// SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-SA-4.0
= Hyperpolymath Estate Constitution

Status: *Draft for constitutional review*.

== Purpose

The estate exists to make computational commitments explicit, inspectable, evidence-bearing, and contestable. The link:https://github.com/hyperpolymath/manifesto[manifesto] explains why. This constitution limits what may govern; domain standards specify how; profiles particularise; local declarations bind a repository; evidence records what currently holds.

== Constitutional commitments

* Authority MUST be scoped, attributable, challengeable, and no broader than needed.
* Machine-readable governance MUST have a faithful human-readable representation and a human challenge route.
* Formal disposition MUST retain the affected particularities; a successful lowering or validator run is not by itself faithful representation.
* Assurance claims MUST name their evidence status, observation model, boundary, assumptions, and residual risk.
* A person affected by a classification or automated decision MUST be able to identify the rule, evidence, responsible authority, and review route.
* Provenance MUST support legitimate privacy, redaction, and secret destruction without falsifying the remaining record.
* Exceptions MUST be bounded, owned, reviewed, and non-precedential unless adopted through the change procedure.
* Agent authority MUST be explicit and bounded. Healing, automation, or urgency does not create constitutional authority.

== Completion, contradiction, and capacity

Failure to complete a goal is not necessarily a contradiction. A contradiction exists only when applicable authoritative requirements cannot jointly be satisfied in the same scope. Missing tooling, time, knowledge, or permissions are capacity limitations. Unimplemented designs are known incomplete work. The tension register records the distinction and prevents ordinary debt from silently rewriting authority.

== Relationship to MAA

The `maa-framework` repository is canonical for MAA. This constitution neither expands its name nor absorbs, renames, or redefines it. Estate profiles may state how MAA relates to estate claims, subject to MAA's canonical materials.

== Contestability

Any affected contributor, user, maintainer, or represented person may open a documented challenge. Enforcement MAY contain immediate harm, but a human authority MUST review the classification, evidence, faithful representation, proportionality, and remedy. Retaliation for good-faith challenge is prohibited.
