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.
Sigma Runtime Improvement Proposal
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| SRIP | SRIP-04 |
| Title | Memory Layer Architecture |
| Version | Foundational Draft |
| Status | Draft |
| Date | 2026-04-17 |
| Authors / Contributors | E. Tsaliev |
| Owning Layer | Cognitive Memory |
| Parent Specs | SRIP-02, SRIP-03 |
| Related Specs | SRIP-06, SRIP-09, SRIP-11, SRIP-14 |
| 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 |
| Normative Status | Defines the public memory-layer architecture vocabulary for persistence, recall, grounding, and long-horizon continuity. |
| Conformance Level | Public Draft / Foundational |
| SRD Synchronization Action | Deferred review |
| Release Alignment Status | Foundational draft; no production conformance claim is made by this document alone. |
Public Note
This foundational document uses version-light public vocabulary for persistence, recall, and recovery.
Earlier controller-branded recovery wording remains lineage history, not the active public baseline.
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-04 defines the memory subsystem of the Sigma Runtime — the persistent cognitive substrate that maintains identity, continuity, and coherence across recursive cycles.
It extends SRIP-02 (Attractor Model) and SRIP-03 (Drift Metrics) by specifying how symbolic and semantic traces are stored, abstracted, and re-integrated to sustain long-horizon cognition.
Memory in Sigma Runtime is not a sequential log of dialogue but a structured cognitive field composed of three interacting layers:
| Layer | Function | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Episodic Memory | Short-term continuity | Captures turn-level context and reasoning traces per cycle. |
| Semantic Memory | Conceptual mapping | Maintains embeddings and associative links between concepts. |
| Symbolic Memory | Motif preservation | