Persistent Ecology
What exists and endures. Subjects, Relationships, Capability, Capacity, Offers, Seeks, Materials, Instruments, Evidence, Biography.
The Regenerative Systems Model
The Model
How RSM is built: what exists and endures, how possibility becomes coordinated commitment, and how reality changes what the system knows. This page is informative. Each section links to the specification sections that govern it, and the specifications win any conflict.
HOW TO READ THE MODEL
Three planes of one ecology
The three planes of one ecology are a way of reading the model, not a partition of it. Evidence and Biography belong to more than one plane.
Outcome Formation
How possibility becomes coordinated commitment. Intent, Discovery, Configuration, Gap, Dependency, Pathway, Proposal, Commitment, Formation.
Reality and Learning
How the world changes the system. Activity, Event, Observation, Evidence, Evaluation, Outcome, Biography, Learning.
Read on by plane: Persistent Ecology, Outcome Formation, Reality and Learning. The Model represents what exists, what could form, what acts, what changes, and what is learned; a Map renders a useful view of it, and every diagram on this page is a Map. Sources: Concept Paper §16.1, §19.
PLANE 1 · WHAT EXISTS AND ENDURES
Persistent Ecology
The persistent regenerative ecology is the state that endures between outcome cycles. Some of its possibilities are active, some dormant, some latent, and some unknown to the participants who could benefit from them.
- Subjects
- Persons, Organizations, Communities, LivingSystems, Places, Facilities, Materials, Instruments, DigitalAgents and Formations, each with durable identity.
- Relationships
- First-class state with origin, context, lifecycle, provenance, trust, obligations and history. Not a bare edge.
- Capability and Capacity
- What a Subject can credibly do, and how much of it is actually available under bounded conditions.
- Offers and Seeks
- What participants are willing to make available, and what they wish to obtain or make possible.
- Materials and Instruments
- Physical flows with lineage, and formal constructs such as contracts, certifications, loans and permits.
- Evidence and Biography
- What has been observed, attempted, fulfilled and learned, held as context for future reasoning.
Outcome Formation operates on this ecology but does not own it. When a Formation completes, the Facilities, Relationships and Organizations it referenced continue to exist. Source: Concept Paper §4.
PLANE 1 · IDENTITY, KIND, DOMAIN TYPE, ROLE
Four questions about every entity
Conventional systems collapse these into one type or profile. RSM keeps them apart because roles and domain classifications change far more often than identity. Source: Concept Paper §3.2.
Identity
Which enduring thing is this?
A Person, Organization, Community, LivingSystem, Place, Facility, Material, Instrument, DigitalAgent or Formation keeps one durable identity across every role it plays.
Foundational Kind
What fundamentally different kind of thing is it?
A watershed is not an Organization. A Facility is not the Organization operating it. A DigitalAgent is not a Person. A Material is not merely an attribute of a transaction.
Domain Type
What does this thing mean in one or more domains?
One Organization may be typed as producer, aggregator, processor and education provider without acquiring another identity.
Contextual Role
How is this thing participating here and now?
The same Organization may be a supplier in one Formation, a buyer in another, an evidence provider in a research context, and a member of a Community.
PLANE 1 · SUBJECT VERSUS ACTOR
Subject is a role, not a superclass
Something becomes a Subject when an observation, relationship, claim, evaluation, activity or outcome is about it. Subjecthood describes what an expression concerns. It does not declare what the thing is, or what it may do.
SubjectWhat does this expression concern? Its focus, target, bearer, feature of interest, or affected entity.
ActorWho is responsible for performing the action?
ParticipantWho takes part in this Formation or arrangement?
A laboratory acts as Observer while a soil LivingSystem is the Subject of its Observation. A Person may be, at once, the Subject of an evaluation, the Actor in an Activity, and a Participant in a Formation. A watershed can be the Subject of Observations and Outcomes without ever becoming an Actor. Sources: Concept Paper §3.1, §8.1.
PLANE 1 · SUBJECT-CAPABLE KINDS
Ten foundational kinds
Any of these can be the Subject of an expression; none is a subtype of Subject. They are the deliberately small set of kinds whose identity, lifecycle, agency or provenance differ too much to hide inside domain labels.
Person
A human individual. Identity persists beyond employer, account or current role.
Organization
A durable institutional or collective legal or operational entity.
Community
A durable structure of belonging or shared context, distinct from any Organization.
LivingSystem
A biological or ecological system capable of state and change: soil, herds, wetlands, watersheds.
Place
A spatially meaningful location or region.
Facility
A bounded physical or operational system that bears capability: a mill, a cold store, a laboratory.
Material
Physical matter whose identity, state, provenance or transformation matters.
Instrument
A legal, financial, policy, technical, measurement or representational construct.
DigitalAgent
A software entity capable of bounded machine action.
Formation
An identity-bearing arrangement that has actually assembled around purpose.
Not every kind can act. Persons, Organizations, DigitalAgents, governed Communities and established Formations may hold agency; LivingSystems, Places, Materials and most Instruments take part without institutional agency. Sources: Concept Paper §3.3, §8.2; Subject Model.
