Normative Hierarchy of DIA Documents¶

Document Status¶

Field	Value
`policy-id`	`DIA-NORM-HIER-001`
`type`	Supplement to the Constitution section "Normative Force and Interpretation"
`version`	0.2.0-draft
`author`	DIA / Orbiplex
`date`	2026-03-10

1. Purpose of the Document¶

This document specifies the normative hierarchy of documents in the DIA/Orbiplex project, resolving ambiguity about the binding force of particular sources. It is a proposed extension of the Constitution section "Normative Force and Interpretation" (points 4-6).

2. Normative Hierarchy¶

Project documents form the following levels of normative force. A lower-level document may not weaken, narrow, or reinterpret a higher-level document without a formal procedure for amending the relevant higher level.

Level 0 - Non-Negotiable Core¶

The clauses identified directly by the Constitution's "Non-Negotiable Core" section. The canonical machine-readable list is maintained in doc/normative/40-constitution/constitution-index.v1.json. Their amendment, suspension, or narrowing reinterpretation requires the procedure described in ENTRENCHMENT-CLAUSE.md, including unanimity of all federations participating in the amendment process and independent adversarial review. The implementing act defines the procedure but MUST NOT change the composition of Level 0.

Level 1 - Constitution¶

The remaining articles of doc/normative/40-constitution/CONSTITUTION.md. Amendment requires the procedure described in Art. XVI: explicit rationale, impact analysis, description of reversibility, trace of the decision process, and a trial period for high-stakes changes.

Level 2 - Sources of Interpretation¶

The documents doc/normative/30-core-values/CORE-VALUES.md and doc/normative/20-vision/VISION.md.

They serve to interpret the Constitution, but do not create new obligations or rights beyond the constitutional framework. Sections in these documents are divided into two categories:

[value] - expression of an ethical or architectural principle; it has interpretive force when reading the Constitution.
[mechanism - hypothesis] - description of a proposed mechanism (e.g. Creator Credits, attribution graph, reputation curves); it has no normative force until empirical validation and formal adoption by a federation.

Changing Level 2 documents requires an explicit rationale and a coherence review against the Constitution, but does not require the full constitutional amendment procedure.

doc/normative/90-supplementary/ONTOLOGICAL-BASIS.md is explanatory material for the genealogy and coherence of values, but it is not an independent Level 2 source of interpretation and creates no rights, duties, or classifications of persons. It may not serve as a worldview, loyalty, membership, identity, or reputation test. In case of divergence, the Constitution and Level 2 sources prevail.

Level 3 - Implementing Acts¶

Operational documents with binding force within federations:

