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.
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Admission, Scope, Influence Authority, and Lifecycle Governance for Persistent Memory
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| SRIP | SRIP-26 |
| Title | Memory Influence Layer (MIL) |
| Version | Public Draft v0.1 |
| Status | Public Draft |
| Date | 2026-07-05 |
| Authors / Contributors | Sigma Stratum Research Group (SSRG) |
| Owning Layer | Memory / Runtime Governance / Influence Control |
| Parent Specs | SRIP-04, SRIP-09, SRIP-14, SRIP-21, SRIP-24, SRIP-25 |
| Related Specs | SRIP-01, SRIP-03, SRIP-06, SRIP-11, SRIP-13, SRIP-15, SRIP-19, SRIP-20, SRIP-22, SRIP-23 |
| 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 |
| Specification Class | Runtime Architecture Specification |
| Normative Status | Public draft contract for separating memory existence, retrieval, persistence, and behavioral influence. It does not define a database schema, vector store, prompt-injection mechanism, memory product API, or production memory enablement by itself. |
| Conformance Level | Public Draft / No runtime conformance claim |
| SRD Synchronization Action | Initial SRD synchronization completed in /srd/memory; broader synchronization for retrieval governance, runtime evidence, environment interaction, trajectory governance, and design-partner explanations remains deferred follow-up. |
| Release Alignment Status | aligned with deferred SRD sync |
| Release Alignment Notes | Public draft architecture proposal; no runtime enablement, production behavior, memory write path, prompt overlay, response mutation, or conformance claim is made by this document alone. |
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 these 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-26 defines the Memory Influence Layer (MIL): a runtime governance layer for deciding when memory may affect future runtime behavior.
Existing memory and retrieval specifications define how memory is stored, traced, retrieved, compressed, scoped, and integrated. MIL adds a distinct governance question:
Under what conditions may a remembered or retrieved record influence behavior?
The core principle is:
Memory existence is not memory authority.
Retrieval is evidence.
Influence is runtime authority.
MIL separates:
This SRIP is a public draft architecture contract. It does not claim that MIL is implemented in any current Sigma Runtime release.
Long-horizon AI systems do not merely recall information. They accumulate material that may shape future interpretation, behavior, authority, and identity boundaries.
A memory architecture that optimizes only storage, retrieval, ranking, or compression leaves a major governance gap:
A record may be true, retrievable, and in scope,
but still not authorized to steer behavior.
Examples of the gap include:
MIL addresses these failures by treating behavioral influence as a separate runtime decision.
| Field | Disposition |
|---|---|
| Source material | Open raw SRIP candidate derived from public-safe architecture notes |
| Affected SRS surface | SRIP registry / memory architecture / retrieval governance / external identity / environment interaction / runtime governance |
| Affected SRD surface | Memory, retrieval, evidence, trajectory governance, identity/scope boundaries, operational runtime explanations |
| SRD synchronization | Initial synchronization completed in /srd/memory |
| Normative impact | Public draft contract for memory admission, scope, influence authority, lifecycle governance, sink routing, and attractor-bleed prevention |
| Runtime implementation impact | None by this document alone |
| Release alignment | Public draft only; no runtime enablement, production behavior, memory persistence path, prompt overlay, response mutation, or conformance claim |
This document abstracts the proposal into public specification language. It does not expose proprietary runtime internals, hidden prompts, deployment topology, private telemetry, private evaluation corpora, internal task labels, production operations, user transcripts, or implementation-specific control overlays.
MIL applies whenever material may become durable memory or may influence behavior through recall, retrieval, memory injection, archive review, ledger lookup, profile state, workspace state, or cross-session continuity.
MIL applies to:
MIL does not define:
MIL is not a replacement for SRIP-14 RMI, SRIP-21 EIB, SRIP-24 EIL, or SRIP-25 IEM.
MIL is the governance layer that decides whether memory may become behavioral influence.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Memory Candidate | Material that may become memory but has not yet passed admission review. |
| Memory Admission | Decision process determining whether a candidate may become temporary, scoped, persistent, delayed, rejected, or ledger-bound memory. |
| Memory Sink | Bounded destination for admitted memory, such as session memory, user profile, workspace memory, organization ledger, creative archive, relationship archive, or temporary buffer. |
| Influence Authority | Runtime authorization for a memory record to affect interpretation, behavior, response planning, or downstream state. |
| Influence State | Classification of allowed behavioral force: binding, preferred, advisory, weak, ignored, blocked, or expired. |
| Influence Envelope | Scope, freshness, authority, confidence, privacy, participant, and domain limits attached to memory influence. |
| Memory Currentness | Whether a memory is current, recent, old, archived, superseded, contested, or unknown. |
| Memory Scope | Boundary within which the memory may be considered or influence behavior. |
| Memory Lifecycle | Admission, persistence, retrieval, influence review, update, merge, archive, promotion, demotion, expiration, and retirement. |
| Attractor Bleed | Failure where independent long-running interaction patterns influence each other through overly broad persistent memory. |
| Memory Authority Collapse | Failure where existence, retrieval, persistence, or emotional salience is treated as authorization to influence behavior. |
MIL sits between memory/retrieval evidence and behavioral influence.
Illustrative lifecycle:
Experience
|
v
Memory Candidate
|
v
MIL Admission
|
v
Memory Sink
|
v
Persistence
|
---- Time ----
|
v
Retrieval
|
v
MIL Influence
|
v
Runtime
MIL does not replace retrieval. It evaluates what retrieved or remembered material is allowed to do.
