core/docs/sessions/unary-state-change-delta-authorization-2026-06-21.md

Authorization: Unary State-Change Delta Foundational Slice

Status: Authorized for one future diagnostic-only implementation PR after this authorization PR merges Date: 2026-06-21 Authorized family: state_change.unary_delta Broad family: state_change.transition remains unauthorized and unimplemented Serving status: diagnostic_only=True, serving_allowed=False Governing doctrine: ADR-0223, ADR-0224, PRs #851 and #853

1. Decision

Do not implement the broad state_change.transition family next.

Authorize only state_change.unary_delta: one explicit, local, count-valued gain or loss event over one exactly grounded quantity/object pair. The first cue inventory is deliberately closed:

Exact cue	Direction disposition
gained	increase
lost	decrease

The authorized construction recognizes that an explicit delta event is locally present. It does not construct a before state, after state, owner state, transfer, containment move, arithmetic equation, answer, or serving action.

The safe first relation is:

one exact action cue
+ one exact scalar mention
+ one exact changed-object mention
+ one exact local quantity_entity edge
------------------------------------------------
one proposed unary-delta relation, assessed diagnostically

This is the exact capability unlocked by the hardened quantity-entity seam: CORE can now distinguish a quantity-bearing object from an unbound number. The next valid step is to bind that grounded pair to one explicit local change cue, not to parse an entire story.

2. Serious design finding

state_change.transition is not one organ. The current constitutional spec combines at least four distinct geometries:

1. unary delta: gained/lost N object;
2. containment movement: put/took N object in/from container;
3. binary transfer: gave/sent N object to target;
4. before/after state relation: was N, now M.

They do not share the same role topology. Unary delta has one changed object and one signed delta. Transfer has at least two state owners plus a conservation relation. Containment movement has source/target containers. Before/after has two temporal states and may have no delta cue at all. Treating these as one family would force optional roles to carry the semantics and would make illegal partial states representable.

The current code confirms the split:

• ProblemFrame can expose exact scalar/object mentions and MentionBinding(binding_type="quantity_entity") for Ana gained 3 marbles.;
• it does not expose a typed exact event/action cue or a bound unary-delta relation;
• it already contains a separate narrow BoundRelation(relation_type="transfer") regex path for Tom gave Ana 3 apples.;
• generate.derivation.state contains a legacy arithmetic-oriented SemanticLedger, but it uses a different raw-text path, float quantities, loose subject/pronoun continuation, and a replay bridge to derivation candidates. It is not suitable as exact ProblemFrame grounding evidence.

Reusing the transfer relation would silently define every change as transfer. Reusing the semantic ledger would bypass the proposal-first substrate and couple diagnostic recognition to arithmetic candidate production. Both are rejected.

3. Map: directions considered

The intrinsic space is not a story. It is a typed local event relation over an already grounded scalar/object edge, with exact source coordinates and a conjugate assessment that refuses incomplete topology.

Direction	Structural effect	Decision
Implement broad state_change.transition	Mixes unary delta, transfer, containment, and temporal-state topology	Rejected
Reuse generate.derivation.state.SemanticLedger	Bypasses ProblemFrame; imports legacy raw parsing and arithmetic candidate semantics	Rejected
Add event-cue proposals only, with no closable relation	Safe but does not prove the new quantity/entity seam composes into a useful organ	Deferred as an internal stage, not the family boundary
Add one unary-delta relation over exact local evidence	Preserves proposal → grounding → assessment and has a closed first topology	Selected

4. Safe capability ladder

The broad family is split into separately authorized rungs:

Rung	Family	Status after this PR
SCT-0	exact local action-cue publication	Internal prerequisite to SCT-1; no independent serving or assessment authority
SCT-1	state_change.unary_delta	Authorized for one future diagnostic implementation PR
SCT-2	containment movement	Not authorized
SCT-3	binary transfer	Not authorized
SCT-4	before/after state relation	Not authorized
SCT-5	arithmetic state equation or answer production	Not authorized

state_change.transition remains the broad constitutional umbrella only. Its existing foundational registry entry must remain implementation_authorized=False.

5. Why now, and why only after #853

#851 proved that a local quantity/object edge can be proposed, grounded, and assessed. #853 then closed two authority leaks:

• ConstructionProposal can represent only status="proposed";
• quantity-kind dispositions are emitted only inside their exact proposal boundary, so no-proposal percent, rate, pronoun, list, or transfer confusers receive quantity-family authority.

Those corrections are prerequisites. A state-change slice built before #853 could have mistaken proposal state for an assessment verdict or consumed a quantity-kind disposition synthesized for a confuser. This authorization therefore treats #853's hardened seam as immutable:

• no proposal carries runnable, refused, missing-role, or hazard authority;
• ContractAssessment is the sole diagnostic runnable/refused authority;
• the unary family must not widen _quantity_entity_proposals();
• the unary family must not widen _quantity_kind_dispositions();
• a raw MentionBinding may be consumed as grounding evidence, but the binding.quantity_entity proposal and assessment are not backdoored.

6. Family metadata

Field	Authorized value
family_id	state_change.unary_delta
display name	Unary state-change delta
relation type	unary_delta
candidate organ	unary_delta_transition
proposal status	Always proposed
diagnostic posture	diagnostic_only=True
serving posture	serving_allowed=False
implementation authorization	Authorized only by this merged document for one future bounded PR
implementation status after this docs PR	Unimplemented; no runtime registry/catalog/dispatch change
relation to binding.quantity_entity	Consumes a compatible exact local quantity_entity edge; does not require or create its proposal, disposition, or assessment

The future implementation may add a new descriptive foundational registry entry for state_change.unary_delta. It must not flip the existing broad state_change.transition entry to authorized.

7. Authority gradient

The only authorized flow is:

exact lexical cue (`gained` or `lost`)
→ ConstructionProposal(
      family_id="state_change.unary_delta",
      status="proposed",
      diagnostic_only=True,
      serving_allowed=False,
  )
→ exact GroundedActionCue
→ existing exact GroundedScalar / GroundedMention / quantity_entity binding
→ BoundRelation(relation_type="unary_delta")
→ assess_unary_delta(frame)
→ ContractAssessment(runnable or refused)

The proposal is a hypothesis only. Exact role bindings ground it. The assessment is its corrective/conjugate and is the only runnable/refused authority. No step derives an answer.

8. Minimum evidence tuple

A proposed candidate may close only from this tuple:

(
  action_cue_span,
  action_kind,
  explicit_direction,
  delta_quantity_mention,
  changed_object_mention,
  quantity_entity_binding,
)

Every member is source-backed. Every SourceSpan must satisfy:

problem_text[span.start:span.end] == span.text

No composite or synthetic span may be manufactured by concatenating role surfaces. A contiguous event envelope may be computed as offsets for locality checking, but it is not a new semantic fact and must not replace the individual role spans.

9. Required roles

Role	Requirement
action_cue	Exactly one exact gained or lost span
changed_object	Exactly one local object mention targeted by the selected quantity/entity edge
delta_quantity	Exactly one source-grounded scalar mention
direction	Required in SCT-1 because the authorized cue itself explicitly states increase or decrease; it may not be inferred from context
local_binding_relation	Exactly one MentionBinding(binding_type="quantity_entity") joining the selected delta to the changed object
local_event_containment	Cue, quantity, and object occur in that order in one sentence/clause with no sentence boundary
provenance_span	Exact action, quantity, object, and binding evidence spans

SCT-1 is count-valued only. A quantity/unit/object span collision, including 3 pounds where pounds is both unit and object under current extraction, refuses. Measurement-valued state change requires a separate extension after unit/property topology is designed.

10. Optional and deferred roles that must not be invented

actor is the only optional SCT-1 role. It may be carried only when an exact actor mention is already grounded by the existing frame; the implementation is not authorized to widen actor extraction to obtain it. Its absence does not block the relation and does not license an owner inference.

The following are optional in the broader state-change problem space but are not representable by SCT-1 at all:

• source;
• target;
• before quantity;
• after quantity;
• container or location;
• temporal marker;
• unit/measurement property.

Their presence therefore refuses or routes to a future family. In particular, Ana in Ana gained 3 marbles. is not automatically asserted as a state owner. SCT-1 asserts only that the local text contains an increase cue over the explicitly quantified object marbles.

11. Non-inference rule

The family cannot infer or compute:

• an implicit source or target;
• a pronoun antecedent;
• a cross-sentence event binding;
• an initial, before, final, or after quantity;
• a total, remainder, result, or answer;
• a transfer partner or conservation law;
• ownership or possession continuity;
• a containment path;
• arithmetic sign application (+N or -N) to stored state;
• that gave subtracts from a giver or adds to a receiver;
• that put moves an object into a container;
• that bought, received, ate, spent, added, or removed are synonyms for an authorized cue;
• any event hidden behind passive voice, negation, modality, or temporal order.

Unknown is not false. Missing or ambiguous evidence refuses.

