Documentation Framework
The canonical documentation model of Lattice Core
The Lattice Core documentation framework separates governance, architecture, standards and conformance, detailed specification, explanation, and architectural mapping into documents with defined responsibilities and authority boundaries.
The LSN Foundation governs and stewards the canonical corpus, maintains its public document record, and provides continuity across publication, change, supersession, and archival history.
Canonical Documentation Model
Five Substantive Documents
The canonical corpus contains five substantive documents: LCGD, LCAD, LCStD, LCSpD, and LCED.
These documents are not merely different forms of presentation. They have distinct responsibilities and, where applicable, distinct forms of subject-matter authority.
One Non-Substantive Atlas
LCAAD provides the architectural atlas and corpus map. It identifies where canonical subjects are defined, supports navigation and traceability, and maps relationships across the corpus.
LCAAD does not acquire substantive authority over the governance, architecture, standards, specifications, or other material that it maps.
Authority Boundaries
The distinction between the canonical documents is an authority boundary. Documents may discuss related subjects and repeat context where useful, but no document acquires another document's authority merely by discussing or repeating the same material.
Canonical Documents
LCGD
Governance
The Lattice Core Governance Document establishes the governance framework under which the canonical architecture, documentation, and wider corpus are maintained and changed.
It defines governance authority, change conditions, stewardship processes, document lifecycle, and applicable governance constraints.
LCAD
Architecture
The Lattice Core Architecture Document establishes the architecture of Lattice Core and is the controlling source for questions of what Lattice Core is architecturally.
It defines architectural constituents, relationships, responsibilities, boundaries, invariants, primitives, canonical layers, and other architecture-level conditions.
LCStD
Standards & Conformance
The Lattice Core Standards Document formalises normative standards and conformance requirements derived from the LCAD.
It makes architectural requirements testable and normatively precise without introducing or redefining architecture.
LCSpD
Detailed Specification
The Lattice Core Specification Document expresses detailed technical and functional specification material derived from the LCAD and LCStD.
It provides the detail required to realise and evaluate conforming Lattice Core behaviour without redefining the architecture or standards from which it derives.
LCED
Explanation
The Lattice Core Explainer Document explains Lattice Core conceptually and accessibly.
It may teach, contextualise, illustrate, and interpret the canonical architecture, standards, and specification material, but it does not hold governance, architectural, standards, or specification authority.
LCAAD
Architecture Atlas & Corpus Map
The Lattice Core Architecture Atlas Document is the non-substantive architectural atlas and corpus map.
It supports navigation, cross-document mapping, provenance, and traceability without becoming an alternative source of substantive canonical definition.
Subject-Matter Authority
Authority within the canonical corpus is determined by subject matter. The framework is not a simplistic hierarchy in which one document universally overrides every other document.
Governance and change authority — LCGD. Governance-process, stewardship, lifecycle, and change-authority questions are controlled by the LCGD.
Architecture — LCAD. Architectural questions are controlled by the LCAD within the governance framework established by the LCGD.
Standards and conformance — LCStD. Standards and conformance questions are controlled by the LCStD, subject to the architecture established by LCAD and the governance framework established by LCGD.
Detailed specification — LCSpD. Detailed specification questions are controlled by the LCSpD, subject to LCStD, LCAD, and the applicable governance framework.
Explanation — LCED. Where explanatory wording conflicts with a substantive authoritative document, the substantive authoritative document controls.
Mapping — LCAAD. Where an atlas entry or mapping conflicts with substantive canonical material, the substantive canonical source controls.
Derivation & Boundaries
How the Documents Relate
LCGD governs the conditions under which the canonical corpus, including LCAD, is maintained and changed. LCAD establishes the architecture from which standards and specifications derive.
LCStD formalises standards and conformance requirements derived from that architecture. LCSpD supplies detailed specification derived from the architecture and its standards.
LCED explains the canonical system without redefining it. LCAAD maps the corpus and its relationships without substantive authority.
Derivation Does Not Transfer Authority
Standards may formalise and constrain conformance to the architecture, but they may not create architecture that LCAD does not establish.
Specifications may provide detailed mechanisms and interfaces only within the architecture and standards from which they derive.
Explanation and mapping may make the corpus easier to understand and navigate, but neither can amend substantive canonical meaning.
Publication Status & Document Records
Canonical Identity
A document's place within the canonical documentation framework is distinct from the publication status of a particular version.
The six document classes remain visible as part of the current canonical framework whether their current state is pre-release, under verification, published, superseded, or archived.
Public Document Records
Each document has its own Foundation record through which its current public state, version information, release material, and relevant historical continuity can be presented.
Publication therefore changes the state of the document record; it does not change the identity or structure of the canonical documentation framework.
Architecture First. Explanation Second.
The canonical corpus is being aligned against the authoritative architecture before public release. Documents are published as the applicable verification, governance, and publication processes are completed.
Version History & Archive
Version History
Canonical documents are identified by document class and version so that readers, implementers, researchers, and governance participants can determine which edition they are consulting and its status within the corpus.
The version history provides a persistent public record of published editions and their documentary status.
Archive
Superseded and retired material may remain available as part of the historical and provenance record without retaining current canonical authority.
The archive preserves documentary continuity while distinguishing historical structures and editions from the current canonical corpus.
Corpus Integrity
The documentation framework is designed to preserve identifiable authority, complete architecture, controlled derivation, and consistent meaning across the canonical corpus.
Every substantive proposition has an authority domain. Repetition elsewhere does not transfer that authority.
Architecture must be complete at the architectural level. Standards and specifications cannot be used to repair, redefine, or silently complete missing architecture.
Downstream documents remain downstream. Standards formalise conformance to architecture, and specifications provide detail within established architecture and standards.
Explanation cannot alter canonical meaning. Accessible presentation and interpretation remain subordinate to the substantive authority of the material being explained.
The atlas maps; it does not define. LCAAD provides navigation and traceability without becoming an alternative canonical source.
Change is governed. The documentation framework is not immutable. Changes occur through the applicable governance process and must preserve authority boundaries unless those boundaries are themselves formally amended.