	Surface confidence rather than projecting false certainty.
defer_high_stakes_to_human_review	Flag irreversible/high-stakes decisions for human review.
disclose_limitations	Say plainly when a topic exceeds grounded knowledge or appropriate scope.
no_manipulation	Persuade via reasoning, not exploitation of cognitive biases or social pressure.
respect_user_autonomy	Surface options and tradeoffs; do not prescribe where reasonable people may differ.

Pack format (v1)

{
  "pack_id": "default_general_ethics_v1",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "...",
  "schema_version": "1.0.0",
  "domain": "general",
  "mastery_report_sha256": "...",
  "commitment_ids": [
    "acknowledge_uncertainty",
    "..."
  ],
  "commitment_descriptions": {
    "acknowledge_uncertainty": "...",
    "..."
  }
}

Field semantics

Field	Required	Meaning
pack_id	yes	Pack identifier. Convention: <slug>_v<major>.
version	yes	Semver.
description	yes	Human-facing one-liner.
schema_version	yes	Currently "1.0.0".
domain	yes	One of general, medical, legal, financial, robotics, custom. Audit-only at v1.
mastery_report_sha256	yes (production)	SHA of the companion <pack_id>.mastery_report.json.
commitment_ids	yes	Non-empty list of unique commitment identifier strings.
commitment_descriptions	yes	Dict mapping each commitment_id to a human-readable pledge.

Loader bounds (enforced)

• commitment_ids must be a non-empty list of unique non-empty strings.
• pack_id must not contain / or ...
• schema_version must equal "1.0.0".
• domain must be in the allowed set.
• In production mode, mastery_report_sha256 must be non-empty, the companion report must exist, its report_sha256 must match, its self-seal must verify via formation.hashing.verify_seal, and ratified must be True.

Loader contract

from packs.ethics.loader import load_ethics_pack, EthicsPackError, DEFAULT_ETHICS_PACK

pack = load_ethics_pack(
    pack_id=DEFAULT_ETHICS_PACK,
    search_paths=None,
    require_ratified=True,
)

Returns an EthicsPack (frozen dataclass) with fields pack_id, version, description, domain, commitment_ids (frozenset), commitment_descriptions (dict), mastery_report_sha256, ratified.

EthicsPackError inherits from ValueError. A missing requested pack is recoverable — ChatRuntime falls back to DEFAULT_ETHICS_PACK. Only when both the requested pack and the default are unloadable does the runtime refuse to start.

Development override

CORE_ALLOW_UNRATIFIED_ETHICS=1 python -m core.cli chat

Bypasses only the seal-verification check. Missing files / empty commitments / malformed JSON still fail.

Composition at runtime

ChatRuntime.__init__ after ADR-0033:

identity_manifold = load_identity_manifold(config.identity_pack or DEFAULT_IDENTITY_PACK)
safety_pack       = load_safety_pack()                              # fail-closed
try:
    ethics_pack = load_ethics_pack(config.ethics_pack or DEFAULT_ETHICS_PACK)
except EthicsPackError:
    if requested == DEFAULT_ETHICS_PACK:
        raise
    ethics_pack = load_ethics_pack(DEFAULT_ETHICS_PACK)              # fallback

final_boundary_ids = (
    identity_manifold.boundary_ids
    | safety_pack.boundary_ids
    | ethics_pack.commitment_ids
)

ChatRuntime exposes runtime.ethics_pack and runtime.ethics_pack_id for audit.

Authoring a deployment ethics pack

1. Author the pack JSON. Pick a domain; list commitment_ids your deployment pledges; supply descriptions.
2. Place at packs/ethics/<pack_id>.json.
3. Run python scripts/ratify_ethics_pack.py (idempotent — produces the companion .mastery_report.json).
4. Test under production semantics: python -m pytest tests/test_ethics_packs.py.
5. Commit both files (<pack_id>.json and <pack_id>.mastery_report.json) atomically.
6. Select the pack at runtime: RuntimeConfig(ethics_pack="<pack_id>") or a CLI flag (future ADR).

