{ "vercy": "1.0-draft", "publication": { "status": "research-draft", "adjudicationStatus": "unreviewed", "publishableCanonical": false, "generatedAt": "2026-09-07T11:04:56Z", "providers": [ "Codex", "Grok" ], "missingProviders": [], "pass": 2, "cost": { "grok": { "usd": 0.032708, "turns": 4, "seconds": 243.3, "error": null }, "codex": { "seconds": 67.2, "error": "Reading additional input from stdin...\nOpenAI Codex v0.153.3\n--------\nworkdir: R:\\02_PROJECTS\\02_Meta_Models_Platforms\\Ver.cy\\current\\thing-registry-backlog\nmodel: gpt-6-astra\nprovider: openai\napproval: never\nsandbox: read-only\nreasoning effort: none\nreasoning summaries: none\nsession id: 01a07b86-8e19-7d72-ac77-0c72ffec1765\n--------\nuser\nYou are drafting a Vercy meta-model for one registered thing. Answer as JSON only, no prose around it.\n\nThing: guillotine\nRegistry id: vr.tr.guillotine\nPlane / domain: PHY / PHY.OBJ\nRegistry definition: (none recorded)\nNames folded into this entry: (none)\n\nA V" } }, "enrichment": { "pass": 3, "engine": "claude", "producedAt": "2026-10-06T12:00:00Z", "ingestedAt": "2026-10-06T08:41:53+00:00", "fields": [ "agent_conduct", "ethics", "failure_modes_and_hazards", "owners", "standards_and_regulation", "visual_identification" ] }, "gate": { "passed": true, "version": "1.0", "at": "2026-10-07T10:10:25+00:00", "evidence": [ "completeness 1.00", "sense: Wikidata description", "2 live sources", "review by codex: pass" ] } }, "metaModel": { "id": "THING-Q128015", "registryId": "vr.tr.guillotine", "name": "guillotine", "version": "0.1.0-research.1", "entryKind": "thing", "family": "Thing Registry", "domain": [ "PHY.OBJ" ], "status": "research-draft" }, "canonicalUrl": "https://ver.cy/models/thing/q128015/", "model": { "registry_id": "vr.tr.guillotine", "name": "guillotine", "purpose": "Enable an AI agent to recognise a guillotine, assess its configuration and condition, and determine whether documentation, conservation, access restriction or authorised specialist intervention is appropriate.", "definition": "A purpose-built judicial beheading machine in which a weighted, typically oblique, blade is released to fall in grooves between two uprights and sever the neck held in a two-part lunette.", "scope_statement": "This draft owns the physical identity, blade-and-frame configuration, intended use, condition and intervention constraints of a guillotine, provisionally centred on the execution apparatus while leaving the registry boundary with cutting machines called guillotines unresolved.", "in_scope": [ "Identification as an execution apparatus, cutting machine, replica, fragment or unresolved candidate", "Relationships among the frame, guided blade assembly, support and release mechanism", "Execution-specific fittings where present, including the neck restraint and body support", "Completeness, structural condition, blade accessibility and stored mechanical energy", "Evidence of manufacture, alteration, historical use and reconstruction", "Conditions governing display, handling, conservation and specialist assessment" ], "out_of_scope": [ "Judicial sentences, execution procedures and legal institutions", "Biographies and personal records of people associated with the apparatus", "Detailed operating, construction or performance-optimisation instructions", "The building, exhibition or collection containing the apparatus", "General models of cutting processes and materials processed by industrial machines" ], "distinguishing_features": [ "Determine whether a blade-bearing assembly moves along guides in a frame, rather than swinging as an axe or rotating as a saw.", "Look for a neck restraint and body-support arrangement to distinguish an execution configuration from a material-cutting machine.", "Distinguish the guided blade arrangement from a hinged paper trimmer whose blade sweeps about a pivot.", "Establish whether the object contains the relevant mechanism or merely reproduces its visible silhouette as a prop, miniature or static replica.", "Require configuration or documentary evidence in addition to the label 'guillotine', because the name alone does not settle the object's subtype." ], "characteristics": [ { "name": "Identification and confidence", "kind": "category", "unit_or_values": "Execution apparatus; cutting machine; replica or prop; fragment; unresolved, with evidence and confidence", "why_it_matters": "Controls which interpretation and assessment questions apply without relying solely on the object's name." }, { "name": "Blade motion arrangement", "kind": "category", "unit_or_values": "Guided descent; other guided motion; hinged motion; static representation; unknown", "why_it_matters": "Helps recognise the mechanism and distinguish superficially similar objects." }, { "name": "Principal component relationships", "kind": "relation", "unit_or_values": "Frame, guides, blade carrier, blade, support, lifting and release components: attached, detached, missing or uncertain", "why_it_matters": "Makes completeness and configuration assessable even when the apparatus is dismantled." }, { "name": "Execution-specific fittings", "kind": "category", "unit_or_values": "Neck restraint and body support: present, absent, reconstructed, not applicable or uncertain", "why_it_matters": "Supports subtype identification and records features that may have been removed or reconstructed." }, { "name": "Physical envelope", "kind": "measurement", "unit_or_values": "Height, width and depth in millimetres; mass in kilograms where reliably established", "why_it_matters": "Supports assessment of display clearance, support requirements and specialist handling." }, { "name": "Blade