Admission decides whether material may become memory.
Influence decides whether remembered material may steer behavior now.
Short form:
RMI governs recall.
MIL governs influence.
MIL must distinguish candidate formation from persistence.
Admission outcomes may include:
| Outcome | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Reject | Candidate must not become memory. |
| Temporary | Candidate may be retained only inside a bounded active window. |
| Delay | Candidate requires more evidence, confirmation, or repetition before persistence. |
| Scoped Persistent | Candidate may persist within a declared scope. |
| Ledger Candidate | Candidate may be submitted to a governed ledger or evidence store. |
| Archive Only | Candidate may be preserved for record/replay but not future behavioral influence. |
Admission must not be automatic merely because an event occurred, a user said something, a source was retrieved, or an assistant generated a response.
MIL routes admitted memory into bounded destinations.
Examples:
Each sink must carry a permitted influence boundary.
Memory sink selection must not silently broaden future influence.
MIL must preserve where a memory is valid.
Minimum scope dimensions should include:
A memory may be valid in one scope and invalid in another.
Retrieval alone is insufficient.
Every retrieved or recalled memory should receive an influence state before affecting behavior.
Illustrative influence states:
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Binding | Must constrain behavior unless superseded by higher authority. |
| Preferred | Should guide behavior when no conflict exists. |
| Advisory | May inform behavior but cannot decide alone. |
| Weak | Low-confidence or low-authority signal. |
| Ignored | Retrieved but not used. |
| Blocked | Prohibited from influencing this context. |
| Expired | No longer valid for behavioral influence. |
Influence evaluation should consider:
Memory changes over time.
MIL must govern lifecycle transitions such as:
Lifecycle transitions must preserve enough evidence to reconstruct why a memory changed status.
An archive is not unrestricted memory.
A ledger is not unrestricted memory.
MIL must distinguish:
preserved for evidence
from:
authorized to influence behavior
A ledger entry may support audit, replay, accountability, or evidence continuity without becoming a general-purpose behavioral memory.
MIL must address attractor bleed.
Attractor bleed occurs when previously independent long-running interaction patterns begin influencing one another through broad or unscoped memory.
MIL exists to preserve independent long-running behavioral modes.
Memory belonging to one behavioral mode must not automatically gain influence inside another.
Cross-scope influence requires explicit authorization or runtime policy.
Examples:
MIL should prevent bleed by requiring:
A conformant MIL implementation must preserve these invariants:
A conformant MIL implementation must not:
| Dependency | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| SRIP-04 Memory Layer | Parent | Provides foundational memory architecture and persistence vocabulary. |
| SRIP-09 LTM-SC | Parent | Provides long-term memory, structural coherence, lineage, and temporal traceability. |
| SRIP-14 RMI | Parent | Provides retrieval decisions, query shaping, recall compression, provenance, and memory injection. |
| SRIP-21 EIB | Parent | Governs external entity identity and mode boundaries that memory influence must not collapse. |
| SRIP-24 EIL | Parent | Governs environment contact, observation/effect distinction, and authority boundaries. |
| SRIP-25 IEM | Parent | Provides the interaction-event model for memory candidate formation and memory effect events. |
| SRIP-01 Runtime Loop | Related | MIL attaches to trajectory continuation without replacing the canonical loop. |
| SRIP-03 Drift Metrics | Related | Memory influence may affect drift and stability signals. |
| SRIP-06 Safety and Recursion Boundaries | Related | Memory influence must remain within recursion and safety boundaries. |
| SRIP-11 SMC | Related | Structural compression topology affects how memory candidates and summaries are formed. |
| SRIP-13 RIS | Related | Relational identity boundaries constrain influence from relational memory. |
| SRIP-15 ADP | Related | Memory may act as stabilizer or perturbation source only under bounded influence. |
| SRIP-19 RCB | Related | Contested memories should be buffered rather than forced into influence. |
| SRIP-20 ANS | Related | Memory influence may create autonomy or boundary pressure requiring negotiation. |
| SRIP-22 GRC | Related | Governance recursion and authority boundaries constrain influence escalation. |
| SRIP-23 DGL | Related | Generated semantic candidates must not become memory influence without validation. |
Backwards compatibility: this draft is additive. It does not deprecate existing memory, retrieval, identity, event, or governance SRIPs.
MIL reduces risk by preventing memory authority collapse.
Primary risks:
Required safety posture:
The central safety invariant is:
Memory may preserve.
Only governed memory may steer.
Initial SRD synchronization is completed in /srd/memory.
MIL adds one public memory-governance distinction:
memory preservation != behavioral authority
Broader future SRD synchronization may extend:
Until implementation readiness is separately approved, public alignment must be stated as:
Public draft only; no runtime enablement, production behavior,
memory write path, prompt overlay, response mutation, or conformance claim.
This public draft does not define implementation APIs, schemas, database tables, vector stores, prompt overlays, product UI, provider integrations, or production behavior.
Future implementation-readiness work should define:
Any implementation should default to evidence-only or advisory-only memory influence until a separate governance gate enables stronger behavior.
SRIP-26 is additive.
This draft does not deprecate or supersede existing SRIPs. It adds a public draft governance layer between memory/retrieval evidence and behavioral influence.
Numerical placement is historical. Conceptual placement should be maintained in architecture reading-order views.
| Version | Date | Author | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | 2026-07-05 | SSRG | Public draft created with scope, dependencies, non-goals, normative invariants, safety review, and initial SRD memory synchronization. |