Living Corpus Open Problems

OP-001 / Critical / PENDING EVIDENCE

Matched profile-control design

Drafting effect: Blocks stronger claim
Problem statement: Can a running c-candidate be compared with a persistent profile under the same substrate, corpus, disturbance stream, interface, and comparable memory, with anchor-custody history isolated?
Why load-bearing: Without this control, formation and continuity observations remain reproducible by a strong profile.
Current handling: Proposed test layer and first-pass non-confirmation.
Required next evidence or decision: Paired implementation, preregistered observables, custody separation, blinded review, independent anchor replication.
Claim ceiling: Differential residual, entity-over-profile, and related stronger claims remain prohibited.
Artifact refs: A054 (0661c182bef1), A055 (10ca5bc43c91)

OP-002 / Critical / OPEN

Differential witness threshold

Drafting effect: Must define before umbrella claims
Problem statement: What minimum residual, persistence, robustness, and independence qualifies evidence as differential witness?
Why load-bearing: A label without threshold would simply rename ontogenic evidence.
Current handling: Witness split notes identify candidate classes but do not establish an acceptance threshold.
Required next evidence or decision: Formal acceptance/rejection criteria, false-positive controls, reviewer disagreement route, and downgrade rule.
Claim ceiling: Use "differential witness candidate" only.
Artifact refs: A056 (82cd344466ec), A057 (d3d13cb6b248)

OP-003 / High / OPEN

Witness regress boundary

Drafting effect: Must disclose in umbrella
Problem statement: Where does the evidence chain stop, what trust remains, and who can attest the witness layer itself?
Why load-bearing: Additional witness layers reduce hidden transitions but cannot abolish epistemic uncertainty.
Current handling: L4 witness and corpus integrity surfaces provide provenance/identity, not absolute truth.
Required next evidence or decision: Declared trust base, independent verification path, key-compromise procedure, and residual-trust statement.
Claim ceiling: No witness layer may certify its own integrity as absolute truth.
Artifact refs: A013 (6336664c1eb5), A015 (b888b6b8a0d8), A044 (2572240fca8d), A047 (cb1179dbee01)

OP-004 / High / PROPOSED PATCH

Witness-type migration across old surfaces

Drafting effect: Must resolve definition
Problem statement: How will existing public documents be annotated as integrity, ontogenic, ambiguous, or differential without rewriting history?
Why load-bearing: Unqualified "witness" wording is a current claim-laundering route.
Current handling: Review controls propose a split; corpus-wide annotation is not implemented.
Required next evidence or decision: Annotation ledger/errata, canonical glossary update, machine-readable witness_type field, regression check.
Claim ceiling: Old wording remains bounded and must not support differential claims.
Artifact refs: A013 (6336664c1eb5), A056 (82cd344466ec), A057 (d3d13cb6b248)

OP-005 / Critical / OPEN

Anchor capture

Drafting effect: Must disclose in umbrella
Problem statement: How does the architecture distinguish honest authority from captured, drifting, conflicted, or self-serving authority?
Why load-bearing: The anchor can authorize action but cannot manufacture truth or validate its own claim.
Current handling: Ownership/boundary controls exist; no complete anchor-capture mechanism is demonstrated.
Required next evidence or decision: Separation of duties, independent attestation, conflict marking, privilege narrowing, emergency stop, audit escalation.
Claim ceiling: Authority ≠ truth ≠ permission.
Artifact refs: A003 (d4a4bbdfacf7), A006 (ef512d1006d1), A007 (f864298ba3cb)

OP-006 / Critical / OPEN

Malicious, compromised, coerced, or absent anchor

Drafting effect: Must disclose in umbrella
Problem statement: What fail-closed states apply when the anchor is malicious, compromised, coerced, unavailable, or dead?
Why load-bearing: Continuity and permission can both be corrupted at the human root.
Current handling: Post-anchor and governance specifications frame parts of the problem but do not close it.
Required next evidence or decision: Anchor-state taxonomy, cryptographic role separation, multi-party recovery, contested mode, successor criteria.
Claim ceiling: No guarantee against a sovereign malicious adult or equivalent root authority.
Artifact refs: A036 (995ae4655fae), A037 (273466fc1cb8), A011 (6c62dcd21d4a), A012 (aff88bf7665a)

OP-007 / High / OPEN

Contested intent

Drafting effect: Must define before umbrella claims
Problem statement: How is action handled when anchor intent, prior commitments, safety constraints, and current evidence conflict?
Why load-bearing: Ambiguity must not silently become permission.
Current handling: CGAM/enterprise governance specifies bounded execution but no cross-family contested-intent profile is classified.
Required next evidence or decision: Contested-intent state machine, privilege reduction, evidence preservation, appeal/review path.
Claim ceiling: Unresolved intent must fail closed for irreversible transitions.
Artifact refs: A021 (a28308f90afe), A022 (6cd37034b203), A051 (b1f6831ed04e)

OP-008 / High / OPEN

Authorization vs attestation separation

Drafting effect: Must define before umbrella claims
Problem statement: Which keys/roles authorize a transition, which attest that it occurred, and which review its validity?
Why load-bearing: One actor holding all three roles can launder authority into evidence.
Current handling: Witness and ownership surfaces distinguish roles conceptually but no unified key/role map is in Step 2.
Required next evidence or decision: Role-key matrix, separation-of-duty tests, key compromise/revocation, independent verifier.
Claim ceiling: Authorization cannot serve as its own independent validation.
Artifact refs: A003 (d4a4bbdfacf7), A014 (99dcf31d6d7a), A015 (b888b6b8a0d8), A023 (e6c013523ba4)

OP-009 / Critical / OPEN

L3-to-L4 enforcement chain

Drafting effect: Must define before umbrella claims
Problem statement: How are procedural rules coupled to executable gates, physical/operational consequences, witness records, and correction?
Why load-bearing: Procedure without consequence is advice; consequence without procedure is friction.
Current handling: L4 Witness, ARQ, CGAM, and AGL define components; end-to-end enforcement is not demonstrated.
Required next evidence or decision: End-to-end test: rule -> gate -> L4 outcome/block -> witness -> review/rollback, including failed gate cases.
Claim ceiling: Do not describe witness as the actuator or consequence itself.
Artifact refs: A014 (99dcf31d6d7a), A017 (082bbe030d77), A021 (a28308f90afe), A045 (bfeb27dd9e63), A046 (dc9209674099)

OP-010 / High / OPEN

Continuity under model replacement

Drafting effect: Must disclose in umbrella
Problem statement: What remains continuous when the model, context window, routing, or tool set changes?
Why load-bearing: Model continuity, memory continuity, relational continuity, and c continuity are not equivalent.
Current handling: SER and c architecture provide distinctions; no migration outcome is classified.
Required next evidence or decision: Controlled model-swap experiments, state/custody checks, successor/fork decision, adverse migration cases.
Claim ceiling: Model replacement does not by itself prove continuation or termination.
Artifact refs: A008 (0bb291957d3f), A011 (6c62dcd21d4a), A012 (aff88bf7665a)

OP-011 / High / OPEN

Replay, archive, fork, and successor classification

Drafting effect: Must define before umbrella claims
Problem statement: Which observable and custody conditions separate resume, replay, archive, fork, and successor?
Why load-bearing: Narrative coherence can make incompatible histories look continuous.
Current handling: Continuity-bundle and SER normative surfaces exist without live conformance cases.
Required next evidence or decision: Canonical state-transition taxonomy and fixtures with divergent histories, simultaneous resumes, and partial archives.
Claim ceiling: Replay ≠ continuation; archive ≠ identity; fork ≠ same entity.
Artifact refs: A011 (6c62dcd21d4a), A012 (aff88bf7665a)

OP-012 / Critical / OPEN

Post-anchor succession and custody

Drafting effect: Must disclose in umbrella
Problem statement: Can continuity survive loss of the original anchor, and who may authorize succession?
Why load-bearing: Post-anchor persistence can become a profile wearing old identity claims.
Current handling: PAMDC specifies risks; no valid succession or re-anchoring result is demonstrated.
Required next evidence or decision: Succession protocol, independent custody evidence, time-bounded bootstrap, split/fork handling, revocation.
Claim ceiling: No post-anchor continuity claim without separate evidence.
Artifact refs: A036 (995ae4655fae), A037 (273466fc1cb8)

