# Fractal User Document Pair Procedure v0.2

> **CANONICAL SPECIFICATION (Ratified 2026-08-19, the twenty-ninth Code session — Max's "ratified" on the dedicated-folder direction; C-126; v0.1 ratified the same week per C-124/C-125 — Max's commission of record: *"let a stranger know about the user docs already done but also let them know they can expand it with a simple standardised process"*).** The standard process for the **user-document pair series** — how an instance's human-facing windows relate to their governance originals, which pairs are **kernel**, where the user halves **live** (v0.2), and the simple standardized way to **extend** the series with a new pair. Distilled from executed practice (C-094): the mother's three kernel pairs plus her first extension (the Update Plan pair).

**Version:** 0.2 · **Status:** Ratified (2026-08-19, in-conversation per C-033 — Max's "ratified" on the dedicated-folder proposal; protocol at this session's close) · **Reviewed By:** Max (2026-08-19 — the folder his direction of record: *"sometimes it would be simply easier to open the agenda board myself instead of asking you. therefore the user docs should have dedicated folder I can go to in the folder system"*; the v0.1 tiering and takeover sentences stand) · **Domain:** GOV · **Author:** Claude · **Parent:** C-122 (the mirror doctrine) · Fractal_Agenda_Board_Format (the bar grammar) · **Supersedes:** Fractal_User_Document_Pair_Procedure_v0.1 (retained as history, its own DOC identity per C-061) · **Document ID:** DOC-01M0DJTBQKPNCR26KS7401N9TZ (minted at this close via `close.py --create`)

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## 1 · The doctrine (why pairs)

The AI works from a **governance spine**; the human should never have to read it to know where things stand. So every human-facing window is the **derived half of a pair** whose original is a governance document: one substrate, two reader-matched faces (C-122 — the mirror doctrine). Four laws govern every pair:

1. **The original governs, the user half informs.** The user document is a derived projection (C-035 class) — when the two disagree, the original is right and the projection is stale; the stamp naming the original's version and date *is* the divergence signal.
2. **One home, pointers elsewhere.** The content lives in the original; every other projection — the board included — links it instead of carrying it (the diet discipline, C-095 class).
3. **The sorting rule** (C-122): a change to the *path* lands on the stable pole, *work* lands on the dynamic pole, anything *surfaced mid-task* lands in the buffer.
4. **Structure holds the reasoning's standard (C-125 — the takeover gate).** Governed structure here *takes over interpretation the AI agent's reasoning previously carried ungoverned* — and it inherits that carrier's standard whole: **nothing the richer carrier held may be dropped in the handover.** The mechanism is §3 step 4's gate; the responsibility is the owner's sentence of record — *"the governance structure needs to hold this standard and constitutionalise it."* Structure carries the facts and the law; interpretation stays a live act each session — the guarantee is lossless handover, traceable citations, and a divergence signal wherever structure and reality part.

## 2 · The kernel tier — three pairs, fixed (every instance has these)

| Governance original | User half | The window it gives the human |
|---|---|---|
| **Global Context** (stable pole — vision + realisation) | **Roadmap** | the path: the big moves in order, phase grain |
| **Local Context** (dynamic pole — the state of work) | **Agenda Board** (Fractal_Agenda_Board_Format — ships at birth) | the state: where work stands, session grain |
| **Fieldnote buffer** (the shared write-surface — governance-side, RAM per C-121) | **Fieldnote Handout** | the manual: how to operate the one organ the human writes into |

The three **governance originals exist from birth** (Global, Local, and the buffer are all born at genesis), so the pair shape is kernel, not optional. The user halves render over the instance's own content: the board is **offered actively** when open threads accumulate (C-102); Roadmap and Handout follow the mother's specimens as reference shapes. A newborn learning the system learns exactly this table — these are *the user docs already done*.

**Where the halves live (C-126 — the location law, v0.2):** all user halves live together in **one dedicated folder at the repo root — `User Documents/`** — the human's own place in the folder system, openable directly without asking the AI and without descending into governance territory. **Governance originals stay in their natural homes** — the pair split is visible in the folder system itself. The folder is passive structure: it appears the day the instance renders its first user half, and is never pre-scaffolded by genesis (nothing to maintain, nothing to drift). The user halves cross-link relatively, so the folder moves as one piece.