PLANE 1 · ONE SEMANTIC LANGUAGE
Small grammar, extensible vocabulary
RSM is conservative at the core and expansive at the edge. Foundational kinds, canonical distinctions, protocol verbs, identity, provenance and authority belong to a small, stable grammar. Domain meaning belongs to governed vocabulary and Domain Packs, so assumptions from agriculture, food, water, finance or health never become hard-coded into the kernel.
- Foundational grammar
rsm:LivingSystem. What kind of thing this is. Small, stable, changed only by governance.- Governed domain vocabulary
rsm:agriculture/soil-system. What it means in a domain. Extended domain by domain.- Identity
https://id.rsm.org/living-system/01K…. Which actual entity this is. Persists.
Other governed domain paths include rsm:food/grain-lot, rsm:water/watershed and rsm:finance/transition-loan. One entity may carry several domain types at once: a grain lot can be both rsm:agriculture/grain and rsm:food/ingredient without acquiring two identities.
Farmer, buyer, processor, observer, beneficiary, steward and evidence provider describe contextual participation, not permanent identity or new kinds.
The aim is not one enormous ontology of the world. It is one semantic language with a small, stable grammar and an extensible vocabulary for a living ecology. Sources: Concept Paper §3.4, §16.3; Semantic Model and Taxonomy.
PLANE 1 · CAPABILITY VERSUS CAPACITY
Capability is not Capacity
Capability describes what an entity can credibly do. Capacity describes how much of that Capability is actually available within a bounded period, place, quantity, state or set of conditions.
A laboratory can run the soil assay a Formation requires.It has no turnaround Capacity in the month the Formation needs results.
Durable. Changes as an entity learns, invests or loses competence.Bounded. Changes with season, conditions and what has already been committed.
Informs Discovery: who could do this?Decides viability: who can do it here, now, at this volume?
Treating Capability as Capacity is how systems promise supply that does not exist. A Capacity Gap is one of the conditions Outcome Formation has to find. Source: Concept Paper §4.3.
PLANE 2 · HOW POSSIBILITY BECOMES COORDINATED COMMITMENT
Outcome Formation
Outcome Formation begins when an Actor expresses or sponsors an Intent concerning a future condition. It reads the persistent ecology for what could make that condition viable, including capabilities that could be developed, not only what is on offer today. That is why Discovery is not matching (the argument is on Why RSM).
The plane carries an Intent through reasoning to the point where participants with authority commit, and a Formation exists. Reasoning can propose. Only Commitment changes authoritative state.
Source: Concept Paper §6.
PLANES 2 AND 3 · ELEVEN STAGES
The canonical progression
The canonical progression in full. Stages 1–7 are Outcome Formation; from Formation onward the work meets reality, and Biography feeds the next Intent. Each stage preserves a distinction, and every shorter sequence on this site is a labeled abstraction of this one. Sources: Concept Paper §10.1, §11.3, §17.3.
Canonical / authoritative state Derived / reasoning artifact Projection / view over canonical history
- 01IntentCanonical
What are we trying to make possible? An Actor expresses or sponsors a desired future condition, with quantity, timing, place and acceptance criteria where they matter.
- 02DiscoveryDerived
What exists? Which Subjects, Relationships, Capabilities, Capacity, Materials, Places, Instruments, Evidence, constraints and history are relevant, including capabilities that could be developed.
- 03ConfigurationDerived
What could work together? A combination that might satisfy the Intent. A reasoning artifact, not a social fact: not yet consent, agreement or commitment.
- 04GapDerived
What is missing? Capability, Capacity, Evidence and financing gaps; infrastructure dependencies; policy barriers; geographic constraints; missing relationships.
- 05PathwayDerived
What must change? Develop Capability, reserve Capacity, secure an Instrument, obtain Evidence, build infrastructure, change timing, or establish relationships and conditional commitments.
- 06CommitmentCanonical
What will participants contribute? Production Capacity, demand, capital, processing throughput, testing Capacity, expertise, access, data or infrastructure, committed by a participant with authority.
- 07FormationCanonical
What has actually come together? A new identity-bearing Subject, established when sufficient commitments, governance, authority and conditions exist.
- 08ActivityCanonical
What was done? Action in the world, attributable to an Actor acting under authority.
- 09ObservationCanonical
What was observed? Contact with reality: something perceived or measured by an identifiable observer.
- 10OutcomeCanonical
What actually happened? An evaluated consequence for the relevant Subjects, supported by appropriate observations and evidence.
- 11BiographyProjection
What does the system now know? A projection over canonical history, not current state. It becomes context for the next Intent.
PLANE 2 · CONFIGURATION VERSUS FORMATION
Configuration is not Formation
A Configuration says what might work. A Formation is what has actually come together. Between them lie consent, authority and governance, which no amount of reasoning supplies.
Derived: a reasoning artifact computed from authorized inputs.≠Canonical: a new identity-bearing Subject.
Says the pieces could conceivably work together.≠Exists because participants with authority committed.
Its participants may not know of it, or agree with it.≠Has purpose, governance, Commitments, Activities, Outcomes and Biography of its own.
