Glossary and roles — Satoshi Hike 2.3
Status. Framing vocabulary for the six-document pack under spec/ (tag spec-2.3.0). See INTENT.md and README.md.
Language rule. Prefer valid → measured → admitted. Do not say “verified” when you mean only one of those three.
Core outcomes
| Term | Meaning | Who decides |
|---|---|---|
| Valid | The object matches Construction; Conformance rules and vectors agree. Yes/no. | Conformance (design-time for tools; the same rules a verifier applies while measuring) |
| Measured | Quantities reported for a valid object: beacons folded, legs, anchored paths, times, etc. Facts only. No thresholds. | Measurement (verifier at runtime) |
| Admitted | A policy instance applied to a measurement record accepts (or refuses/holds) the submission. | Admission Process + policy instance |
Documents and concepts
Construction
The definition of a PCOC (Satoshi Hike object): cost, terrain, legs, stages, waypoint slots, encodings, and the two-way Bitcoin commitment bind.
- Into the hike: Bitcoin block headers (beacons) observed and folded into stages.
- Out of the hike: waypoint anchors that commit hike history into Bitcoin.
Construction does not set admission thresholds, does not own the §14 measure procedure (that is Measurement), and does not own live Bari operator steps (Waypoint Publication).
Conformance
The test specification paired with Construction (specification + matching tests). Yes/no rules, permanent negatives, and the one conformance pack/vectors.
- Design time: producer authors prove outputs are valid; verifier authors prove they accept valids, reject invalids, and report the required measurements.
- Runtime: a verifier applies the same validity rules while measuring. Recording a mismatch is measurement. It is not a reject gate that skips the rest of the record, and it is not admission.
- An admission service is not a conformance target. Policy numbers are not vectors.
Construction + Conformance travel as the definitional pair.
Producer / Producer Process
A producer is software that builds a hike object. Producer Process is the live sequence that realises Construction (tip observation, stages, async plant/ask, close). Design-time proof that a producer is correct uses Construction + Conformance.
Verifier
Software that measures a finished object and emits a measurement record of quantities, including mismatch tokens. Confirming validity and measuring are one pass. It does not admit. It does not say accept/refuse. It does not reject-before-measure.
Waypoint Publication (Process)
Our scoped open channel for the anchor side of the Bitcoin bind: Hashcash payment → pool → batch/tree on beacon → confirm → path fetch window (Bari-shaped).
- Required for security is the Construction bind, not this particular operator.
- This document scopes batching as the path we specify.
- Direct-to-Bitcoin plant/confirm/fetch with different timing is allowed as a different mechanism; it is out of scope for this process document.
Bari fetchability (path served or not in the anchor window, offsets 2, 3, and 4) is the include window for anchored paths. This specification defines no tip-versus-last-beacon submit deadline.
Measurement / Measurement Record
Measurement reads a valid object against Construction (and publication evidence when the Bari-shaped channel was used) and reports facts. This pack’s Measurement Record document now holds the full §14 procedure plus the record shape and verify CLI. No judgment, no policy levers.
Admission Process vs policy instance
| Admission Process (in pack) | Policy instance (outside pack) | |
|---|---|---|
| Role | Generic consumer: take measurement record + policy → decide/log | Named values for one relying party |
| Contents | How to read fields, apply a policy file, outcomes vocabulary | e.g. gl-admit-v* — floors, min_anchored_paths, born height |
| Values | None (value-free) | All thresholds |
groundinglab Gate service docs and runbooks are neither the Process nor the instance; they are ops.
Bitcoin bind (both directions)
Always owned by Construction. Observing headers into the object and anchoring waypoints into Bitcoin are both part of what the object is. Waypoint Publication is how we batch the anchor direction efficiently and openly.
Roles (reader paths)
Builder (producer implementer)
Read Construction + Conformance. Implement Producer Process. If planting via our channel, also Waypoint Publication. For the path-body / validate_for check only, read Measurement §14.3. Prove with the conformance pack that emitted objects are valid.
Measurer / verifier implementer
Read Construction + Conformance. Implement measurement against Construction; emit the Measurement Record. Use Waypoint Publication only to interpret evidence produced through that channel (do not re-fetch Bari for plant facts in the specified verify path). Prove with the pack that the verifier accepts valids, rejects invalids, and reports the same quantities.
Gate / admission implementer
Read Construction (object shape), Measurement Record (inputs), and Admission Process (generic consume/decide). Plug in your policy instance (for groundinglab, gl-admit-* outside this pack). Do not treat lever values in a deployment as part of Construction.
Conformance claimant
Read Conformance plus every document you claim to implement (always Construction; Producer and/or Measurement and/or Waypoint Publication as claimed). Admission policy values are not a conformance claim.
Design time vs runtime (short)
| Phase | Producer | Verifier / measurer | Gate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design time | Build against Construction + Conformance until outputs pass the pack | Build against Construction + Conformance until behaviour matches vectors | Build against Admission Process; configure a policy instance |
| Runtime | Emit a PCOC (trusted valid via design-time conformance) | Measure in one pass (Conformance rules + quantities, including mismatch) → record. No admit/refuse | Apply policy instance → admit or not |
Terms to avoid (loose use)
- Verified — say valid, measured, or admitted as appropriate.
- Optional anchors — anchors are part of the Construction bind; only the batching channel is a scoped mechanism.
- Tip-versus-last-beacon submit deadline — not part of this specification. Anchored-path inclusion is the Bari fetch window (offsets 2, 3, and 4).
Republished from pcoc 1b9f632 (spec/ six-doc pack; same bytes at e8030ba). Raw markdown.