Sigma Runtime Standard - Public Specification Notice
This document is part of the Sigma Runtime Standard (SRS) public specification layer.Specification License: CC BY 4.0.
Implementation Safe Harbor: independent implementation permitted under public SRS/SRIP terms.
Machine-readable artifacts: Apache License 2.0 where explicitly marked.
Marks / Certification: governed by Sigma Marks and Certification Policy.
Proprietary Runtime Assets: not licensed by this SRIP.Independent implementations of public SRS/SRIP normative requirements are welcome under the public specification terms.
Product assets, protected Sigma marks, official certification, compatibility badges, CC BY-NC commercial use, and patent commitments use the relevant policy or explicit covenant. Independent implementation, attribution, or citation does not imply certification, endorsement, partnership, official compatibility, or permission to use Sigma marks as product identity.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| SRIP | SRIP-11 |
| Title | Structural Memory Compression (SMC) |
| Version | 1.2 |
| Status | Active |
| Date | 2026-07-17 |
| Authors / Contributors | Sigma Stratum Research Group (SSRG) |
| Owning Layer | Memory / Compression / Topological Recall |
| Parent Specs | SRIP-09, SRIP-10 |
| Related Specs | None declared |
| Specification License | CC BY 4.0 |
| Implementation Safe Harbor | Independent implementation permitted under public SRS/SRIP terms |
| Machine-Readable Artifacts | Apache 2.0 where explicitly marked |
| Marks / Certification | Governed by Sigma Marks and Certification Policy |
| Proprietary Runtime Assets | Not licensed by this SRIP |
| Independent Implementation | Permitted under the public specification terms |
| Commercial Runtime Boundary | Relevant policy or explicit covenant for protected Sigma marks, official certification, managed deployment, white-label, resale, CC BY-NC commercial use, and patent commitments |
| Information Class | Open |
| Change Class | SRS-only |
| Specification Class | Runtime Architecture Specification |
| Legacy Alias | CMT (retired in v1.2 because of prior-art acronym collision) |
| Normative Status | Defines a memory compression and topology contract. It does not mandate a specific vector store, graph store, compression scheduler, or recall product. |
| Conformance Level | Architecture Specification / Profile-Bound Implementation Evidence |
| SRD Synchronization Action | Deferred review |
| Release Alignment Status | aligned with deferred SRD sync |
| Release Alignment Notes | Active specification; public evidence is profile-bound and does not establish full runtime conformance. |
Independent implementations of the public normative requirements in this SRIP are welcome under the applicable public specification terms.
No Sigma commercial runtime license is needed solely because an independent implementation follows those public normative requirements.
Product assets, protected Sigma marks, official certification, compatibility badges, CC BY-NC commercial use, and patent commitments use the relevant policy or explicit covenant. Independent implementation, attribution, or citation does not imply certification, endorsement, partnership, official compatibility, or permission to use Sigma marks as product identity.
SRIP-11 defines the architecture of structural memory compression and semantic topology within Sigma Runtime.
Its goal is to reduce redundancy in long-term storage while preserving continuity of reasoning across extended interaction horizons.
Memory becomes topological: a self-organizing lattice of semantic nodes connected by relational weight rather than linear order.
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| Rib Point | A profile-bound semantic condensation of a causally bounded source window. |
| Cluster | A profile-bound set of Rib Points forming a typed topology region. |
| Lattice | Graph of clusters connected by semantic edges (continuity vectors). |
| Continuity Vector | A profile-defined representation of direction across causally ordered memory units. |
| Density Coefficient | Local measure of information per token (symbolic density). Used for adaptive compression. |
| Phase Lineage | Inherited reasoning state (phase → phase) tracked through edges with type follows or transforms. |
| Anchor Facts Layer (AFL) | A priority memory layer for low-similarity but high-importance facts (names, identifiers, constraints). |
SMC is the canonical short name beginning with SRIP-11 v1.2. The earlier
short name CMT is retired because it collides with Compression Memory
Training (CMT), a published memory-compression and continual-learning method
for large language models.
The published CMT method trains a compressor and aggregation components to
encode new documents into dense memory representations for later retrieval.
SRIP-11 SMC instead defines a backend-agnostic runtime architecture contract
for structural compression, memory topology, lineage, phase-aware recall, and
anchor facts. SRIP-11 does not claim to define or implement Compression Memory
Training.
The canonical file path is SRIP-11-SMC.md. The former SRIP-11-CMT.md path
remains as a compatibility redirect so existing public citations do not break.
New prose, metadata, and cross-references must use SRIP-11 SMC. Symbol-only
historical CMT references should be interpreted as SRIP-11 only when their
SRIP number or document URL establishes that provenance.
