This specification defines mandatory constitutional requirements, prohibited behaviours, evidence expectations, determination outcomes and declaration rules for implementation conformance. It does not confer Verification, Recognition, Registry standing or authority for reliance.
1. Scope
This specification defines the conditions under which an implementation may claim conformance with the Responsibility Infrastructure Protocol. It evaluates the implementation's exported responsibility information and observable protocol behaviour. It does not prescribe internal architecture, APIs, storage, databases, workflows, runtime engines or user interfaces.
2. Normative Language
The terms MUST, MUST NOT, SHOULD, SHOULD NOT and MAY indicate mandatory requirements, prohibitions, recommendations, discouraged practices and permissions respectively. A conforming implementation satisfies every applicable MUST and MUST NOT requirement.
3. Constitutional Boundary
Protocol conformance is a technical determination. It does not constitute independent Verification, Recognition, Registry publication, standing, certification, endorsement or authority for external reliance.
4. Mandatory Requirements
| ID | Requirement |
|---|---|
| CONF-01 | An implementation MUST represent a stable Responsibility Record identifier. |
| CONF-02 | It MUST explicitly represent the responsible party, assigning or proposing party, defined responsibility, intended outcome and applicable time. |
| CONF-03 | It MUST represent the authority under which responsibility is proposed or assigned. |
| CONF-04 | It MUST distinguish proposal from acceptance and MUST NOT infer acceptance from silence, access, action or system presence. |
| CONF-05 | It MUST distinguish acceptance, rejection, delegation, withdrawal and expiry where those events occur. |
| CONF-06 | It MUST preserve current state and the attributable events that produced that state. |
| CONF-07 | It MUST attach or reference evidence without requiring a proprietary storage format. |
| CONF-08 | It MUST preserve event identity, actor, timestamp, event type and relationship to the relevant record or prior event. |
| CONF-09 | It MUST prevent silent alteration or deletion of material event history. |
| CONF-10 | It MUST permit an independent relying party to reconstruct the record's material lifecycle from exported information. |
| CONF-11 | It MUST keep Recording, Verification, Recognition, Standing, Registry publication, Resolution and Reliance distinguishable. |
| CONF-12 | It MUST NOT represent self-declaration or protocol conformance as independent Verification or Recognition. |
| CONF-13 | Where standing is communicated, it MUST identify the authoritative Registry source, status and resolution time. |
| CONF-14 | It MUST disclose unsupported, unavailable or not-established claims rather than silently treating them as satisfied. |
| CONF-15 | It MUST export sufficient information for the applicable RI-TEST-001 tests without requiring access to proprietary internal mechanics. |
5. Prohibited Behaviours
- Implied acceptance.
- Silent state replacement.
- Self-verification represented as independence.
- Registry standing created outside an authorised Registry publication.
- A static badge or receipt represented as current standing without resolution.
- Conformance conditioned on use of a named product, vendor, API, database or commercial model.
6. Determination
The only technical outcomes are Conformant, Non-conformant, or Indeterminate. Conformant means every applicable mandatory requirement passed. Non-conformant means at least one applicable mandatory requirement failed. Indeterminate means the evidence is insufficient to determine one or more applicable requirements. Requirements are not averaged and failures cannot be offset by strengths elsewhere.
7. Conformance Evidence
A determination MUST identify the implementation and version, Protocol version, test-suite version, evaluator, date, evidence examined, each requirement result, limitations and overall outcome.
8. Declaration
A self-declaration MUST use RI-DECL-001 or provide equivalent information. It MUST identify itself as self-declared, remain limited to the tested version and disclose exclusions and unresolved tests.
9. Future Profiles
Future domain profiles MAY add requirements but MUST NOT weaken the constitutional requirements in this specification. Assurance levels are governed separately by RI-LEVEL-001 and do not create degrees of technical conformance.
- 2026-08-03Drafted · Version 0.1 Working Draft prepared