State
Represent what can actually be true
A domain uses closed alternatives and state-specific data rather than asking every caller
to reconstruct meaning from combinations of fields. A bounded decision operates on the
smallest domain-defined state view that is semantically complete for that decision.
The view is versioned and fingerprinted as a whole. Ordo does not selectively ignore
changed fields.
Evidence and coverage
Represent what is known and how completely it is known
Evidence carries provenance. Coverage says whether a named scope is Complete, Partial, or
Unknown. Required coverage can stop a decision before a provider or model is called.
More context, provider confidence, or a successful call never silently becomes proof of
complete coverage.
Capabilities
Expose semantic authority, not a second rulebook
A Capability is a semantic authority prerequisite that the host has already established
and supplied for transition evaluation. It is not authentication and it cannot be created
by model output or confidence.
The same predicates that guard a transition should also determine whether that transition
is available.
Obligations
Make unresolved work part of the state
If something must still happen before the system can proceed safely, Ordo represents that
as an obligation instead of leaving it in a comment, a log message, or someone's memory.
Obligations can block later transitions until the domain's required work is actually
satisfied.
External effects
Unknown is not Failed
External work can Succeed, Fail, or be Unknown. If the system cannot tell whether a
state-changing effect occurred, it retains that uncertainty and creates reconciliation
work rather than pretending failure or retrying blindly.
Tier Three and Tier Four perform the observation. Tier One and Tier Two interpret what the
result means.
Negative knowledge
"Not found" is only meaningful inside a complete scope
Ordo distinguishes absent from not searched, not compared, unsupported, unavailable, and
unknown. A negative observation can support absence only when the method could detect the
target and coverage for the matching scope is Complete.
This prevents missing information from being silently promoted into a fact.
A concrete state example
Explicit state turns business rules into visible routes.
The time-entry experiment is a small example: three named states, four legal transitions,
and a terminal state with no route out. The important part is not the domain. It is that the
legal graph is inspectable instead of reconstructed from incidental fields and conditionals.