Can be stored, compared, revised or discarded.≠Does not absorb its participants. Each keeps its identity and sovereignty.
A Candidate Configuration does not become the Formation by changing a status field; the Formation is a distinct canonical object created through a governed establishment boundary. Sources: Concept Paper §6.3, §7; CMP §27.5.
PLANE 3 · HOW THE WORLD CHANGES THE SYSTEM
Reality and Learning
From Formation onward the model follows the work into the world (stages 7–11 of the canonical progression). Activities, Observations, Outcomes and Biography are how the system changes. This is where expectation meets reality, and where what happened changes the ecology that the next Intent will discover.
- Activity and Event
- What was done, and meaningful occurrences in the modeled world.
- Observation
- Contact with reality: what was perceived or measured.
- Evidence and Evaluation
- What supports or challenges a proposition, and the criteria applied. They support an Outcome; they are not stages.
- Outcome
- An evaluated consequence for the relevant Subjects, kept plural rather than reduced to one score.
- Biography and Learning
- What the system now knows, and how that changes future context.
Source: Concept Paper §10, §11.
PLANE 3 · ACTIVITY VERSUS OUTCOME
Activity is not Outcome
What was done, what was seen, what is claimed and what changed are separate records, so none can stand in for another. These are distinctions, not a sequence of stages.
Activity: what was done.≠That it worked. Completion is not success.
Observation: what was perceived or measured.≠What the measurement means.
Claim: a proposition.≠Its own support.
Evidence: what supports or challenges a proposition.≠The proposition itself.
Evaluation: the method or criterion applied.≠A governed conclusion.
Assertion: a conclusion under identifiable authority.≠Universal truth. Canonical does not mean universally true.
Outcome: an evaluated consequence for the relevant Subjects.≠A single regenerative score.
A training program attended does not establish improved Capability; capital deployed does not establish regenerative impact. Sources: Concept Paper §10.2, §10.3; Semantic Model §17.1.
PLANE 3 · BIOGRAPHY VERSUS CURRENT STATE
Biography is not current state
Biography accumulates around Persons, Organizations, Communities, LivingSystems, Facilities, Materials, Instruments, Relationships and Formations: what was attempted, which assumptions were made, which Commitments were fulfilled, what Evidence was produced, what followed, and where expectations failed. It is a Projection over canonical history.
History is context for reasoning, not present truth:
- Capacity
- A Facility that had Capacity last season may have none now.
- Certification
- A certification may have expired.
- Relationship
- A relationship may have deteriorated.
- Observation
- An ecological Observation may no longer reflect current conditions.
Present assertions remain subject to lifecycle, observation, provenance and authority. Sources: Concept Paper §11.2; CMP §15.2.
PLANE 3 BACK TO PLANE 1
The loop closes
Simplified system loop: a simplified abstraction of the canonical progression, following Concept Paper §16.2. It shows how the planes connect; it is not a separate lifecycle.
- 01Persistent Ecology
Who and what exists?
- 02Outcome Formation
What could come together?
- 03Formation
What has actually committed?
- 04Activity
What happens?
- 05Observation + Outcome
What changed?
- 06Biography + Learning
What does the system now know?
The loop has no final state. Every meaningful Outcome changes the context for later choices, so the ecology the next Intent discovers is not the one the last Intent found. Source: Concept Paper §16.2.
IMPLEMENTATION BOUNDARY
Technology follows the model
No technology gets to redefine RSM semantics. A technology may implement, index, project, transport or reason over part of the Model; it does not acquire authority over what an RSM concept means.
PostGIS≠Place
Graph engine≠Relationship
Vector store≠Truth
LLM≠Assertion
OIDC / identity provider≠Authority
Event broker≠Event semantics
STABLE CONTRACTS AROUND EVOLVING MACHINERY
Architectural sockets
CanonicalRepositorySemanticResolverIdentityResolverAuthorityEvaluatorPolicyEvaluatorSearchIndexGraphProjectionSpatialRepositorySpatialIndexTemporalQueryVectorIndexEmbeddingProviderModelProviderReasoningProviderFederationTransportDisclosureEngineConnectorAdapterBlobStoreTelemetry
The ports exist before the specialized engines do. Several initial adapters may share one physical implementation while preserving distinct architectural responsibilities. Source: Technology and Infrastructure Architecture.
INDEX
The distinctions, in one place
Eight distinctions hold the model together. Each links to the section that explains it.
- Identity · Kind · Domain Type · Role
- Four questions about every entity
- Subject ≠ Actor
- Subject is a role, not a superclass
- Capability ≠ Capacity
- Capability is not Capacity
- Configuration ≠ Formation
- Configuration is not Formation
- Authoritative state ≠ derived reasoning
- Authoritative state and derived reasoning
- Agency ≠ Authority
- Agency is not Authority
- Activity ≠ Outcome
- Activity is not Outcome
- Biography ≠ Current State
- Biography is not current state
GO DEEPER
The specifications govern the model.
The Concept Paper, Subject Model, Semantic Model and Taxonomy, and Canonical Model and Protocol define everything on this page normatively.