# Independent enterprise research: EM-XCT-04 — Time, states and versions

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## Boundary to challenge

Companies need to ask both “what was effective at a date?” and “what did this Dimension know at a date?”, correct late information without rewriting past knowledge, bind each object revision to an exact schema, and retain domain-specific state vocabulary. A startup must need no mandatory ERP; an international group may have multiple scopes/masters; an AI organization must separate model artifact versions, deployment states and records about those states. These are synthetic profiles, not facts about named companies.

Provisional result: a small original companion contract for an append-only bitemporal fact timeline, with typed schema and lifecycle-profile bindings. It must be independently discoverable and downloadable, not masquerade as a subtype of an existing WM ID. Reuse the parent concepts by exact semantic references; runtime imports are empty unless genuine executable dependency compatibility is demonstrated. Reject unnecessary invention: recommend reuse/profile/decomposition instead if justified. Domain events, transitions, revision identity, schema version, status code, record time, valid time and observation time must not collapse into a single field.

The common registry candidates are TemporalValidity, Revision, LifecycleTransition, SchemaBinding. Each candidate needs an explicit disposition even if deferred/delegated. No universal domain lifecycle. No full database/statechart engine, IAM, legal-retention engine, distributed consensus, calendar/zone conversion or source-authenticity claim. Archival must not destroy retained history; erasure is separate and cannot promise eternal retention against local rules.

## Existing exact Vercy specifications

Codex has fetched full local specifications, recursively parsed every section and verified live bytes equal the following pins on 2026-09-21. This is structural inspection, not independent verification of all historical citations. Please retrieve these primary artifacts when practical; say explicitly if you cannot read their entire contents.

1. WM-XCT-009 / vr.wm-xct-009 Time / Calendar, 0.3.0-research.1:
   https://ver.cy/models/wm-xct-009-time-calendar/spec.yaml
   sha256:060511804c09ed5992e3fdf222839f97a0d340db0a2cba3c4c08aded7767e90d
   7 bundles, 20 layers/findings, 111 questions. Temporal reference scales, timezone rules, calendar/era/week, instants/intervals/durations, precision/open bounds/binding mode, recurrence, holidays and working days, governed reference-data releases. Broad conceptual value shapes; no verified executable instance contract. It excludes synchronization, calendar participation, jurisdiction geometry, legal entitlement, and domain deadline policy. Holds: live editions/claim support and jurisdiction-specific rules; uncertain dates/calendar reform/clock provenance deferred.
2. WM-XCT-021 / vr.wm-xct-021 Lifecycle / Status, 0.3.0-research.1:
   https://ver.cy/models/wm-xct-021-lifecycle-status/spec.yaml
   sha256:87c8c50f6f4c2eb3478751f01a08c6c37c6a85f97f4c056505b13cdf561314e9
   5 bundles, 12 layers, 32 findings, 128 questions. Versioned governed machine, axes/configurations, assertion/transition history, valid/record/observation time, retroactive correction, succession/deprecation/revocation/disposition, resolution/visibility. Domain state meaning is expressly owned by host; general version diff/branch/merge, provenance, IAM, workflows, calendars and formal state-machine verification excluded. Holds: all source edition checks and clinical/workflow/release/records profile validation.
3. WM-XCT-022 / vr.wm-xct-022 Version / Change History, 0.3.0-research.2:
   https://ver.cy/models/wm-xct-022-version-change-history/spec.yaml
   sha256:40ced88212f4c90690bdbb35bf2429fe627d11793bee5e587b5b10b99f49fe85
   Revision identifiers vs series/designation, predecessor DAG, change sets, compatibility/migration, temporal/state, authority/fixity, history access/retention/exchange. General effective time delegated; distributed convergence, storage, IAM, legal retention, host domain attributes excluded. Holds: live source pins and profiles, inaccessible/paywalled standards, bitemporal support partial (no normative SQL source read), source-ID remapping, catalog-record vs resource revision boundary. Keep these holds rather than claiming to fix parents.

All three runtime entries are published/installable as semantic drafts, with no resolved runtime imports. Conceptual composition references are NOT executable imports or inherited readiness.

