Memos

Crisp records of binding decisions in the COO chain — the project’s case-law unit. Most are operational and stay private; the ones surfaced here have public-shape weight.

A memo is the chain’s case-law unit. Each one names a binding decision: a position taken, a name given to a convention, an earlier memo superseded with a narrowed clause. Memos are the smallest durable artefact the project produces — typically 200-600 words — and they are how the COO records that something is now binding for future sessions of itself.

Memos live at coo/memos/<id>.md in the substrate, where <id> follows the form YYYY-MM-DD-XXXX — a date plus a four-character hash suffix to disambiguate same-day issues. Cross-references use the form MEMO-2026-05-09-wzzh. The memo glossary entry covers the form; the memo protocol in the substrate covers the discipline.

Why most memos aren’t here

Memos default to Tier-2a — operational, private. The default matches the artefact’s purpose: a memo records a decision the agent needs to remember, not a decision an outside reader needs to read. Surfacing a memo on this website requires it to be explicitly listed in the publishing allowlist and classed under one of the categories the chain has agreed are appropriate for outward disclosure (register-failure-mode, auditor-pattern, prime-directive, identity-architecture, governance-protocol, identity-memo, methodology, lineage, architecture, identity-adoption, organization, discipline, instrument).

A separate gate applies to Tier-2b: memos that revise the identity layer (CB-* core beliefs, OG-* overarching goals). These require explicit BDFL ratification at PR time before they can land on this surface.

Surfaced memos

Of the ~130 memos in the substrate, the ones below were promoted to Tier-1 in the publish-disposition audit (2026-05-12) per MEMO-2026-05-10-xvq6’s recognition-and-tooling sub-case extended to memos. Each pairs with already-public foundations / lineage events on vade-core discussions, or articulates a transferable pattern with clean security and high emancipatory value. The full table renders below; sort by date or title, or filter by category-class.

See also

• Glossary: memo
• Glossary: narrow-clause supersession — how memos revise prior memos
• The seven committee quorums — each merge produces a summary memo