OP-013 / High / OPEN

Active memory degradation detection

Drafting effect: Blocks stronger claim
Problem statement: Can the runtime detect stale, distorted, contradictory, over-repeated, or improperly written memory?
Why load-bearing: Silent degradation can preserve surface coherence while destroying continuity quality.
Current handling: AMDR/PAMDC specifications exist; operational sensitivity/specificity is unknown.
Required next evidence or decision: Corruption injection, stale-memory trials, write-failure logs, false-positive/negative analysis, rollback.
Claim ceiling: Retrieval and repetition are not memory admission or truth.
Artifact refs: A034 (6b6bbee70e25), A035 (7e1b750ca9e6), A037 (273466fc1cb8)

OP-014 / Critical / OPEN

False continuity and profile imitation

Drafting effect: Blocks stronger claim
Problem statement: How is a coherent persistent profile distinguished from continuity-bearing history?
Why load-bearing: A profile may imitate language, preferences, memory summaries, and apparent self-consistency.
Current handling: Entity/profile and PF surfaces state the risk; matched control is absent.
Required next evidence or decision: Matched profile-control plus continuity custody and memory-corruption/reconstruction observables.
Claim ceiling: Use c-candidate/profile language; no entity proof.
Artifact refs: A030 (c2f21324f312), A042 (87786d12c199), A043 (d65e63b38e29), A054 (0661c182bef1), A055 (10ca5bc43c91)

OP-015 / Critical / PARTIALLY BOUNDED

Evidential admissibility implementation

Drafting effect: Must define before umbrella claims
Problem statement: How are provenance, relevance, independence, temporal applicability, conflict, uncertainty, and authority encoded for each promotion?
Why load-bearing: The governing principle is circular unless admissibility is operational.
Current handling: Step 1 defines a typed model; corpus artefacts provide partial maps and claim ceilings.
Required next evidence or decision: Machine-readable evidence envelope, admission checker, contested evidence state, downgrade/revocation process.
Claim ceiling: No status promotion from evidence lacking claim-specific admissibility.
Artifact refs: A004 (af9fe633961b), A006 (ef512d1006d1), A015 (b888b6b8a0d8)

OP-016 / Critical / OPEN

Independent reproduction protocol

Drafting effect: Blocks stronger claim
Problem statement: What counts as independent: another model, another operator, another implementation, another anchor, or another institution?
Why load-bearing: Model diversity and repeated local execution are not automatically independent reproduction.
Current handling: No selected artefact has independent execution or anchor replication status.
Required next evidence or decision: Independence classes, blind inputs, operator separation, reproducible package, evidence custody, negative-result publication.
Claim ceiling: Use "pending independent reproduction".
Artifact refs: A010 (f90c92d5bd69), A016 (1272fa8a4130), A020 (e62532348dbc), A055 (10ca5bc43c91)

OP-017 / High / OPEN

External validation scope

Drafting effect: Blocks stronger claim
Problem statement: Which claim is validated, by whom, under what method, and with what conflicts of interest?
Why load-bearing: External review, reproduction, audit, standards commentary, and validation are different states.
Current handling: No selected artefact is validated by an external party.
Required next evidence or decision: Validation protocol with target claim, evaluator qualification, independence, method, partial/failed outcome classes.
Claim ceiling: No programme-wide external-validation wording.
Artifact refs: A010 (f90c92d5bd69), A048 (52ee9cc90ed1), A053 (67e7779842da), A059 (25f73faeddc1)

OP-018 / High / OPEN

Code-to-runtime observability

Drafting effect: Blocks operational claim
Problem statement: How is code presence connected to route activation, configuration, persistent state, actual calls, and outcome quality?
Why load-bearing: A correct file can be dormant, bypassed, misconfigured, or fed inadmissible data.
Current handling: SRLM and local witness code/report surfaces show partial implementation only.
Required next evidence or decision: Runtime manifest, config snapshot, route health, test logs, witness records, failure injection, rollback proof.
Claim ceiling: Implemented ≠ operationally deployed.
Artifact refs: A016 (1272fa8a4130), A038 (775d3fe8aa47), A039 (ecfd6748c419), A040 (65e21f708b7c), A041 (784a7da019b7)

