# Demand: Emission Cadence activity scope — silence while a source is not running

**Status:** proposed (change proposal to the Emission Cadence standard)
**Date:** 2026-09-21
**Source:** net-kingdom (source owner), domain `infotech`
**Owner:** InfoTechCanon Emission Cadence standard (`standards/emission-cadence`)
**Consumer evidence:** `net-kingdom/local-identity/emission-cadence-findings.md` (commit `116643f`)
**Feedback:** `feedback/2026-09-21-net-kingdom-emission-cadence-declaration.md`
**Workplan:** `INFO-WP-0029` (T04 records it; no design workplan exists yet)

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## Demand signal

The first source-owned declaration came from a source that can emit only while
an attended process runs: `local-identity serve`, plus operator-invoked CLI
commands. For such a source, silence has two meanings. Silence while the
process runs may be a finding. Silence while the process is not running
carries no information. The contract cannot tell the two apart:

- `expected-rate` needs a floor. `expected_min: 0` is the only honest value,
  and with it silence means nothing.
- `heartbeat-or-reconciliation` with a heartbeat assumes a process that can
  emit `nothing-to-report`. Outside a session no such process exists.

The consumer fell back to reconciliation only. That preserves correctness but
leaves the observer unable to bound silence at all.

## Options named by the consumer

1. An **activity-scope** or session-bounded form. The source emits start/stop
   (or open/close) markers, and the cadence expectation applies only inside the
   bounded interval.
2. An explicit statement in the standard that session-scoped sources are out
   of scope. Such sources would then declare reconciliation only, and observers
   would not evaluate their silence.

## Constraints on a disposition

- A new form changes the wire schema (`0.1`). Under the `0.x` rules that is
  allowed with migration guidance. Existing declarations stay valid only if the
  form is additive.
- Declarations pinned before the change stay pinned to their digest. Stable
  promotion needs declarations against one fixed reading of the contract, so
  a schema change before stable resets which pin later evidence should use.
- This demand is not accepted. Choosing between the options, or rejecting both,
  is a canon-owner decision.