Behavioral authority
Type: kb/types/definition.md · Tags: learning-theory, artifact-analysis
Behavioral authority records how a retained artifact becomes behavior-shaping: the consumer, the channel, and the force. The same stored object can have different authority in different consumption paths, so authority belongs to the use of an operative part, not to bytes alone.
Scope
The consumer may be a model, router, retriever, runtime, validator, reviewer, maintainer, assembler, or learning loop.
The channel may be retrieval, prompt assembly, execution, configuration, validation, routing, ranking, review, or training.
The force may be advice, instruction, enforcement, selection or ranking influence, audit trigger, or learning input. Audit records do not have force by themselves; they matter when a consumer acts on them.
Authority paths compose. One consumer's act is often the next path's channel — a retriever is a consumer whose output enters another consumer's channel — so a full path is a chain, and a record names one link of it.
Use the term behavioral authority to make the older knowledge/system-definition distinction precise. A knowledge artifact is consumed as evidence, reference, context, explanation, or advice. A system-definition artifact is consumed with instruction, enforcement, routing, validation, configuration, evaluation, or learning force. These are authority-path families, not intrinsic artifact classes; the field is more precise because it names the actual consumer, channel, and force.
Exclusions
Declared intent is not enough. An advisory note may acquire high effective authority if it is always included in a late prompt position; a formal policy may have no effective authority if no component loads it. Placement within a channel is part of effective authority — the late-prompt example turns on position, not on the channel's kind.
Misuse Cases
- Saying a memory "is active" without naming whether it advises a model, enters an instruction channel, enforces validation, influences ranking, or feeds training.
- Treating a Markdown file as low-authority because it is natural-language, even when the harness loads it as standing instruction.
Relevant Notes:
- operative part - unit: authority attaches to the behavior-shaping part and consumption path
- lineage - interaction: derived artifacts with high authority need stronger invalidation discipline
- retained artifact - parent concept: the persisted state whose later use may shape behavior
- knowledge artifact - authority family: evidence, reference, context, explanation, or advice
- system-definition artifact - authority family: instruction, enforcement, routing, validation, configuration, evaluation, or learning input
- a consumption channel delivers force without the history that earned it - failure surface: the path confers force on its occupant without reading how it got there
- six Commonplace paths establish broad addressability, not completeness - evidence boundary: scoped gates and validators expose applicability as an unresolved addition to the current record