assembly and energy state", "kind": "state", "unit_or_values": "Position, attachment, restraint and possible stored energy: observed, documented or unknown", "why_it_matters": "An apparently inactive apparatus may still contain a raised mass or another source of hazardous movement." }, { "name": "Structural and edge condition", "kind": "state", "unit_or_values": "Observed frame damage, loose joints, guide deterioration, blade damage and edge accessibility, with assessment date", "why_it_matters": "Informs access restrictions and whether movement or intervention requires specialist assessment." }, { "name": "Historical component attribution", "kind": "relation", "unit_or_values": "Component linked to manufacture, replacement, restoration or reconstruction evidence", "why_it_matters": "Prevents a composite or restored object from being treated as wholly original." } ], "affordances": [ "Classify the apparatus provisionally from visible configuration and documentary evidence.", "Record blade, frame and restraint components without activating the mechanism.", "Compare current condition with earlier photographs and conservation records.", "Flag uncertain restraint, accessible blade edges or unstable structural members for restricted access and specialist review.", "Prepare an evidence-based conservation or display assessment.", "Link documented historical claims to the specific apparatus or component they concern." ], "agent_conduct": { "may": [ "Describe the guillotine's history and role in executions from historical sources.", "Help museums catalogue and conserve surviving machines and related records." ], "must_not": [ "Assist in building, restoring to working order or using a guillotine on any person or animal.", "Produce content that glorifies executions or mocks those who were executed.", "Operate the blade of a preserved machine, even in demonstration, near people.", "Trade in remains or relics of executed people." ], "requires_human": [ "Displaying a machine or related images in an exhibition.", "Publishing names and images of people executed." ] }, "ethics": { "considerations": [ "The guillotine killed many people, including in political terror; their dignity and memory deserve respect.", "Its history is part of debates on the death penalty, which most states have abolished." ], "affected_parties": [ "Descendants of people executed", "Museum visitors", "Communities that suffered political terror" ] }, "owners": { "steward": "The museum or public body that holds a surviving machine.", "master_systems": [] }, "visual_identification": [ "A tall wooden frame of two uprights with a heavy angled blade at the top.", "A board with a round opening for the neck, the lunette, at the base." ], "failure_modes_and_hazards": [ "A falling blade is lethal; even preserved machines can injure people if released.", "Displays can retraumatize people affected by state violence." ], "standards_and_regulation": [ "Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, United Nations, 1989." ], "what_it_is_for": [ "Guillotines were used historically as judicial execution apparatus, particularly in accounts of French penal history.", "Surviving examples and reconstructions are encountered in museums, heritage collections and educational exhibitions.", "Present-day work with these objects concerns historical documentation, conservation and controlled public access." ] }, "sources": [ { "id": "SRC-001", "title": "Guillotine", "url": "https://www.britannica.com/topic/guillotine", "what_it_supports": "Device anatomy (weighted oblique blade, uprights, lunette), Guillotin's proposal versus Louis-Schmidt construction, first Paris use in 1792, last French use in 1977, and abolition in 1981.", "url_status": "blocked" }, { "id": "SRC-002", "title": "guillotine (Q128015)", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q128015", "what_it_supports": "Canonical identifier for the execution apparatus as a physical object, distinct from the paper-cutting machine and from named predecessor devices.", "url_status": "live" }, { "id": "SRC-003", "title": "La Guillotine et l'imaginaire de la Terreur", "url": "", "what_it_supports": "How the French machine was designed, staged and understood as a uniform egalitarian method of death during the Revolution and the Terror (Daniel Arasse, Flammarion, 1987)." }, { "id": "SRC-004", "title": "Loi n° 81-908 du 9 octobre 1981 portant abolition de la peine de mort", "url": "", "what_it_supports": "French statutory abolition of capital punishment, ending lawful use of the machine; published in the Journal officiel de la République française." }, { "id": "wikipedia-en", "title": "Wikipedia: Guillotine", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine", "url_status": "live", "what_it_supports": "general description of the item", "checked_by": "wikidata-api sitelink" } ], "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "guillotine-identity", "name": "Guillotine identity", "description": "Establish what the registered object is and which sense of guillotine applies.", "rationale": "The name can refer to materially different apparatuses, and appearance alone cannot establish intended use or authenticity.", "layers": [ { "id": "mechanism-and-use", "name": "Mechanism and use", "description": "Separate mechanical recognition from attribution of intended use.", "findings": [ { "id": "configuration-based-identification", "name": "Configuration-based identification", "description": "Record the evidence supporting identification as a guillotine and its provisional subtype.", "questions": [ { "text": "What observable blade-and-guide arrangement supports identification as a guillotine?", "kind": "definition", "id": "configuration-based-identification-q01" }, { "text": "What fittings or records distinguish an execution apparatus from a material-cutting machine?