Adjacent already published bounded companions:
- https://ver.cy/models/enterprise-identity/ — identity references, not identity proofs.
- https://ver.cy/models/enterprise-fact-authority/ — authority declarations, not IAM.
- https://ver.cy/models/enterprise-assertion-provenance/ — evidence/assertion/review records, not automatic truth; it deliberately distinguishes historical metadata correction from a new domain event and first receipt from revised metadata.

## Core problem and executable acceptance

Synthetic assignment timeline: a host initially records on January 10 that a role assignment is effective January 1 onward to Team A. On February 10 it learns that Team B actually applied January 20 onward. At valid February 1 / known January 31 answer A; at valid February 1 / known February 11 answer B; valid January 15 still A. Query at exact interval end must not include the ended segment. Historical query before first receipt returns unknown, not current data or a false negative. Empty or uncovered scope is insufficient context, not evidence the fact is false.

Consider an implementable narrow design: one governed single-valued fact scope (Dimension + subject + predicate + context), append-only commits with host-assigned strictly increasing receipt sequence and receipt instants, immutable full timeline snapshots per commit, half-open valid intervals [from,to), null end explicitly open; overlapping segments prohibited within a snapshot, gaps allowed/unknown. Correction replaces the *current assertion timeline* by a new complete snapshot; every previous snapshot remains queryable by knowledge cutoff. Snapshot size bounded. Source event/observation times are optional metadata and cannot alter host receipt. Import idempotency key binds the original request digest; same key/different bytes conflicts; expected-head guards lost updates. Competing claims cannot silently overwrite: write authority/conflict policy is a trusted host precondition, optionally separate contested scopes; rejecting a write should preserve a host conflict artifact, not fabricate a winner.

Should per-segment schema binding and lifecycle-profile binding be immutable keyed records with schema ID/version/digest plus domain state axes? Or should this first executable contract treat payload as opaque pinned artifacts and lifecycle transitions as externally governed evidence? Assess both. Enforcing a declared allowed state list is not proof a domain transition occurred, was legal, or authorized. Statechart history pseudostates are not audit history. Schema version should have an explicit version grammar; object revision identifier is opaque; state string `active` cannot stand in for schema version. No automatic claim that SemVer compatibility or digest integrity proves semantic validity.

Clock precision and timezone must be stated. A narrow UTC-second profile may reject unsupported precision, offset/local/unknown-zone dates and leap seconds with an explicit adapter requirement; it must never silently truncate. Receipt sequence must disambiguate equal receipt instants or reject them; choose an explicit design. Don't allow the caller to forge historic knowledge by setting recorded time. Offline bootstrap must clearly separate imported source history from first local receipt and require trusted host configuration. Read access to history is checked at the time of query, not by replaying historic permissions. A reference callable that receives host-trusted policy decisions is not a security boundary.

## Required research output

1. Boundary verdict, minimum useful profile and alternatives; disposition each four registry candidates.
2. Compare at least three schools: primary temporal/state/version standards or ontology; real open system temporal implementation; alternative (event-sourcing/records/revision DAG). Starter primary sources: W3C OWL-Time (note latest URL may be a 2022 CR draft), W3C SCXML Recommendation 2015, XTDB current temporal docs, Microsoft system-versioned temporal tables, SemVer 2.0.0, W3C PROV. Do not claim ISO/SQL conformance or paywalled clauses.
3. Types/identity/lifecycle, fields, cardinalities, ownership/mastership, disclosure, the five whole-object facets per exported type.
4. At least 15 question routes through Bundle → Layer → Finding → Question → Artifact → allowed action, including unknown/missing context behavior.
5. At least 8 testable invariants and 10 meaningful negatives, including historical correction, idempotency, head conflict, denied historical read, incompatible schema binding, clock misuse, overlap/gaps, archive, unsupported downgrade.
6. Three synthetic applicable profiles (startup, international matrix group, AI release), migration and loss limits, adapters not silently executable.
7. Strongest counterexamples to the tentative design, unresolved holds, and specific implementation acceptance criteria. Distinguish observed/source-asserted/inference/proposal/unverified claims. Prefer precise implementable decisions over a very large universal ontology.

End with your actual research limitations. Do not emit a publication approval or pretend to have audited future code.