RCOS-Core v0.1 · §A Informative Draft
Glossary
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.
- 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.
How to cite
RCOS-Core v0.1, §A “Appendix A — Glossary”. EcoHubs, 2026. CC BY 4.0.