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "configuration-based-identification-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "object-boundary", "name": "Object boundary", "description": "Identify whether the record concerns an assembled apparatus, a component group or a representation.", "findings": [ { "id": "assembly-or-representation", "name": "Assembly or representation", "description": "Make the physical extent and representational status of the recorded thing explicit.", "questions": [ { "text": "Does this record concern a complete apparatus, a dismantled assembly, an isolated component or a replica?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "assembly-or-representation-q01" }, { "text": "Which detached blade, frame or support components have evidence linking them to this apparatus?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "assembly-or-representation-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "blade-frame-and-fittings", "name": "Blade, frame and fittings", "description": "Record the physical arrangement that gives this guillotine its identity and mechanical constraints.", "rationale": "Assessment depends on the relationships among the guided blade, supporting frame and use-specific fittings.", "layers": [ { "id": "guided-blade-assembly", "name": "Guided blade assembly", "description": "Describe the blade, carrier and guides as observed components.", "findings": [ { "id": "blade-and-guide-configuration", "name": "Blade and guide configuration", "description": "Record blade attachment, guide arrangement and visible departures from the documented configuration.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which blade, carrier and guide components are present, missing or substituted?", "kind": "definition", "id": "blade-and-guide-configuration-q01" }, { "text": "What visible damage, displacement or obstruction affects the relationship between the carrier and its guides?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "blade-and-guide-configuration-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "support-and-use-fittings", "name": "Support and use fittings", "description": "Describe structural support and fittings that establish how the apparatus was configured.", "findings": [ { "id": "frame-and-restraint-arrangement", "name": "Frame and restraint arrangement", "description": "Record the frame and any neck restraint, body support or alternative work-support fittings without assuming all variants share them.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which support and restraint fittings are present, and what evidence identifies their intended role?", "kind": "definition", "id": "frame-and-restraint-arrangement-q01" }, { "text": "Which fittings belong to the documented historical configuration, and which were added for restoration or display?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "frame-and-restraint-arrangement-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "mechanical-state-and-access", "name": "Mechanical state and access", "description": "Establish the current physical hazards and the evidence needed before handling or intervention.", "rationale": "Blade mass, accessible edges and uncertain retention can remain consequential even in a museum object or replica.", "layers": [ { "id": "blade-retention-and-energy", "name": "Blade retention and energy", "description": "Record the blade assembly's current position and the basis for judging unintended movement.", "findings": [ { "id": "retention-state", "name": "Retention state", "description": "Distinguish directly observed restraint from an unverified assumption that the mechanism is inactive.", "questions": [ { "text": "Where is the blade assembly, and what evidence establishes whether its current retention has been assessed?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "retention-state-q01" }, { "text": "Does uncertainty about raised mass, connected drive components or retention require access restriction pending specialist assessment?", "kind": "action", "id": "retention-state-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "structural-condition-and-intervention", "name": "Structural condition and intervention", "description": "Connect deterioration of the apparatus to permissible handling, display and conservation actions.", "findings": [ { "id": "handling-and-display-constraints", "name": "Handling and display constraints", "description": "Record how frame stability, blade accessibility and component attachment constrain proposed actions.", "questions": [ { "text": "What cracks, corrosion, loose joints or detached parts affect the frame's support of the blade assembly?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "handling-and-display-constraints-q01" }, { "text": "What documented conditions must be met before this apparatus can be moved, displayed or conserved?", "kind": "action", "id": "handling-and-display-constraints-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "historical-identity-and-conservation", "name": "Historical identity and conservation", "description": "Track evidence of the apparatus's origin, attributed use and material changes.", "rationale": "A guillotine's historical identity may depend on disputed attribution or replacement components, which directly affects interpretation and conservation.", "layers": [ { "id": "attribution-and-use-evidence", "name": "Attribution and use evidence", "description": "Separate documented associations from inference or repeated labels.", "findings": [ { "id": "apparatus-specific-attribution", "name": "Apparatus-specific attribution", "description": "Tie claims about manufacture, location and historical use to evidence identifying this particular object.