## 3 · The extension process (the simple standardized way to add a pair)

Not every window is universal — an instance adds a pair **on felt need, never by anticipation** (the C-079 tier rule). Five steps, one sitting:

1. **Name the pair.** One governance original — living document, stable filename, in its natural home — and one user half in the instance's **`User Documents/`** folder (§2's location law), beside its other windows.
2. **Declare the roles in both banners.** The original: what it collects, and its **content class** — durable, or **RAM** (temporary by construction; if RAM, state the dissolution rule: where the content freezes when spent, per the C-121 pattern). The user half: *derived projection of `<original>` — when the two disagree, the original is right*, stamped with the original's version/date.
3. **Wire the glance-path.** The user half joins the **user-document bar** on every user document (the Board Format's bar grammar — one pill, `name — the <role>`, extension pills after the kernel four; absent entries are deleted, so the bar always tells the truth).
4. **Point, never duplicate — and walk the takeover gate (C-125).** Every projection that previously carried the content now links the original and says only what state it is in (the board's grammar: *`<name>` — open* → link). **Before the pointer replaces the carried content:** trace **every fact** of the replaced carrier — prose, agent-reasoned nuance, parenthetical constraints included — to its one new home (the Diet Procedure's fact-presence gate, generalized to every takeover); then the behaviour test — the slimmed surface still serves its reader end-to-end. A fact with no home either moves into the original **before** the replacement lands, or the replacement does not land. The gate is not diligence, it is law: the first walk of it caught a real loss in the very session that wrote this procedure.
5. **Record the adoption.** One decision row (`P-…` / `C-…`) names the pair, its content class, and its retirement rule — a pair born on felt need retires the same way: deleted whole, the bar entries with it, the decision row the memory.

## 4 · The executed specimen — the Update Plan pair (the mother's first extension)

**`Fractal_Update_Plan.md`** (governance original, `Claude/Context Packages/`) + **`Fractal_Update_Plan.html`** (user half, `User Documents/`): the **release lane's** collected to-do path — RAM at release scale (the plan lives while a release forms; at the pack it freezes into the tagging close's records and resets to the next target). Born 2026-08-19 on the owner's commission; the Agenda Board slimmed to *update beta-0.6 — open* + link in the same act (step 4 executed). **Instance-tier by nature:** a project that never ships releases never needs it — which is exactly why it is an extension and not kernel.

## 5 · Adoption and the checker half

- **An existing instance** adopts this procedure by its own recorded decision (Registry rule 5) and applies §3 whenever a window is wanted; the kernel tier (§2) it already has by construction. **Adopting v0.2 includes the move:** the instance's user halves relocate to `User Documents/` — one `git mv`, relative links re-based (the Board Format v0.3 §4 mechanics).
- **A newborn** receives this procedure in the kernel: the §2 table tells it what it was born with; §3 tells it how to grow more — nothing to install, everything to know.
- **Checker half:** prose-first (Registry rule 2). Build trigger: the bar's mechanical verification (when user documents are ever generated or checked by tool, the pair stamps and bar entries are the checkable surface) — or a conformance dispute.

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**Refresh triggers:** a kernel-tier change (a pair added to or removed from §2 — a C-122-class doctrine act, never routine); a field-proven change to the extension steps; the Board Format's bar grammar moving (the coupling is deliberate).
**Sources:** C-122 (the mirror doctrine — Roadmap ↔ Global, Board ↔ Local, the buffer shared, the sorting rule) and the pair-series direction of record (2026-08-19: the buffer is governance-side, the Handout its user half; the kernel/extension tiering — *"not every project will need an upgrade path"*); **C-125** (the takeover gate — structure holds the reasoning's standard; the Diet Procedure's fact-presence gate + behaviour test the mechanism, generalized from diets to every takeover); **C-126** (the dedicated folder — the owner's direction of record; the location law, §2); Fractal_Agenda_Board_Format_v0.3 (the bar grammar + the board-shaped face of the location law); Fractal_Fieldnote_Format_v0.2 + C-121 (the RAM content class); C-095/C-110 (one home, pointers); C-079 (tiers by felt absence); the mother's executed pairs (the three kernel windows + the Update Plan, §4).
**Revision history:** v0.1 (2026-08-19) first issue — the pair series made a standard at the birth of its first extension: the doctrine (§1), the kernel trio fixed (§2), the five-step extension process (§3), the Update Plan the executed specimen (§4); ships in the kernel so every stranger learns both what exists and how to grow it. §1 law 4 + the §3 takeover gate entered in the same issue (C-125 — the owner's responsibility sentence of record; the gate's first walk, run over this very session's slimming, caught and cured one dropped fact — the serial-sessions constraint — before anything was committed: the law's own proof of need). · v0.2 (2026-08-19) **the dedicated-folder reissue (C-126 — the owner's direction of record: the human opens their own windows in the folder system):** §2 gains the **location law** — all user halves in `User Documents/` at the repo root, originals in their natural homes, the folder born on first use and never pre-scaffolded; §3 steps 1 and 3 name the folder and the extension-pill grammar; §4's specimen carries both paths; §5 gains the adoption-move mechanics. §1's law count corrected in the same pass ("three laws" → four — v0.1 listed four under a stale count, law 4 having entered in the same issue). Doctrine otherwise unchanged.