---
id: commerce-core
title: CommerceCanon Core
status: draft
version: 0.1.1-draft
---

# CommerceCanon Core

CommerceCanon owns counterparty and commercial-relationship semantics. It is
an independently maintained domain canon governed by Custodian canon and the
accepted CUST-ADR-006 ownership resolutions. This draft kernel establishes the
repository boundary; the [counterparty model](../models/counterparty/CommerceCanonCounterpartyModel.md)
is now registered separately as draft 0.1.0.

## Authority and migration

The [federation ledger](../../../prj-canon-federation/ledger/README.md) assigns
one owner per concept and pins the original identity-canon glossary. The old
[glossary](../../canon/CanonicalGlossary.md) and
[principles](../../canon/DesignPrinciples.md) remain migration inputs, not an
alternative registry of CommerceCanon-owned definitions. The
[registry](../../canon.yaml) lists only artifacts present here; it registers the draft counterparty model; standards remain unregistered.

## Ownership boundary

| Concept or concept family | Owning model | CommerceCanon treatment |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Actor, Person, Agent, Organization, Group, Role, Membership, Ownership | itc-org | Import; commercial roles do not replace actor or ownership semantics. |
| Subject, Principal, Relationship Tuple | itc-access | Import; commercial binding does not grant authorization. |
| Obligation, Decision, AssuranceCase, AssuranceConclusion, Audit | itc-gov | Import; a commercial commitment may relate to obligations without redefining them. |
| Identifier, Account, Scope, Assurance Level and ledger-assigned identity concepts | itc-ident (draft 0.1.0) | Import; identifier specializations retain upstream identity semantics. |
| Evidence, Evidence Source, Adjudication Outcome, general evidence strength | itc-evid (draft 0.1.0) | Import assertions and their addressable sources as distinct concepts. |
| Community, Household | itc-org social extension (draft 0.1.0) | Available boundary references; not added to Counterparty’s 25 declared imports. |
| Family | Separate InfoTechCanon concept-area seed (seeded, not authored) | Reference only; not a CommerceCanon collective-actor definition. |

Existing upstream models are [organization](../../../info-tech-canon/infospace/models/organization/InfoTechCanonOrganizationModel.md),
[access control](../../../info-tech-canon/infospace/models/access-control/InfoTechCanonAccessControlModel.md),
and [governance](../../../info-tech-canon/infospace/models/governance/InfoTechCanonGovernanceModel.md).
T11 transferred Evidence ownership to ITC-EVID; governance now imports it.
T05 consolidated Delegation into identity under accepted ownership, with
Organization retaining an import. Counterparty's import manifest pins the
reviewed identity, evidence, organization and governance sources.

There is no single imported concept called “Assurance” covering all uses.
Identity Assurance Level is distinct from governance AssuranceCase and
AssuranceConclusion. The Counterparty Assurance Gradient is CommerceCanon's
named application of general evidence strength, not ownership of that dimension.

## Commerce model boundary

The counterparty model defines the ledger's commerce assignments: legal entities and persons,
beneficial ownership relationships and exemptions, customer and vendor roles,
commercial relationships and commitments, payment references and mandates,
pipeline pursuits, commercial records, counterparty assurance, reputation and
performance assertions, and registry/proxy commercial identifiers. The
model supplies the definitions; this kernel retains the ownership boundary.

Registry Identifier and Proxy Commercial Identifier specialize imported
Identifier. Reputation Signal, Performance Evidence, and Beneficial Ownership
Exemption must distinguish evidence assertions from their sources. Adjudication
Outcome remains imported from itc-evid. The model carries P14 (separate commercial records
from accounts) and P15 (model commercial binding explicitly).

## Contribution and acceptance

New content starts with a named consumer's signal in [demand](../../demand/).
Implementation belongs in repository workplans. A model must declare its owned
concepts, explicit imports, provenance, and examples before registry publication.
Validate assignments against the federation ledger and review for duplicate
ownership. Historical source material is preserved in the [T07 provenance workspace](../assimilation/canon-federation/README.md).

[Repository layout](../../docs/RepositoryLayout.md) explains content placement.
The [federation interface card](../interfaces/federation.yaml) declares imports,
exports and reciprocal canon references. The [upstream review](../models/counterparty/import-review-2026-09-06.md)
records the T12/T13 source review while preserving the previous import manifest.
Runtime services, a CLI, and production APIs are outside this foundation scope.