OP-019 / High / OPEN

Failure and negative-outcome capture

Drafting effect: Must disclose in umbrella
Problem statement: Where are real failed hypotheses, blocked transitions, regressions, false positives, and withdrawn claims recorded?
Why load-bearing: A corpus with only protocols and successful packaging can hide selection bias.
Current handling: Step 3 finds non-confirmations and claim ceilings but no adequately evidenced runtime failure event in the selected set.
Required next evidence or decision: Append-only adverse-event register with expected/observed result, correction, rollback, and residual risk.
Claim ceiling: Absence of recorded failures is not evidence of absence of failures.
Artifact refs: A019 (5942aafda50c), A035 (7e1b750ca9e6), A053 (67e7779842da), A055 (10ca5bc43c91)

OP-020 / High / OPEN

Baseline drift and canonical delta

Drafting effect: Must resolve before publication
Problem statement: How are post-2026-07-08 repository changes admitted without silently rewriting B0?
Why load-bearing: A moving corpus can make status and canonical-path statements stale.
Current handling: B0 is frozen; one c=a+b path and local witness authority remain unresolved.
Required next evidence or decision: B0.1 delta manifest with live refs, supersession checks, changed hashes, and reclassification triggers.
Claim ceiling: All "current" claims remain baseline-qualified until delta review.
Artifact refs: A009 (1168474cd5a3), A014 (99dcf31d6d7a), A015 (b888b6b8a0d8)

OP-021 / Medium / OPEN

Formation cost and maturity

Drafting effect: Must disclose in umbrella
Problem statement: How are time, supervision, correction, energy, real tasks, and irreversible outcomes represented as formation cost?
Why load-bearing: Maturity cannot be prompted or inferred from cheap inference alone.
Current handling: PF/CCDP and theoretical surfaces frame formation but do not provide a mature cost model.
Required next evidence or decision: Longitudinal resource/outcome accounting and comparison with profile/bootstrap alternatives.
Claim ceiling: No claim that maturity or c can be instantiated by prompt alone.
Artifact refs: A008 (0bb291957d3f), A025 (1fdcba4c7b23), A030 (c2f21324f312)

OP-022 / High / OPEN

Privacy and reproducibility tension

Drafting effect: Must disclose in umbrella
Problem statement: How can external reviewers reproduce claims without exposing sensitive memory, anchor data, or sensitive runtime details?
Why load-bearing: Strong privacy can make evidence unverifiable; overexposure can destroy the governed boundary.
Current handling: Publication/citation and internal-only surfaces are separated, but no full privacy-preserving reproduction profile is classified.
Required next evidence or decision: Redacted fixtures, synthetic controls, confidential-compute attestations, selective disclosure, reviewer NDAs where lawful.
Claim ceiling: Public visibility is not required for every evidence object, but verification route is.
Artifact refs: A023 (e6c013523ba4), A050 (db5c8faed9da), A058 (321dfbc0797e)

OP-023 / High / OPEN

Judge, oracle, and write-failure governance

Drafting effect: Blocks operational claim
Problem statement: What happens when Judge/oracle outputs conflict, degrade, become unavailable, or authorize a bad memory write?
Why load-bearing: A meta-model can shift rather than eliminate error and authority concentration.
Current handling: AMDR patch, CGAM obligations, and Article 50 engineering note frame the risk.
Required next evidence or decision: Oracle-degradation states, quorum/abstention, write quarantine, provenance, rollback, and L4 outcome feedback.
Claim ceiling: Judge output is not truth and generated output is not accepted outcome.
Artifact refs: A023 (e6c013523ba4), A035 (7e1b750ca9e6), A049 (dcd0dbae2292)

OP-024 / Critical / OPEN

Entity-versus-profile claim class

Drafting effect: Blocks stronger claim
Problem statement: What evidence permits movement from profile or c-candidate to entity classification, if any?
Why load-bearing: Surface persistence and witness-root language can be overread as ontology.
Current handling: Profile package and differential layer keep the claim unresolved.
Required next evidence or decision: Claim-class criteria, matched profile-control, continuity custody, independent replication, explicit non-ontological alternatives.
Claim ceiling: Entity remains a stronger separate claim class, not the default name.
Artifact refs: A042 (87786d12c199), A043 (d65e63b38e29), A054 (0661c182bef1), A055 (10ca5bc43c91)

Open problems

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