Governed Reads and Observation

A governed read provides the system’s declared meaning rather than forcing each operator or AI Peer to reconstruct it from storage.

Read path

TM-OBS-001 — Deterministic current read. An implementation MUST provide a deterministic way to read the current selection, current-state identity, and material uncertainty for the coherence boundary in scope.

TM-OBS-002 — Read provenance. A governed read MUST identify the source or record from which each material result was obtained sufficiently to inspect its ancestry.

TM-OBS-003 — Read does not advance truth. Performing a read or conformance check MUST NOT accept a proposal, alter current truth, or repair a mismatch. Operational telemetry that does not affect truth semantics may still be recorded under a declared policy.

TM-OBS-004 — Machine and human forms. If a read provides a structured machine value and a presented human value, both MUST resolve to the same declared meaning. Suppression, truncation, absence, and uncertainty MUST be labelled.

Live observation

These requirements apply when an implementation compares declared current truth with an external or runtime system.

TM-OBS-005 — Declared and observed separation. Declared state and observed state MUST remain separate values. An observation MUST NOT silently rewrite the declaration it checks.

TM-OBS-006 — Observation metadata. A live observation MUST identify its source, observation time, method, expected value, observed value when available, and operational meaning.

TM-OBS-007 — Three-way result. A comparison MUST distinguish:

• match — the requested observation was made and equals the declaration;
• mismatch — the requested observation was made and differs; and
• unknown — the requested observation could not establish either result.

TM-OBS-008 — No inference from absence. Inaccessibility, timeout, permission failure, parse failure, or missing evidence MUST NOT be normalized to an expected operational state. An unreachable service is not thereby stopped or healthy.

TM-OBS-009 — Stable aggregate semantics. When checks are aggregated, the result MUST be mismatch if any requested check mismatches; otherwise unknown if any requested check is unknown; otherwise match.

Repair boundary

A separate apply or reconciliation path may respond to a mismatch. It must use the normal evidence, authority, review, and transition requirements. A reader that silently reconciles drift destroys the distinction it was meant to measure.