12. Relationship to quantity/entity grounding

The relationship is monotonic but non-authoritative:

1. Existing GroundedScalar, GroundedMention, and MentionBinding(binding_type="quantity_entity") may ground the delta and changed-object roles.
2. The presence of such a binding does not imply an event. There are 12 apples. remains only a quantity/entity construction.
3. The presence of an event cue does not imply a valid delta relation. Ana gained apples. lacks an explicit quantity and must refuse.
4. A unary-delta proposal does not create a binding.quantity_entity proposal, QuantityKindDisposition, or quantity-entity assessment.
5. The quantity-entity family does not create a unary-delta proposal.
6. No-proposal quantity-entity confusers must continue to have no quantity-kind disposition, exactly as hardened by #853.

13. Interaction safety with existing families

The future implementation must preserve these families byte-for-byte in behavior and authority:

• proportional_change.decrease_to_fraction;
• partition.percent_partition;
• binding.quantity_entity.

Unary delta must not propose when any of these competing surfaces are active:

• percent or percentage;
• rate, per, or each;
• comparison (more than, less than, fewer than, times as);
• proportional decrease to, decrease by, or fraction-scale language;
• plain quantity/entity binding with no authorized action cue;
• transfer, transaction, or containment movement;
• list/enumeration topology;
• more than one state-change cue.

The generic consumption process-frame candidate may coexist because gained and lost currently surface it. No other process-frame family may coexist in the first slice. The process frame is candidate context only; it is not the proposal, relation, or assessment authority.

14. ContractAssessment obligations

The future assess_unary_delta(frame) may report runnable=True only when:

• exactly one unary-delta proposal exists;
• exactly one authorized exact action cue exists;
• exactly one scalar mention and one compatible quantity/entity binding exist;
• the binding selects exactly one changed object;
• the cue direction is explicit and unambiguous;
• cue, delta, and object are ordered locally in one sentence/clause;
• all role and relation spans are exact slices of problem_text;
• no unit/object collision exists;
• no competing family, actor coordination, object list, negation, modality, passive voice, temporal ambiguity, or second change cue is present.

The proposal must remain status="proposed" whether the assessment is runnable or refused. A proposal-free frame must not dispatch the unary-delta contract. The assessment grants diagnostic readiness only, never serving authority.

15. Stable refusal taxonomy

The first implementation must use stable organ-specific blocker/hazard codes. The exact storage field follows current ContractAssessment conventions; missing structural evidence belongs in missing_bindings, while active ambiguity/context belongs in unresolved_hazards.

Class	Required code	Expected locus
missing event cue	unary_delta_proposal_required / no proposal	No dispatch
missing quantity	delta_quantity_unbound	Proposed then refused
missing changed object	changed_object_unbound	Proposed then refused
multiple actors/coordination	multiple_actor_surface	No proposal or refused
multiple objects/list	changed_object_ambiguous / list_context_ambiguous	No proposal or refused
ambiguous direction	delta_direction_ambiguous	Refused
source/target ambiguity	source_target_unlicensed	Refused
pronoun without exact antecedent	pronoun_antecedent_unresolved	Refused
cross-sentence event	cross_sentence_event	Refused
implicit total	implicit_total_unlicensed	No proposal or refused
comparative phrasing	comparative_context	No proposal
rate phrasing	rate_context	No proposal
percent phrasing	percent_context	No proposal
unit conflict	unit_object_conflict	Refused
passive voice	passive_voice_unsupported	Refused
temporal ambiguity	temporal_context_ambiguous	Refused
quantity/entity binding but no event	no unary proposal or assessment	No dispatch
event cue but no grounded pair	local_binding_relation_unbound	Proposed then refused
transfer verb without explicit roles	transfer_unlicensed / no unary proposal	No dispatch
two state changes	multiple_state_change_cues	No proposal
chained state changes	chained_state_changes	No proposal
inexact/synthetic evidence	provenance_span_inexact	Refused
negated or modal event	event_assertion_unlicensed	Refused

No blocker may be silently repaired by choosing the nearest mention.

16. Tiny positive seed set

These are illustrative future fixtures, not implementation in this PR:

Surface	Expected diagnostic roles
Ana gained 3 marbles.	cue=gained, direction=increase, delta=3, changed_object=marbles
The jar lost 2 cookies.	cue=lost, direction=decrease, delta=2, changed_object=cookies
The team gained 4 points.	cue=gained, direction=increase, delta=4, changed_object=points

The subject is not asserted as owner or actor. The result is not computed.

