core/docs/sessions/2026-06-19-semantic-substrate-affordance-foundation.md

Session 2026-06-19 — Semantic substrate affordances, contract readiness, and the foundation audit pivot

Status: recorded for continuation. Headline: After #829–#831 made ProblemFrame operational and measurable, the session clarified that the next foundation problem is not another local parser or premature organ migration. The core design target is a semantic-substrate affordance loop: words and chunks probe the substrate, surface nearby constructional meanings and relation families, bind roles to exact evidence spans, and only then allow ContractAssessment / organs to determine or refuse.

Docs-only record. No runtime, serving, eval report, pack, corpus, policy, identity, or sealed artifact changes are made by this session note.

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TL;DR

1. #831 changed the truth metric. The project moved from surface/schema recognition to measurable contract readiness: typed mentions, bindings, bound relations, bound question targets, and pure ContractAssessment diagnostics. #831's merged evidence recorded candidate contracts = 42/423, runnable contracts = 1/1, serving still train 30/20/0, holdout 5/495/0, with wrong_ids=[].
2. GPT-5.5 Thinking XHIGH rejected premature percent_partition migration. The decision memo concluded that readiness was still obligation-loose: broadening extraction or migrating percent_partition would preserve or amplify false readiness. The recommended next implementation is proportional-change contract closure: bind decrease_to_fraction, delta targets, and organ-specific blockers while correcting the false runnable holdout.
3. The constitutional program was refined, not adopted monolithically. The correct split is three layers: a small constitutional kernel (ADR-0223 later), a mutable critical-program roadmap, and versioned evidence profiles. The canonical spine must use semantic roles, not force PropositionGraph into a universal reasoning carrier; ADR-0144 distinguishes articulation PropositionGraph, epistemic EpistemicGraph, and math problem state.
4. The operator's design correction became the key doctrine. Dead giveaways are not isolated trigger words. They are constructional affordances. A chunk such as buys 3 more apples should probe the substrate and surface acquisition / transaction / positive possession-delta affordances, then bind actor, quantity, item, prior state, optional cost, and target.
5. CGA semantic nearness remains essential but not sufficient. Substrate proximity should propose candidate nodes and relation families (buy ≈ purchase ≈ acquire ≈ gain), while exact span bindings and contracts determine whether anything can be asserted. The governing rule: closeness proposes; bindings ground; contracts determine.
6. A foundation audit is required before broad substrate work. The current risk is accumulating local recognizers and false contract candidates instead of building the intended semantic substrate. A new ADR is required to mandate a deep, repository-wide substrate-alignment audit before agents make broad foundational changes.

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Context entering the session

The active stack after the latest merged work:

PR	Meaning
#829	Kernel Substrate Tranche 1: scalar equivalence, unit dimensions, ambiguity hazards, process-frame schemas, ProblemFrame skeleton, morphology foundations.
#830	ProblemFrame operationalization and legacy-deprecation guardrails.
#831	Span-grounded mentions/bindings/relations, bound question targets, ContractAssessment, adequacy reporting, and contract-gap morphology recommendations.

#831's evidence established that readiness must be measured by runnable contracts, not by recognized schema presence. The merged PR body recorded:

Train 50:
  entity mention present: 50
  quantity binding present: 46
  bound process relation present: 16
  bound question target present: 42
  candidate contracts: 42
  runnable contracts: 1

Holdout 500:
  entity mention present: 494
  quantity binding present: 452
  bound process relation present: 124
  bound question target present: 402
  candidate contracts: 423
  runnable contracts: 1

This means CORE now has a measurable bridge from text into typed readiness, but the bridge is thin. It proves the method, not broad serving readiness.

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The XHIGH decision memo

The next-decision prompt asked GPT-5.5 Thinking XHIGH to choose the highest-leverage PR after #829–#831. The decision memo recommended:

feat(kernel): close proportional-decrease contracts and make readiness obligation-sound
branch: codex/problemframe-proportional-change-closure

The reasons:

• Current readiness blockers are not yet sufficiently precise.
• percent_partition readiness is too loose: candidates can arise from broad partition/consumption recognition rather than full topology and target-direction proof.
• The existing false runnable holdout is an inverse-reconstruction case outside the forward percent_partition contract.
• fraction_decrease has mature confusers and a clear train case (0005) that can prove a second genuine ProblemFrame-runnable contract without serving migration.

Expected diagnostic movement:

Train runnable contracts: 1 → 2
  - 0005: fraction_decrease
  - 0046: percent_partition

Holdout runnable contracts: 1 → 0
  - remove the false positive; this is a truthfulness improvement, not a regression.

Hard boundary: no serving integration, no derivation-organ migration, no math_candidate_graph.py change, no report.json, no sealed mutation, and no raw-text fallback behind a ProblemFrame call.

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The constitutional-program correction

A broader AGI-capable constitutional plan was discussed. The useful direction was kept, but two important corrections were made:

1. Split constitution, roadmap, and evidence profiles

The correct structure is:

1. Small constitutional ADR kernel.
2. Mutable critical-program roadmap.
3. Versioned evidence profiles with frozen benchmarks/thresholds.

This keeps benchmark churn and implementation sequencing from rewriting the constitution. A future claim such as agi-capable-v1 should be reproducible against a frozen evidence profile, not embedded forever in the constitutional core.