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which marks, inventories, photographs or custody records identify this particular apparatus?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "apparatus-specific-attribution-q01" }, { "text": "Which claims of historical use are supported for this object, and which concern only a similar apparatus or general type?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "apparatus-specific-attribution-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "alteration-and-material-integrity", "name": "Alteration and material integrity", "description": "Record replacement, reconstruction and conservation changes that affect interpretation.", "findings": [ { "id": "component-change-history", "name": "Component change history", "description": "Preserve distinctions among surviving historical material, later repairs and reconstructed parts.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which blade, frame, lifting or restraint components were replaced or modified, and what records support those dates?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "component-change-history-q01" }, { "text": "Would a proposed conservation or display change remove evidence needed to distinguish historical material from reconstruction?", "kind": "action", "id": "component-change-history-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "evidence-and-external-alignment", "name": "Evidence and external alignment", "description": "What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.", "rationale": "A model that cannot be lined up against existing standards, identifiers and practice cannot be adopted by anyone who already uses them.", "layers": [ { "id": "reported-evidence", "name": "Reported evidence", "description": "Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.", "findings": [ { "id": "evidence-kinds", "name": "Kinds and varieties", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "1792 Louis-Schmidt Revolutionary machine (the first French judicial pattern, briefly also called louisette)", "Berger-pattern French machine (1870s redesign used in France into the late twentieth century)", "Portable or demountable travelling machine assembled at the place of execution in the French provinces", "Prison-fixed twentieth-century French machine (Santé, Fresnes, Baumettes and similar installations)", "German and Austrian Fallbeil (heavier falling axe, usually shorter drop, often in a wooden housing)", "Conserved historical original held as a museum or state-custody object", "Non-functional exhibition, theatre or film replica" ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-kinds-q01", "text": "Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of guillotine this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-identifiers", "name": "Identifiers and schemes", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ { "scheme": "Wikidata", "value_or_pattern": "Q128015", "note": "Item for the execution apparatus; the paper-cutting machine is a different item (Q5450227)." }, { "scheme": "Library of Congress Subject Headings", "value_or_pattern": "Guillotine", "note": "Authorized subject heading for the beheading machine." }, { "scheme": "Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus", "value_or_pattern": "guillotines (execution equipment)", "note": "AAT class for the execution device; numeric AAT ID not confirmed in this pass." }, { "scheme": "WordNet", "value_or_pattern": "instrument of execution that consists of a weighted blade between two vertical poles; used for beheading people", "note": "Sense aligned with this PHY.OBJ entry; numeric synset offset not confirmed in this pass." } ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-identifiers-q01", "text": "Which of these identifiers and schemes hold for the sense of guillotine this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-standards-and-regulation", "name": "Standards and regulation", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "French Penal Code of 1791 (Assemblée nationale constituante / French state): death by simple decapitation as the uniform capital method, replacing rank-based and aggravated killings.", "Legislative Assembly decisions of March 1792 (France): adoption of the Louis-Schmidt machine as the instrument of that method.", "Loi n° 81-908 du 9 octobre 1981 portant abolition de la peine de mort (French Parliament / Journal officiel): ended lawful executions in France.", "Article 66-1 of the French Constitution (constitutional revision of 2007): prohibition of the death penalty.", "Protocol No. 6 (1983) and Protocol No. 13 (2002) to the European Convention on Human Rights (Council of Europe): abolition of the death penalty in peacetime and in all circumstances among parties." ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-standards-and-regulation-q01", "text": "Which of these standards and regulation hold for the sense of guillotine this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-real-world-use", "name": "Real-world use", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "Judicial execution in France from the first public use on Nicolas Jacques Pelletier (Paris, 25 April 1792) to the last, Hamida Djandoubi (Baumettes, Marseille, 10 September 1977).", "Mass public use during the Terror and later as a prison-yard instrument after public executions ended in France (1939).", "Colonial and extra-metropolitan use under French administration (Maghreb, Indochina, Caribbean) and related falling-blade machines in other European jurisdictions.", "German Fallbeil use at scale under the Nazi regime, and limited successor use in German jurisdictions into the mid-twentieth century.", "Surviving originals held in museum or state custody; replicas used in film, theatre and historical display; the machine remains a political emblem of the Terror and of egalitarian capital punishment." ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-real-world-use-q01", "text": "Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of guillotine this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-measurements", "name": "Typical measurements", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ { "quantity": "overall height of a typical French machine", "typical_range": "3.5-4.5 (commonly cited around 4)", "unit": "m" }, { "quantity": "mass of the falling assembly (blade and mouton) on a French machine", "typical_range": "30-40", "unit": "kg" }, { "quantity": "free-fall drop of the blade on a French machine", "typical_range": "2.0-2.5", "unit": "m" } ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-measurements-q01", "text": "Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of guillotine this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-failure-modes-and-hazards", "name": "Failure modes and hazards", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "Incomplete or prolonged decapitation when the blade is dull, misaligned, or the neck is not fully seated in the lunette.", "Release-mechanism failure: premature drop during preparation, or failure of the mouton to fall when the trigger is operated.", "Binding of the blade in the upright grooves from warping, debris, or poor assembly of a portable machine.", "Injury to attendants while erecting, testing, or dismantling a travelling machine.", "On surviving examples: timber decay, corrosion, and loss of edge geometry that make the object unsafe to move or historically misleading if restored without record.", "The device's designed function is lethal; historically it enabled high-throughput judicial killing." ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-failure-modes-and-hazards-q01", "text": "Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of guillotine this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-regional-variation", "name": "Regional variation", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "French and English name the machine after Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, who proposed a uniform humane method in 1789 but did not design or build it; contemporaries also used louisette/louison after Antoine Louis.", "In German-speaking practice the usual term is Fallbeil: typically a heavier blade, shorter drop, and often an enclosed wooden frame rather than the tall open French scaffold.", "Britain had earlier sliding-axe machines (Halifax Gibbet, Scottish Maiden) but did not adopt the 1792 French machine; the United States never made it a standard method. French colonial use left local names (for example Vietnamese máy chém)." ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-regional-variation-q01", "text": "Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of guillotine this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-neighbours", "name": "Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ { "name": "paper-cutting guillotine (stack cutter)", "difference": "Cuts clamped stacks of sheet material on a table; it is a print-shop or office machine (Wikidata Q5450227), not a lunette-and-uprights beheading apparatus." }, { "name": "Halifax Gibbet", "difference": "An earlier English sliding-axe beheading machine at Halifax; same falling-blade principle, but a distinct pre-1792 device not built to the Louis-Schmidt pattern." }, { "name": "Scottish Maiden", "difference": "A sixteenth-eighteenth-century Scottish falling-blade machine; predecessor, not a French guillotine." }, { "name": "executioner's sword or axe", "difference": "Decapitation by a hand-delivered blow; no grooved uprights, mouton, or triggered drop." }, { "name": "gallows", "difference": "Kills by hanging, not by a falling blade through the neck." }, { "name": "tonsil guillotine (surgical)", "difference": "A small handheld instrument for amputating tonsils; named by analogy, not a judicial machine." }, { "name": "flying guillotine", "difference": "A legendary or cinematic thrown-collar weapon (separate registry item), not a scaffold-mounted falling blade." } ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-neighbours-q01", "text": "Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of guillotine this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "openQuestions": [ "Does vr.tr.guillotine cover only execution apparatuses, or also industrial and office cutting machines bearing the name?", "Does an existing Vercy world model already cover this concept and therefore need to be linked rather than duplicated?", "Which configuration differences across documented guillotine variants require optional features rather than identification requirements?", "What evidence threshold should distinguish an original apparatus, a composite restoration, a reconstruction and a replica?", "Which specialist assessment criteria and applicable local requirements should govern handling, display and conservation for each included subtype?" ], "statistics": { "bundles": 5, "layers": 9, "findings": 16, "questions": 24 } }