17. Negative and confuser set

The future PR must prove these dispositions:

Surface	Required result
There are 12 apples.	No unary proposal: binding exists, event absent
Tom has 12 apples.	No unary proposal: state description, not change
Tom gave Ana 3 apples.	No unary proposal: binary transfer is deferred
Tom gave her 3 apples.	No unary proposal: transfer plus unresolved pronoun
Tom gave Ana some apples.	No unary proposal: no explicit quantity
Tom had 12 apples and gave Ana 3.	No unary proposal: transfer and unbound changed object
Ana has 3 more apples than Tom.	No unary proposal: comparison
20% of the apples are red.	No unary proposal: percent partition surface
3 apples per child.	No unary proposal: rate
Tom bought 3 apples and 2 oranges.	No unary proposal: transaction and list ambiguity
The basket was filled with apples.	No unary proposal: passive containment, no quantity
The tank has 84 degrees.	No unary proposal; existing quantity assessment remains refused
There are 12 apples. Tom ate 3.	No unary proposal: disallowed cue and cross-sentence binding
Tom and Ana each got 3 apples.	No unary proposal: multiple actors/rate-like each
Tom moved 3 apples from the box to the bag.	No unary proposal: containment movement
The box now has 5 more pencils.	No unary proposal: comparison/current-state surface
Tom put 4 shells in the bag.	No unary proposal: containment movement
Ana gained apples.	Proposal may exist; assessment refuses missing quantity
Ana gained 3.	Proposal may exist; assessment refuses missing object/binding
Ana gained 3 apples and lost 2.	No proposal: two/chained state-change cues
Ana did not gain 3 apples.	No proposal because gain is outside v1; future widening must also preserve negation refusal
3 apples were gained by Ana.	Proposal may exist; assessment refuses passive/order topology
Ana gained 3 pounds.	Proposal may exist; assessment refuses unit/object collision in count-only SCT-1

18. Explicit non-authorization

This PR does not authorize:

• state_change.transition implementation;
• the existing broad state-change.md required-role topology;
• source/target, ownership, possession, or conservation modeling;
• gave, received, bought, sold, ate, spent, put, took, moved, added, or removed cues;
• initial/final or before/after state binding;
• measurement-valued delta events;
• multiple events, multiple quantities, multiple objects, or coordinated actors;
• pronoun/coreference resolution;
• cross-sentence inference;
• SemanticLedger integration or derivation candidate production;
• arithmetic, answer production, eval score movement, report mutation, serving, teaching, memory, policy, identity, recall, Vault, field, or algebra changes.

19. Future implementation gates

The implementation PR may begin only after this authorization and its preflight map merge. It must:

1. start from fresh origin/main and pass the startup guard;
2. add state_change.unary_delta without authorizing state_change.transition;
3. introduce only the minimum exact action-cue type and ProblemFrame publication path defined by the preflight;
4. preserve proposal-first ordering and #853's proposal schema;
5. keep all three current proposal-first families green;
6. prove deterministic replay and exact spans;
7. prove every confuser above refuses or does not propose as specified;
8. preserve train and holdout wrong_ids == [] without updating reports;
9. avoid all serving and derivation paths;
10. stop if the positive cases require actor parsing, coreference, a broad verb parser, synthetic spans, or quantity-family widening.

20. Stop conditions

Stop implementation and return to design if any of these becomes necessary:

• changing _quantity_entity_proposals() or _quantity_kind_dispositions();
• consuming QuantityKindDisposition without its quantity-family proposal;
• importing generate.derivation.state into the ProblemFrame path;
• adding a generic verb/event parser or universal event IR;
• inferring an actor, owner, source, target, initial value, or final value;
• accepting more than the exact gained/lost cue inventory;
• touching serving, eval/report artifacts, teaching, policy, identity, recall, Vault, field, or algebra;
• producing a runnable assessment with inexact, synthetic, ambiguous, or cross-sentence evidence;
• any non-empty wrong-ID list.

21. Justification: the masterstroke

The masterstroke is the refusal to model a story. The new organ models a local field differential: a direction-bearing action cue is conjugated with one grounded delta/object edge. The proposal propagates a hypothesis; exact role bindings reconstruct its coordinates; ContractAssessment opposes and corrects every incomplete topology.

This preserves the intrinsic geometry. Unary delta, transfer, containment, and before/after state are not optional-role variants of one object. They are different manifolds and receive separate future contracts. The resulting slice is small enough to make illegal states unrepresentable, yet powerful enough to establish the first event-bearing composition over the quantity/entity seam.

22. Remaining risks discovered

• docs/sessions/workbench-proposal-first-alignment-scope-2026-06-20.md predates #853 and still describes proposal statuses such as partial, closed, and refused. That text is stale and must not be copied into this implementation. Updating Workbench docs is a separate PR.
• The legacy semantic-state ledger is semantically adjacent and therefore a likely source of accidental coupling. The implementation preflight requires an explicit no-import/no-call proof.
• Existing mention extraction does not ground the subject of gained/lost as an actor. This is a deliberate first-slice limit, not a gap to repair in the implementation PR.