2. Do not make PropositionGraph universal

The first constitutional spine over-named PropositionGraph. ADR-0144 already separates:

• generate.graph_planner.PropositionGraph — articulation planner.
• recognition.carrier.EpistemicGraph — epistemic/provenance carrier.
• MathProblemGraph / math state — mathematical reasoning state.

The corrected constitutional spine uses semantic roles:

observation
→ grounded evidence
→ domain frame
→ admissible domain model
→ verified derivation/proof
→ epistemic standing
→ articulation plan or authorized action

For the current math path, the realization is narrower:

text
→ KernelFacts
→ ProblemFrame
→ ContractAssessment
→ contract-backed derivation organ
→ independently verified resolution
→ existing admission and articulation path

This preserves ADR-0207's anti-universal-IR posture: use typed adapters between domain structures; do not introduce another universal reader/graph by accident.

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The operator's substrate doctrine correction

The operator challenged a simplified explanation that treated buys as a generic cue for addition. The corrected doctrine is:

Dead giveaways are constructional affordances, not isolated trigger words.

A word such as buys does not merely mean add. It probes a semantic neighborhood:

buy / bought / purchase / acquire / get / gain / receive
→ acquisition
→ transaction
→ possession change
→ positive object delta
→ optional money/cost delta

But the meaningful unit is often the chunk:

buys 3 more apples

That chunk should surface:

surface chunk: "buys 3 more apples"
semantic neighborhood: buy, purchase, acquire, gain possession, transaction
construction: actor buys quantity more entity
roles:
  buyer
  acquired_quantity = 3
  acquired_entity = apples
  same_entity_continuation = true
  object_delta = positive
optional roles:
  price
  seller
  money_delta
operator candidates:
  add_to_inventory
  compute_cost
  compute_remaining_money, if money target is present
hazards:
  entity mismatch
  target mismatch
  negation
  comparison rather than acquisition

The same principle applies to proportional change:

decrease to 3/4 of 84 degrees

should surface:

semantic affordance: proportional state change
construction: state decreases to fraction of base
roles:
  base quantity = 84 degrees
  target scale = 3/4
  relation = decrease_to_fraction
question target:
  delta decrease, if asked "how much did it decrease by"
blocked cases:
  final-value question
  affine-more-than fraction
  multiple fractions
  ambiguous base

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Working model: substrate-mediated cognition loop

The intended loop is:

chunk enters the field
→ nearby semantic / constructional affordances resonate
→ candidate nodes and relation families surface
→ roles bind to exact evidence spans
→ organ-specific contracts assess obligations
→ determination, refusal, articulation, or action follows

Or shorter:

chunk
→ semantic neighborhood
→ constructional affordance
→ role obligations
→ bound relation candidate
→ contract assessment

This is the bridge between the CGA substrate and the typed problem-solving stack.

The CGA inner product / substrate should provide semantic gravity: related meanings and constructions become easy to retrieve. But closeness does not license truth. Truth promotion requires grounded bindings and contracts.

Canonical rule:

closeness proposes;
bindings ground;
contracts determine.

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Foundation risk identified

The operator's warning was accepted: if the project builds a pile of local recognizers, it will become harder each sprint. Every later capability will fight earlier shortcuts.

The dangerous path:

surface keyword
→ local regex
→ one-off organ behavior
→ patch more confusers forever

The intended path:

surface chunk
→ substrate affordance retrieval
→ constructional role binding
→ ProblemFrame relation
→ ContractAssessment obligations
→ verified derivation or refusal

Therefore, before broad foundation changes, CORE needs a deep audit of how the current codebase aligns or misaligns with the intended substrate-mediated cognition loop.

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New ADR required

This session produced the requirement for a new ADR:

ADR-0223: Semantic Substrate Affordance Audit and Foundation Alignment

The ADR must require a deep-dive research pass over small and large details that may be blocking the intended design, including but not limited to:

• lexical vs constructional affordances;
• local regex recognizers vs substrate-backed constructional retrieval;
• ProblemFrame binding quality;
• false runnable contracts;
• relation topology and question-target direction;
• graph/carrier boundaries (ProblemFrame, EpistemicGraph, PropositionGraph, math state);
• legacy parser bypasses;
• substrate pack coverage;
• morphology/planner recommendation evidence;
• proof/admission boundaries;
• exact recall / CGA-neighborhood usage;
• places where the code's foundation makes later correctness harder.

The ADR should authorize research and recommendations, not immediate destructive edits. Any proposed removal, replacement, or consolidation must return as evidence-backed proposals and separate implementation PRs.

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Immediate plan of record

1. Continue with the already-selected implementation PR:

feat(kernel): close proportional-decrease contracts and make readiness obligation-sound
branch: codex/problemframe-proportional-change-closure

2. Record this session and ADR as docs-only work.
3. Keep percent_partition deferred until its topology, target direction, and heterogeneous positive evidence are sufficient for ProblemFrame-only migration.
4. Use the new ADR to guide a high-skill research/audit effort, not to authorize unreviewed rewrites.

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Open / next

• Run or commission the substrate-affordance audit required by ADR-0223.
• Ensure the proportional-decrease PR interprets decrease to <fraction> of <state> as a constructional affordance, not as keyword matching.
• Update future constitutional documents to use semantic roles rather than concrete universal graph classes.
• Consider adding the doctrine below to architecture docs after ADR-0223 is ratified:

Words and chunks are probes into the semantic substrate.
They surface candidate affordances and relation families.
Only grounded bindings and contracts can promote those affordances into determinations.