# SCOPE

> This file helps you quickly understand what this repository is about,
> when it is relevant, and when it is not.
> It is intentionally lightweight and may be incomplete.
>
> Aspirational charter: `INTENT.md` · Research agenda: `ResearchProgram.md` ·
> Conceptual draft: `SoulFrameIntroduction.md` ·
> Scope-vs-intent gap assessment: `history/260928-scope-intent-gap-assessment.md`

---

## One-liner

A systems-theoretic research program and conceptual framework for person-like
informational beings (Body = Action, Mind = Model, Soul = Relation) — through
its foundational phases and holding a research-grounded paper draft.

---

## Core Idea

Soul Frame develops a small, coherent vocabulary for describing biological,
artificial, fictionalized, and potentially non-human **Beings** as interacting
informational systems — without requiring a solved theory of consciousness, and
without silently equating descriptive personhood with moral or legal status.

Central question:

> **When does an informational system become someone that another someone can know?**

---

## What the repo actually holds (as of 2026-09-28)

Phases I–IX are complete (SOUL-WP-0001 … SOUL-WP-0010, all finished):

- **Concept set** — 13 working definitions in `concepts/` plus three criteria
  documents (`concepts/criteria/`), including itemized B1–B8 (autonomous
  individuality) and P1–P12 (descriptive personhood) profiles
- **Research instruments** — `Terminology.md`, `Claims.md` (H1–H10, all
  supported/revised through phase review), `OpenQuestions.md` (RQ1–RQ8 with
  working answers; itemized OQ registers), `ThoughtExperiments.md` (TE-01–09+
  with working judgments)
- **Literature base** — `sources/bibliography.md` (SF-R### ledger),
  discipline-organized maps under `research/` for all 13 workstreams touched
  so far, five phase syntheses plus `research/research-synthesis.md`
- **Paper** — `paper/draft.md`: first research-grounded draft, adversarially
  reviewed (SOUL-WP-0009), publication pathway decided: internal circulation
  as **paper-one for coulomb-research**, then pre-print → journal
- **Companion line (moral/legal)** — charter
  (`research/law-governance/moral-legal-personhood-charter.md`) plus first
  slice executed (legal personhood precedent survey); items 2–4 unstarted
- **Metrics groundwork** — measurability scoping across all axes
  (`research/metrics-scoping-note.md`) and instrument scoping for B3 +
  psychological continuity; instrument *build* is founder-gated (open hub
  decision `0401cf28`)

## In Scope (current work surface)

- Refining weighting/sufficiency questions for the B-, P-, and continuity
  profiles (RQ1/RQ2/RQ5 residuals; paper §17 item 2)
- Exercising INTENT's success criterion: applying the full vocabulary across
  the nine reference entity types with meaningful distinctions
- Resolving paper-critical packaging questions (e.g. Soul: relations vs
  consequences, RQ4 remainder)
- Further companion-line slices (charter items 2–4) and law/governance
  deepening — under the charter's own gates
- Instrument development for scoped metrics — only after decision `0401cf28`
  is resolved
- Carrying the paper through the coulomb-research internal-circulation stage

## Out of Scope

| Concern | Belongs elsewhere |
| ------- | ----------------- |
| Production agent runtime / harness | agent-harness, activity-core, runtime repos |
| LLM provider routing and tooling | llm-connect, related infra |
| Claiming to solve consciousness | philosophy programs; not a gate here |
| Silent moral/legal personhood claims | companion line only (charter-gated); no premature derivation |
| Shipping product features as primary deliverable | downstream architecture repos after conceptual clarity |
| "Practical architecture for artificial beings" (INTENT det. 6b) | downstream repos; conceptual clarity feeds it, this repo does not build it |

---

## Workplan prefix

`SOUL-WP`

## Domain / hub

- **Domain:** `agents`
- **Repo slug:** `soul-frame`
- **Secondary:** `infotech` (conceptual/platform adjacency)