AUTONOMY-LEVELS.md - agent autonomy gradient
ABUSE-DISCLOSURE-PROTOCOL.md - threshold, scope, and procedure of conditional disclosure of accountability for abuse
EXCEPTION-POLICY.md - exception procedure, data model, and monitoring
FEDERATION-MEMBERSHIP-AND-QUORUM.md - operational trust-root anchoring, definition of a voting-eligible federation, activity statuses, and the rules of quorum and veto
ROOT-IDENTITY-AND-NYMS.md - model of root identity, nyms, assurance levels, and delegation across devices
IDENTITY-ATTESTATION-AND-RECOVERY.md - first attestation, memory of prior attestation, recovery phrase, and reconstruction of anchor-identity
ATTESTATION-PROVIDERS.md - mapping of attestation methods to weak / strong classes and maximum IAL levels
IDENTITY-UPGRADE-ANOMALY-SIGNALS.md - minimum catalog of anomaly signals, responses, and review for attestation upgrade, especially phone -> strong
IDENTITY-UNSEALING-BOARD.md - Federation of Sealed Chambers, thresholds nym -> node-id and node-id -> root-identity, quorum, and split knowledge
UNSEAL-CASE-MODEL.md - the shared data model of an unsealing case for thresholds U1-U3
ROLE-TO-IAL-MATRIX.md - the minimum map of role classes to IAL thresholds and fixed_power_bonus rules
FIP-MEMBERSHIP-AND-QUORUM.md - membership, activity, and quorum of the Federation of Sealed Chambers
MEMBERSHIP-AND-SPONSORSHIP-POLICY.md - per-surface entry policy, sponsorship scope, probation, sponsor liability, newcomer slow-start, and anti-sponsor-ring constraints
PARTICIPANT-COVENANT.md - short operational covenant for entering shared influence surfaces
PROCEDURAL-REPUTATION-SPEC.md - specification of domains, signals, and calculation of procedural reputation
ADVOCACY-AND-SOLICITATION-POLICY.md - opt-in requirements, disclosures, and sanctions for persuasion and solicitation surfaces
MARKETPLACE-ANTI-FRAUD-POLICY.md - value caps, escrow expectations, anti-fraud rules, and reputation basis for marketplace surfaces
RAW-SIGNAL-POLICY.md - raw-signal protection, style-transformation modes, meta-markers, and audit trace
UNIVERSAL-BASIC-COMPUTE.md - minimal Proof-of-Personhood model, non-withdrawable minimum compute, limited cross-federation portability, and UBC settlement
UBC-LIMIT-PROFILES.md - canonical UBC limit profiles, portability profiles, and the minimal FIP bridge/registry for cross-federation PoP
SWARM-ECONOMY-SUFFICIENCY.md - sufficiency threshold, concentration brakes, surplus circulation, and barrier between reward and governance
PANEL-SELECTION-PROTOCOL.md - procedure for eligibility, draw, veto, and replenishment of ad-hoc panel composition
REPUTATION-VALIDATION-PROTOCOL.md - validation protocol for reputation mechanisms
ENTRENCHMENT-CLAUSE.md - constitutional defense procedure and entrenchment clause
other policy-as-code documents or implementing documents under doc/normative/50-constitutional-ops/ that explicitly declare their type and constitutional basis

Implementing acts concretize the Constitution and the Sources of Interpretation. They MAY tighten requirements but MUST NOT weaken any higher level.

Level 4 - Federation Policies¶

Parameters, configurations, and local rules of individual federations. They include:

reputation thresholds,
parameters of reward mechanisms,
local role extensions,
mode configurations (normal / crisis / support).

Federation policies are autonomous in the areas not covered by higher levels. A federation may shape them freely as long as it does not violate Levels 0-3.

Level 5 - Derived and Onboarding Materials¶

Supporting documents that do not have their own normative force but summarize, map, or make it easier to work with higher-level documents. They include:

NODE-RIGHTS-CARD.md - extract of node rights and duties together with a decision index,
onboarding checklists,
process maps,
operational shortcuts and training materials.

A Level 5 document:

may not create new obligations or rights,
loses to the source document in case of conflict,
should indicate the source of each claim by article or base document.

3. Conflict Resolution Rules¶

In case of conflict between levels, the higher level prevails.
In case of conflict within the same level, the procedure from Constitution Art. XIV applies (tests of reversibility, proportionality, and publicity).
In case of conflict between language versions of the same document, the Polish version prevails unless it is shown that the difference results from a translation error.
A lower-level document that in fact violates a higher level is invalid to the extent of the violation from the moment the violation is established, not from the moment of publication.

4. Procedure for Tagging Sections in the Sources of Interpretation¶

Each section of doc/normative/30-core-values/CORE-VALUES.md and doc/normative/20-vision/VISION.md SHOULD contain in its header the tag:

### Section Name `[value]`

or

### Section Name `[mechanism - hypothesis]`

Untagged sections are treated by default as [value], unless they describe a specific algorithm, numeric parameter, or token scheme; in that case they are defaulted to [mechanism - hypothesis].

5. Entry into Force¶

This document enters into force after formal adoption in accordance with the constitutional amendment procedure (Art. XVI), because it modifies the section "Normative Force and Interpretation".