This glossary provides informative definitions for key terms used throughout the RCOS specification.
Glossary entries do not introduce new requirements and do not override normative sections.
Accountability
The expectation that roles and members can be asked to explain actions, outcomes, and adherence to agreed rules, with defined review and correction mechanisms.
Accountability Protocol
An artifact defining how violations, harms, or repeated failures are reviewed, documented, and addressed, including due process, safeguards, and escalation paths.
Artifact
A documented, versioned object (e.g. protocol, registry, charter) adopted through an authorized process and used to operationalize RCOS layers.
Authority Boundary
The explicit limits within which a role, circle, or body may make decisions or act.
Change Protocol
An artifact defining how changes are proposed, reviewed, adopted, published, and rolled back, including decision type classification and emergency provisions.
Commons
Resources governed collectively under explicit stewardship, access, and decision rules.
Community
A group of people who voluntarily coordinate around a shared purpose within a defined scope and governance system.
Compliance
The state of meeting all mandatory requirements of RCOS-Core across Layers 0–6.
Conflict Resolution Ladder
A staged conflict process defining minimum resolution steps and escalation thresholds, from low-intensity repair to governance review and, if necessary, separation.
Constitutional Decision
A decision that modifies Layer 0 purpose, scope, invariants, or identity constraints, or the governance system itself.
Decision Matrix
A governance artifact mapping decision types and domains to authorized roles, mechanisms, thresholds, and escalation paths.
Decision Type
A classification of decisions (Operational, Strategic, Constitutional) used to determine authority and process.
Due Process
The minimum fairness guarantees required before restricting rights, applying sanctions, or triggering separation, including notice, review, and appeal pathways as defined.
Emergency Change
A time-bounded change enacted under explicitly defined emergency conditions, requiring post-hoc review and ratification or rollback.
Explicit
Written, adopted, accessible, and reviewable.
Anything not explicit is treated as non-existent under RCOS.
Explicitness Rule
The principle that mechanisms allocating power, risk, responsibility, or exit conditions must be written, adopted, and reviewable.
Experiment
A time-bounded, reversible change adopted for learning and evaluation.
Exit & Separation Protocol
An artifact defining voluntary exit, forced exit due process, and separation of assets, roles, access, and obligations.
Governance Protocol
An artifact defining the decision lifecycle (proposal, deliberation, adoption, documentation, review) and how governance conflicts are resolved.
In-Scope / Out-of-Scope
In-scope refers to people, assets, domains, and activities explicitly governed by the community. Out-of-scope refers to everything explicitly excluded or not declared in scope.
Internal Economy Protocol
An artifact defining contribution recognition and any internal exchange mechanisms, including accumulation constraints and dispute correction.
Invariant
A non-negotiable constraint that cannot be overridden while it is in force.
Layer
A functional domain of RCOS that defines a specific aspect of community operation.
Learning Log
An artifact capturing major failures, adaptations, reversals, and lessons learned, including triggers, affected artifacts, and outcomes.
Member
A person who has explicitly entered the community through the defined membership process.
Optional Module
A domain-specific extension that builds on RCOS-Core without altering its mandatory layers.
Registry
An artifact that records a set of authoritative entries (e.g., roles, resources, membership states) with clear ownership, update rules, and version history.
Reference Implementation
A real-world community that publicly documents its application of RCOS-Core.
Role
An explicitly defined bundle of responsibilities, authority, and accountability, independent of the person holding it.
Safety-Critical
A condition where physical, psychological, or child safety is at risk, requiring elevated safeguards and potentially immediate protective action.
Sanction
A defined, documented restriction or corrective action applied through authorized process, proportionate to a violation and subject to review.
Scope
The explicitly declared domains, assets, and activities over which the community exercises authority.
Stewardship
Responsibility for care, maintenance, and governance of a resource within defined boundaries.
Treasury
The set of shared resources, balances, obligations, and commitments held under collective rules.
Treasury Ruleset
An artifact defining how treasury resources are held, spent, reported, audited, and constrained, including thresholds and conflict-of-interest rules.
Transparency Exception
An explicitly defined, justified, time-bounded limitation on information access that still permits compliance auditing.
Version History
An artifact recording which version is in force and documenting adopted changes, effective dates, and decision references.