060-Rationale becomes rests-on and off-pattern grounds are reclassified

Type: ../types/adr.md · Status: accepted

Status: accepted Date: 2026-07-28 Amends: ADR 019, ADR 020, and ADR 058

Context

ADR 058 requires every directional identifier to complete source <label> target. rationale instead names the target's role: its intended assertion is that a descriptive or prescriptive source rests on a theoretical target. grounds has the same grammatical defect, but its intended note→note premise-verification journey is distinct.

A corpus review classified all 134 active rationale edges: 114 are genuine design/rule dependencies, 2 are source-side evidence, and 18 are evidence or architecture/history relations. A separate adjudication classified the 38 grounds edges outside the canonical note→note cohort.

The review also exposed three authorization gaps: agentic-system analysis→note evidence, source analysis→agent-memory evidence, and three theoretical dependencies authored under kb/types/, which had no source collection contract.

Decision

Retire the directional identifier rationale and adopt:

source rests-on target

rests-on is asymmetric. It asserts that the source design, description, procedure, rule, or system-definition artifact depends on the target theoretical claim: rejecting or materially changing the target triggers reconsideration of the source. It is not a generic dependency, implementation, provenance, or evidence relation.

Keep the canonical note→note grounds cohort semantically distinct and unchanged in this migration. Its reader follows a theoretical assertion to assess its premise; its own source-as-subject identifier requires a later scoped review.

Every rationale edge and every off-pattern grounds edge is reclassified to the relation its assertion actually makes — rests-on, evidenced-by, is-evidence-for, implements, or compares-with — as individually adjudicated; none are removed.

Collection contracts replace rationale authorization with rests-on rather than retaining synonyms, gain is-evidence-for only where the source-side evidence journey was observed, and are not widened to authorize off-pattern grounds.

kb/types/ becomes a collection by gaining a minimal COLLECTION.md. It remains the global type layer; the collection contract governs text-level authoring and outbound links, while each type spec and schema continue to own type semantics. This removes the missing-source-contract exception instead of making the self-referential root type authorize its own links.

Operativity path: cp-skill-write and cp-skill-connect load the source COLLECTION.md; collection authors consult the shared catalogue; type-spec authors now load kb/types/COLLECTION.md; and the migrated active footer corpus teaches the same assertions in use.

Considered alternatives

Rename every rationale edge to rests-on. Rejected because 20 of 134 edges assert evidence, implementation, comparison, or decision history rather than theoretical dependency.

Merge rationale and grounds into one identifier. Rejected because 114 cross-register design/rule dependencies and 276 note→note premise-verification edges repeatedly create different follow and maintenance decisions. The 38 off-pattern grounds rows are drift, not evidence for merging.

Authorize the live off-pattern grounds pairings. Rejected because their assertions resolve cleanly to evidence or rests-on. Widening contracts would make historical drift authoritative.

Let the root type spec authorize links for kb/types/. Rejected because it would preserve a source-directory exception to collection-owned authorization and make a type contract govern its own routing. A minimal collection contract keeps type semantics and text/link governance separate.

Remove weak boundary links. Rejected after individual adjudication: every boundary edge has an articulated formal reader need under an existing or adopted relation.

Deciding forces were direct source-as-subject grammar, tuple conservation, stable reader journeys, and one authorization owner per source collection. The free choice was whether kb/types/ should remain an exception; the migration resolves it in favor of uniform collection ownership.

Consequences

Readers can interpret rests-on without silently reversing endpoints, and maintainers can distinguish design reconsideration from premise verification and evidence inspection. The canonical grounds cohort remains visible migration debt rather than being silently reinterpreted.

The global type layer now participates in collection routing and collection-conformance review. Adding or changing a global type must compose kb/types/COLLECTION.md with the type-spec contract, just as other authored artifacts compose collection and type contracts.

Relevant Notes: