Threshold

In the world that now exists, information does not stay neutral. Once it is acted on, shared, or relied upon, it becomes evidence. It appears in contracts, regulation, litigation, insurance decisions, employment disputes, and enforcement actions. When something goes wrong, questions are asked after the fact about what was known, what was stated, what limits were set, and who relied on it.

Threshold exists because ambiguity does not stay harmless. If the conditions under which something proceeds are unclear, they are reconstructed later under pressure. That reconstruction is where liability, coercion, and harm often arise. Threshold draws those conditions forward. It requires them to be stated and checked before anything proceeds, while people are still protected from contact, pressure, or consequence.

This is not a new idea. We already do this with permits, licenses, contracts, and eligibility rules. Threshold applies the same logic to requests that involve people or their data.

Threshold makes a single determination about whether a request may proceed. It does not manage execution, describe outcomes, or govern what follows.

Sentinel

Before anything can be considered, the asking party must say what it is doing. Sentinel is the rule that requires this; it is the guard. It comes before judgment, before approval, and before any decision about whether something is allowed to proceed.

An entity must state plainly what it wants, what it intends to do, and what it needs from people or their data. Nothing is inferred, assumed, or filled in later. If this does not happen, nothing else follows.

There is no evaluation of intent, no weighing of benefits, and no discussion of outcomes. Sentinel does not decide whether a request is acceptable or allowed. It establishes only that action cannot come before disclosure.

You do not act first and explain later.

Sentinel Confirmation

Upon boundary contact, Sentinel emits a non-interactive confirmation artifact to the initiating party only.

The artifact confirms only that contact was registered — including a timestamp and request receipt — and nothing further. It conveys no judgment, no parameters, no reasons, and no remediation path. It does not indicate whether engagement will clear, proceed, or terminate.

The purpose of the confirmation isn't communication, warning, or enforcement. Its purpose is structural: to collapse plausible invisibility. Once contact is registered, probing, denial, and silent iteration cease to be risk-free.

The confirmation doesn't constitute notice, warning, consent, denial, or acknowledgment of rights.

The confirmation is one-way, silence-preserving, and non-repeatable for a given request signature. It produces no dialogue, no feedback loop, and no optimization surface. After issuance, Sentinel returns to silence.

What Threshold Is

Threshold is where a stated request is checked against a fixed set of requirements. It gives a yes-or-no determination. Either the requirements are met, or they are not. There is no partial approval, no conditional approval, and no negotiation.

Threshold does not bargain, persuade, or explain its reasoning. It is not a judgment about virtue or intent. It determines only whether a request meets the minimum conditions required to proceed.

Threshold may resolve multiple independent questions in order to reach that determination. All such answers are resolved once, at Threshold, and sealed.

Protection attaches only to cleared processes

The system protects the execution of a process only after it has cleared Threshold, and only for the duration, scope, and purpose declared. No protection, persistence, or privilege attaches to failed submissions, partial attempts, repeated failures, or adjacent processes.

Inputs that do not clear Threshold are non-accumulative and leave no protected residue. They are not retained, recomposed, inferred upon, or learned from. Multiple failures do not converge toward success, and prior success does not expand future eligibility.

Clearing does not grant trust, status, memory, or continuity beyond the single process instance. Each declaration stands alone. Protection ends at settlement.

This rule is enforced by invariants that prohibit pre-clear execution, payload retention, cross-attempt recomposition, privilege carry-forward, and post-settlement continuation; violation of any invariant voids clearance.

Non-Accumulation Invariant

A system that permits accumulation across failure, success, or time is not a legitimate Threshold system.

Where Threshold Happens

Threshold happens before anyone is contacted, before anything is shown to people, and before anyone else is allowed to rely on the information involved. If a request has not cleared Threshold, it is treated as something that cannot proceed.

Nothing downstream is allowed to depend on it, and nothing upstream is allowed to pressure people on its behalf.

The Threshold Diagram

The diagram summarizes how Threshold works. Several required conditions are checked independently. All of them must be satisfied. Those checks converge into a single determination.

There are no side paths, partial outcomes, or fallback options. The diagram should be read the same way a licensing checklist is read: every item must be satisfied before the license is valid.

The Required Conditions

When a request reaches Threshold, it is checked against a small number of conditions. These are not technical rules. They are the same questions that are asked later, under pressure, in audits, investigations, and courtrooms. Threshold requires them to be answered earlier.

All of the following must be true. If any one of them is not true, the request does not proceed.

T-01 — Standing
Someone must be able to stand behind the request.

The request must come from a real person or organization. That person or organization must have the authority to make the request. Responsibility cannot be anonymous, shared vaguely, or deferred to “the system.” A signature is required to fix accountability in time.

If no one is willing and able to sign for the request, it does not proceed.

T-02 — Purpose
The request must say what it is for.

The intended use must be stated clearly and in advance. The purpose cannot be vague, shifting, or left open. Later use must be traceable back to this stated purpose.

If the purpose is unclear, the request does not proceed.

T-03 — Limits
The request must state how far it goes.

What is included must be explicit. What is excluded must be explicit. The request must not be open-ended.

Limits exist to prevent quiet expansion after a request proceeds. If limits are not clear, the request does not proceed.

T-04 — What Is Relied On
It must be clear what the request depends on.

The data, information, or people involved must be identified. Nothing is being judged yet; this is about identification, not approval. Later questions about responsibility and harm depend on this clarity.

If it is not clear what is being used or touched, the request does not proceed.

T-05 — Reliance and Consequence
It must be clear what follows if the request proceeds.

Who will rely on the result must be identifiable. What obligations, duties, or consequences that reliance creates must be visible. Downstream effects cannot be discovered only after the fact.

If reliance and consequence are unclear, the request does not proceed.

T-06 — Foreseeable Harm
The request must not foreseeably cause non-consensual harm to people.

This is not a moral judgment or a cost-benefit analysis. It follows the same standard used in safety, negligence, and duty-of-care contexts. Harm that is knowingly consented to, or that occurs within a recognized duty-of-care relationship to prevent greater harm, does not violate this condition. If harm can reasonably be anticipated without consent or duty-of-care justification, the request stops here.

Even if every other condition is met, non-consensual foreseeable harm prevents the request from proceeding.

Threshold Resolution (Internal)

Threshold may internally record its completed determination across multiple independent dimensions as a sealed binary vector.

Clear = 1 Does not clear = 0

Example internal resolution:

⟦1 1 0 1 1 0 1⟧

This vector belongs exclusively to Threshold. It is sealed, non-interpretable downstream, and never emitted as post-Threshold language.

What a Pass Means

Passing Threshold means the request has met the minimum conditions required before people may be approached, affected, or asked to participate. It establishes that the request is not barred from proceeding.

Passing Threshold is not approval, endorsement, or moral judgment. It does not authorize outcomes or impose conditions. It establishes only that Threshold has completed its determination.

What a Does-Not-Pass Means

A does-not-pass is not a punishment or an accusation. It means only that the request cannot proceed as stated.

No contact follows. No pressure follows. No explanation is owed beyond the fact that the conditions were not met. Silence is allowed.

No Negotiation or Exceptions

Threshold does not bargain, explain how to work around its requirements, or make exceptions for urgency, size, or importance. The same rules apply to all entities.

This is no different from rules of evidence, licensing requirements, or eligibility standards that do not change based on how much is at stake.

Time and Versions

Every determination is tied to a specific set of rules and a point in time. Determinations are not open-ended. If circumstances change, the request must be evaluated again under the rules in effect at that time.

Closing

Threshold exists to decide what may proceed before people are affected and before others rely on information. It draws the line early, when harm can still be prevented rather than explained afterward.

What follows is not another decision.