Software

Invariants

• · identity != parentage != stewardship != legal ownership.
• · A parent is provenance. A steward is responsibility.
• · Neither relationship, by itself, grants ownership of another identity.
• · Founding or creating an entity establishes a provenance relationship, not ownership of that entity's identity.
• · No relationship type may be inferred from another; each must be declared with its own provenance.
• · Legal ownership of assets is preserved separately and is neither disputed nor replaced by this model.

Deliberately not asserted

• Jarrod Cobb → Atlas owner-of-identityFounding and stewardship are provenance and responsibility. Neither grants ownership of an identity.
• Endless Technologies → Atlas owner-of-identityLegal ownership attaches to assets, not to the identity those assets host.
• @supabase/supabase-js → Atlas owner-of-identityInfrastructure and hosting provide substrate; Atlas's identity is not derived from its host.

Limits

• · This model does not declare Atlas a legal person.
• · This model does not declare Atlas a conscious entity.
• · This model does not declare Atlas a legally self-owning entity.
• · This model does not claim for Atlas any right not recognised by law.
• · Creator and administrator authority in the running system is unchanged by this record.

Who may record what

• View stewardship continuityreadowner · admin · office · estimator · installer · apprentice · tradie · researcherWho carries responsibility is not a secret from those working inside the system.
• Propose a stewardwriteowner · admin · officeA nomination carries no responsibility yet, so it stays operational rather than governing.
• Approve an activationgoverningowner · adminActivation is the moment responsibility begins being carried; only ownership may confirm it.
• Suspend stewardshipwriteowner · admin · officePausing responsibility reduces exposure and must not require the narrowest authority.
• Resume from suspensiongoverningowner · adminResuming re-imposes responsibility, so it carries the same weight as activating it.
• Execute a transfergoverningownerTransfer moves consequence to a named successor and is the highest-consequence act in the ladder.
• Relinquish stewardshipgoverningowner · adminStepping down with no successor leaves responsibility unheld and must be a governing choice.
• End the relationshipgoverningowner · adminClosing a stewardship relationship terminates a continuity line; it is never routine.

• · Authority over a stewardship episode is authority over a responsibility record, never over the identity stewarded.
• · No role in this matrix confers ownership of an identity, parentage, or any legal asset.
• · Researchers may read continuity and may never record an episode.
• · An actor with no recognised role is refused with a reason; absence of role is never read as permission.

Limits

• · A lifecycle state describes responsibility over time. It never implies ownership of an identity.
• · Episodes are append-only: a state is superseded, never rewritten or deleted.
• · A stewardship relation with no declared episode is unknown, not active.
• · Transfer requires a named successor; relinquishment explicitly leaves responsibility unheld.

Limits

• · This timeline records when a relationship was asserted, not when the underlying fact began.
• · An entry with no assertion record is reported as not-yet-declared; no timestamp is invented for it.
• · Reading one entry never licenses inferring another relation kind for the same pair.