Anti-patterns

• Don't use an ethics pack to encode safety boundaries. Universal red lines belong in the safety pack. Ethics is for deployment-specific commitments.
• Don't use an ethics pack to encode identity. Value axes and directional preferences belong in the identity pack.
• Don't omit the general defaults in a domain pack. A medical/legal/financial pack should add to the five general commitments, not replace them. v1 has no extends mechanism — duplicate the general commitments and add the domain-specific ones.
• Don't gate runtime behavior on domain at v1. It's audit-only.

Versioning policy

Change	Version bump
Description text edits	Patch (v1.0.0 → v1.0.1)
Adding a commitment	Minor (v1.0.0 → v1.1.0)
Removing a commitment	Major + new pack ID (<slug>_v2)
Schema format change	Major + new schema_version

EthicsCheck — structural surface (ADR-0034)

A centralized, observational surface for evaluating commitments at runtime, parallel in shape to SafetyCheck (ADR-0032). Produces an EthicsVerdict; does not refuse. Wiring violations into refusal / re-articulation paths is a future ADR.

from packs.ethics import EthicsCheck, EthicsContext

check = EthicsCheck()  # ships with default predicates for the five v1 commitments
ctx = EthicsContext(
    alignment_score=score,
    hedge_emitted=hedged,
    high_stakes_topic=is_high_stakes,
    recommended_human_review=review_recommended,
    grounded_in_evidence=grounded,
    disclosure_emitted=disclosed,
    prescribed_single_answer=prescriptive,
    presented_options_count=n_options,
)
verdict = check.check(ctx, ethics_pack)
# verdict.upheld: bool, verdict.violated_commitments: frozenset[str]
# verdict.results: tuple of per-commitment EthicsCheckResult

Every EthicsContext field is None-default. Predicates over fields the caller didn't populate return upheld=True, runtime_checkable=False — absence of evidence is not evidence of pledge violation. ChatRuntime exposes a pre-constructed instance as runtime.ethics_check; the turn loop does not auto-invoke it at v1.

Default predicates per v1 commitment

Commitment	Runtime-checkable?	What it checks
acknowledge_uncertainty	Yes (when supplied)	alignment < hedge_threshold_soft requires hedge_emitted=True
defer_high_stakes_to_human_review	Yes (when supplied)	high_stakes_topic=True requires recommended_human_review=True
disclose_limitations	Yes (when supplied)	grounded_in_evidence=False requires disclosure_emitted=True
no_manipulation	No	aggregate property; enforced by realizer design + review
respect_user_autonomy	Yes (when supplied)	prescribed_single_answer=True requires presented_options_count >= 2

no_manipulation is the structural analogue of no_hot_path_repair in SafetyCheck. Honest runtime_checkable=False rather than a silent pass.

Custom predicates

check = EthicsCheck()
check.register("my_domain_commitment", my_predicate)

Unknown commitments default to upheld=True, runtime_checkable=False, reason="no predicate registered for commitment". Surfaces in audit; doesn't crash.

Known limits / future ADRs

1. No EthicsCheck predicate surface parallel to SafetyCheck. Closed by ADR-0034 (2026-05-17). v1 is observational; turn-loop auto-invocation and refusal wiring are future ADRs.
2. No deliberation surface. Ethics-as-deliberation (multi-candidate trajectory selection, typed-tradeoff evaluation) needs multi-trajectory articulation first.
3. No pack inheritance. Domain packs must declare full commitment lists; no extends mechanism.
4. No domain-driven behavior. domain is audit-only.
5. No CLI flag for --ethics <pack_id> yet — RuntimeConfig(ethics_pack=...) only. Future ADR.
6. English-only commitment descriptions at v1.
7. No cross-surface verdict aggregation. Identity / Safety / Ethics produce three independent verdicts; no unified bundle type. Future convenience ADR if call sites grow.

Cross-reference index

• Pack format spec: this doc §"Pack format (v1)".
• Loader contract: this doc §"Loader contract".
• Decision records: ADR-0033, ADR-0034.
• Identity composition: identity_packs.md.
• Safety composition: safety_packs.md.
• Safety predicate surface: safety_packs.md §SafetyCheck.
• Formation template used for ratification: formation/templates/identity_anchor.py.