GRAMMAR · KERNEL + DYNAMIC EXTENSIONS
Eight kernel primitives that compose every dispute, every options memo, every consultation, every regulatory file. Per-case extensions specialize them. MIT-licensed. Forkable.
The grammar is built for policy and political teams that read more than any one analyst can hold. The kernel is the part every case shares. The extensions are how each case — HR, regulatory, mediation, peace process, vendor agreement — specializes the kernel without breaking it. The Agentic Conflict Ontology (ACO) is the historical name; the object is broader than its name.
THE KERNEL
Every policy file, every dispute, every regulatory consultation, every mediation decomposes into these eight types. The kernel is the part that does not change. It is versioned, forkable, and the thing every TACITUS product reads and writes.
Who participates
Individuals, teams, institutions, states, coalitions: any agent with goals and agency in the dispute.
What is asserted
Factual, evaluative, or normative statements a party makes. The surface of the disagreement.
What lies beneath
Underlying needs and motivations. Fisher-Ury: what the party actually needs, versus the position they state.
What limits outcomes
Rules, regulations, norms, hard facts. The structural bounds on possible resolution.
What holds the power
Resources and dependencies that give a party the ability to act, withhold, or influence.
What was agreed
Promises, contracts, pledges, ceasefires. The graph-layer distinction between asserted and agreed.
What happened when
Time-stamped, provenance-carrying occurrences. The temporal DAG underneath every case.
How it is framed
The story each party tells about the dispute. Captures framing, re-framing, and narrative drift over time.
THE PRINCIPLE
The eight primitives do not change. They are the universal kernel — every file, in every domain, decomposes into them. What changes are the extensions — the per-case subclasses that give a Commitment its shape in HR mediation, in a regulatory consultation, in a ceasefire negotiation, or in a vendor agreement. The system learns extensions from the case. The kernel validates them. The provenance log records them. You can fork them.
The kernel constrains. The extensions specialize. Together they give a typed, queryable, contestable, temporally honest representation of an institutional file that no single fixed ontology — and no schema-free graph — can produce alone. The graph survives the analyst. The next desk inherits it.
WORKED EXAMPLE · COMMITMENT, FOUR DOMAINS
Each card extends the same kernel Commitment primitive with the fields the domain actually needs. A fixed ontology cannot produce all four; a schema-free graph cannot validate any of them.
Commitment
└── extends WorkAllocationCommitment(
scope,
deadline,
ownership_type,
)EXAMPLE
Sam asserts Alex owns Q4 deck content by Thursday. Alex acknowledges ambiguously, then partially denies scope on Day 4.
Commitment
└── extends RegulatoryCommitment(
rule_reference,
redraft_window,
consultation_status,
)EXAMPLE
Agency commits to redraft Rule 17(b) before Q3 in response to consultation; revises scope on Thursday.
Commitment
└── extends CeasefireCommitment(
geographic_scope,
verification_mechanism,
withdrawal_distance,
)EXAMPLE
Party A commits to halt offensive operations within 5 km of the contact line for 72 hours, verified by a UN observer team.
Commitment
└── extends ServiceLevelCommitment(
metric,
threshold,
remedy,
)EXAMPLE
Vendor commits to 99.9% uptime measured monthly, with a 10% credit on breach.
THE FORKABLE CONTRACT
The kernel is versioned
Breaking changes go through a versioned release; minor changes are additive. The kernel is the part the whole institution can rely on.
Extensions are local
A team can fork an extension subclass without forking the kernel. Domain knowledge stays where it lives; the kernel travels.
Validation is automated
Every proposed extension must (a) name its parent primitive, (b) declare its constraints, (c) pass kernel-invariant checks before it is admitted.
Provenance is mandatory
Every extension carries the case, the timestamp, and the practitioner who introduced it. The audit trail is the contract; inheritance depends on it.
REFERENCE
GitHub repository
Kernel primitives, edge types, validation harness, examples. MIT-licensed.
Pydantic / JSON schema
Machine-readable kernel schema. Validate extensions against the invariants before you admit them.
Python SDK
pip install tacitus-ontology · build a typed graph from your file in a dozen lines.
The repo, schema, and SDK are under active development. Send issues, forks, and pull requests at the open-source pipeline.