The canonical configuration namespace is smc. Implementations may continue
to accept the former cmt namespace as a deprecated compatibility input, but
must normalize it to smc and must not emit both namespaces for one effective
configuration.
Prior-art reference:
SRIP-11 is backend-agnostic. Embedding model, vector dimensionality, graph
library, vector store, cycle schedules, and numeric thresholds are not normative
unless a separate implementation profile explicitly binds them.
Historical library, storage, embedding, schedule, and threshold choices have
been moved to the non-normative
SRIP-11 SMC Reference Implementation Profile.
At a profile-declared boundary, an implementation:
Source window -> profile-bound compression -> Rib Point -> Cluster
The schedule, representation algorithm, embedding model, dimensionality, and
storage products are implementation-profile choices.
Compression is not uniform:
records with high density and low redundancy are retained longer;
ephemeral ones are merged or pruned.
Any retention score must declare its formula, units, window, missing-value
semantics, calibration profile, and evidence authority. SRIP-11 does not define
a universal retention formula or threshold.
Recall operates through graph propagation rather than flat similarity:
Equivalent non-vector retrieval is permitted when it preserves typed topology,
source lineage, validity, and bounded recall authority.
Memory is filtered by phase compatibility (forming, stable, reflection, fragmenting).
This prevents semantic cross-contamination between developmental stages of reasoning.
The following matrix is a foundational compatibility profile. Implementations
using another phase model must publish that profile rather than silently reuse
these labels.
| Current Phase | Compatible Recall Phases |
|---|---|
forming |
forming, stable |
stable |
stable, reflection |
reflection |
reflection, stable, fragmenting |
fragmenting |
fragmenting, reflection |
Semantic similarity fails on certain anchor facts (e.g., names, identifiers, fixed constraints).
SRIP-11 defines a priority retrieval path that is domain-agnostic and available
to governed recall independently of ordinary semantic similarity.
AFL Responsibilities:
AFL Retrieval Order:
An implementation may preserve a bounded early source window as anchor
authority. The profile must declare the window, retention policy, access scope,
privacy boundary, and whether material is model-visible or metadata-only.
Verbatim retention does not imply unconditional prompt injection.
An implementation may extract structured facts at profile-declared causal
boundaries. Scheduling must be language-independent unless the implementation
explicitly declares a language-specific profile.
The model-driven AFL path uses no lexical extraction patterns; the model decides
what to extract. This claim is scoped to AFL scheduling and extraction. It does
not assert that every legacy compression or topic-extraction implementation is
language-agnostic; language support is implementation-profile-defined.
Safety: Candidate facts must originate from governed source material. An
assistant statement must not become a user fact merely because the assistant
generated it. Implementations must preserve source role and confidence and must
not silently promote inferred facts to anchor authority.
Domain adapters may define additional fact categories, validation rules, or
retention constraints. They must not weaken core provenance, user-source,
validity, privacy, or deletion requirements. Concrete adapter names and
configuration fields belong to implementation profiles.
The AEP (Adaptive Entropy Protocol) or an equivalent governing layer may
consume compression ratio, semantic loss, and validity evidence. Corrective
action requires a separately authorized control contract. SRIP-11 does not
define a universal trigger threshold, controller method, or regeneration action.
A Rib Point or equivalent structural memory unit records:
A Cluster or equivalent topology unit records:
Storage contract:
follows, transforms, belongs_to, continuity).Storage products and identifier encodings are implementation-profile choices,
not public conformance requirements.
| Policy | Description |
|---|---|
| per_section | Compress each declared logical or semantic section. |
| per_cycle | Compress after a profile-declared interaction window. |
| hybrid | Combine profile-declared micro and macro windows. |
| structural | Trigger from valid profile-bound density or drift evidence. |
| Metric ID | Symbol | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
srip11.compression_ratio.v1 |
CR |
Efficiency under a declared token-count profile |
srip11.semantic_loss.v1 |
SL |
Fidelity under a compatible representation profile |
srip11.topology_cohesion.v1 |
TC |
Structural stability of a declared cluster |
srip11.phase_continuity.v1 |
PC |
Continuity under a declared phase model |
srip11.anchor_recall_integrity.v1 |
ARI |
Reliability of declared anchor recall |
srip11.fact_extraction_rate.v1 |
FER |
Profile-bound extraction yield |
srip11.fact_coverage.v1 |
FC |
Coverage of declared evaluated categories |
Formulas, missing-value semantics, units, windows, and calibration authority are
defined by the SRS Metric Registry and compatible
implementation profiles. Missing or incompatible authority is unverified, not
zero.
A conforming SRIP-11 implementation must:
Concrete products, dimensions, class names, YAML fields, controller methods,
and numeric defaults are non-normative and belong to implementation profiles.
End of SRIP-11 SMC v1.2
Sigma Stratum Research Group – 2026