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CEP Foundational Principles

This document identifies the foundational architectural invariants required for the Civic Exchange Protocol (CEP) to function as a deterministic, compositional, and verifiable system across diverse civic domains.

1. Canonical Serialization (CEC)

CEP requires a stable, deterministic canonical encoding for all entities, relationships, and exchanges. This includes:

  • key ordering
  • omission rules for null/empty fields
  • Unicode normalization
  • numeric normalization
  • canonical list ordering
  • no ambiguity in datatype representation

CEC is mandatory for hashing, deduplication, and cross-system verification.

2. Cross-Domain Entity Identity

All domains must support a common identity model grounded in:

  • minimal identity-defining attributes
  • domain-agnostic fingerprint rules
  • deterministic merge semantics
  • stable identifier construction

Identity must be consistent across campaigns, environment, education, municipalities, nonprofits, etc.

3. Graph-Level Normalization

Provenance, merges, and entity graphs must have:

  • canonical ordering of edges
  • deterministic blank-node labeling
  • merge strategy determinism
  • recursion guards during rewriting

This ensures stable cross-domain provenance and reproducible entity histories.

4. Vocabulary and Schema Versioning

CEP vocabularies evolve. Therefore:

  • each vocabulary entry MUST define a stable URI
  • deprecated terms are never reused
  • canonicalization must state vocabulary version
  • adapters must declare the vocab version they target

Versioning is part of the trust model.

5. Adapter Algebra

Adapters form a category of typed rewriting morphisms:

  • each adapter has a domain and codomain schema
  • composition must be well-defined and deterministic
  • identity adapters must exist for each schema version
  • adapters MUST document partiality (when they can fail)

CEP interoperability relies on predictable adapter composition.

6. Global Integrity Constraints

All domains must adhere to:

  • unique verifiable IDs
  • referential integrity for entity relationships
  • attestation timestamps ≥ dependency timestamps
  • symmetry/antisymmetry rules for relationships as needed

These constraints prevent inconsistent or unverifiable data.

7. Security and Attestation

Every CTag (cryptographic tag) must:

  • commit to a canonical serialization (CEC)
  • state the vocabulary version
  • state the adapter version
  • include attestation metadata
  • guard against canonicalization confusion

Security is inseparable from canonicalization.

8. Minimal Feature Set for Unique Identification

Across all domains CEP defines:

  • minimal identity-defining attributes
  • additional non-identity metadata
  • optional descriptive context

Identity must be explicit and separable from metadata.

Summary

These eight principles are the architectural backbone of CEP. They define the minimal mathematical and engineering structure necessary for CEP to function as a unified, multi-domain rewriting system supporting canonicalization, hashing, provenance, and exchange.