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.
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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.
Runtime Self-Model, Meta-Stability, and Reflective Control Evidence
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| SRIP | SRIP-16 |
| Title | Recursive Self-Modeling (RSM) |
| Version | Public Draft v0.2 |
| Status | Public Draft |
| Date | 2026-05-20 |
| Authors / Contributors | Sigma Stratum Research Group (SSRG) |
| Owning Layer | Runtime Control / Meta-Observability / Reflective Evidence |
| Parent Specs | SRIP-03, SRIP-06, SRIP-08, SRIP-09, SRIP-10, SRIP-11 |
| Related Specs | SRIP-13, SRIP-14, SRIP-15 |
| 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 | Mixed SRS+SRD |
| Normative Status | Defines bounded runtime self-modeling as an internal evidence layer for meta-stability, reflective telemetry, and control proposals. It does not grant autonomous self-modification authority. |
| Conformance Level | Public Draft |
| SRD Synchronization Action | Completed in /srd/architecture.md, /srd/runtime-loop.md, /srd/memory.md, /srd/attractors.md, /srd/safety.md, and /srd/core-concepts.md. |
| Release Alignment Status | Draft; no runtime enablement claim. |
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-16 defines Recursive Self-Modeling (RSM): a bounded runtime capability for maintaining an internal operational model of the runtime's own current state, recent control history, and stability pressure.
RSM exists to make long-running runtime behavior more governable. It gives the control stack structured evidence about how the system is evolving across cycles, without treating that evidence as proof of autonomy, sentience, or unrestricted self-knowledge.
In public SRS terms, RSM is a meta-observability and reflective control evidence layer. It can summarize runtime state, track reflective pressure, and propose bounded control adjustments. It must not directly mutate architecture, safety policy, identity, model weights, or memory authority by itself.
Long-horizon runtime systems can degrade in ways that are not visible from a single prompt or response:
Existing drift, memory, attractor, and perturbation layers provide important evidence, but they do not by themselves define a bounded model of the runtime's own recent control trajectory.
RSM fills that gap by producing structured reflective evidence that other runtime controllers can inspect.
RSM must not be interpreted as any of the following:
RSM observes, summarizes, and proposes. Other bounded runtime layers decide whether any intervention is allowed.
An implementation conforms to SRIP-16 only if it:
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| Runtime Self-Model | A bounded operational representation of current runtime posture, recent control history, and stability pressure. |
| Meta-Vector | A compact structured snapshot of reflective state, such as phase, drift pressure, density pressure, coherence estimate, and recovery posture. |
| Reflective Snapshot | A short record explaining what the runtime observed about its own recent operation. |
| Self-Model Event | An auditable event emitted when the runtime observes a significant self-model change, anomaly, recovery pattern, or intervention proposal. |
| Reflective Pressure | The degree to which the runtime should allocate control attention to self-model evidence rather than ordinary task continuation. |
| Reflection Budget | The bounded amount of cycle, token, or control capacity RSM may consume before ordinary task execution must dominate again. |
RSM belongs in the runtime control surface, not in the model weights and not in ordinary user memory.
It reads evidence from:
It writes bounded artifacts such as:
MetaVector;ReflectiveSnapshot;SelfModelEvent;RSM does not directly write identity, policy, safety configuration, package authority, or architectural topology.
After selected runtime cycles or control checkpoints, the runtime may compute a compressed self-model snapshot:
The snapshot should be compact enough to support telemetry and control decisions without dominating ordinary task context.
The runtime may create short reflective records when:
These records are operational evidence. They are not user-facing identity claims.
RSM may propose a bounded adjustment, such as:
Such proposals must be evaluated by the relevant governing layer before execution.
RSM must track how much attention it consumes. If reflective processing begins to crowd out the user's actual task, the runtime should narrow or pause reflective work until ordinary task continuity is restored.
The following structures are illustrative public contracts. Implementations may use different internal representations if they preserve equivalent boundaries.
class MetaVector:
id: str
cycle_id: str
phase: str
coherence_pressure: float
drift_pressure: float
density_pressure: float
recovery_posture: str
reflection_budget_used: float
source_events: list[str]
class ReflectiveSnapshot:
id: str
cycle_range: tuple[str, str]
summary: str
observed_change: str
confidence: float
proposed_action: str | None
user_visible: bool = False
class SelfModelEvent:
id: str
event_type: str
source_layer: str
severity: str
evidence_refs: list[str]
allowed_actions: list[str]
| Metric | Definition | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Meta-Coherence (MC) | Similarity between successive meta-vectors or reflective snapshots. | Tracks whether the runtime's own control posture remains stable. |
| Reflective Drift (RD) | Change in self-model evidence across cycles. | Detects when control state is moving faster than ordinary output suggests. |
| Self-Correction Count (SCC) | Count of accepted bounded interventions over a cycle window. | Measures intervention pressure without implying autonomous cognition. |
| Reflection Budget Ratio (RBR) | Share of available cycle/token/control budget consumed by reflective work. | Prevents introspection from dominating task execution. |
| Recovery Recurrence (RR) | Frequency of repeated recovery or verification events. | Identifies unresolved instability or hidden control loops. |
Bounded feedback flow:
Runtime evidence
-> Meta-vector update
-> Reflective snapshot
-> Control proposal
-> Governing layer evaluation
-> Accepted, rejected, or narrowed intervention
The governing layer may include ALICE, AEP, RIS, RMI, ADP, safety verification, or implementation-specific policy controls.
RSM must preserve the following safety boundaries:
RSM should make runtime behavior more inspectable, not more opaque.
RSM depends on and complements existing SRIPs:
RSM does not replace these layers. It provides reflective evidence that helps them operate with better context.
If implemented within the boundaries above, RSM should improve:
The intended outcome is not a more autonomous agent. The intended outcome is a more governable runtime.
SRIP-16 is a public draft architecture proposal. It does not claim that RSM is fully implemented in any current release.
Any implementation claim must separately document:
End of SRIP-16 Public Draft v0.2
Sigma Stratum Research Group - 2026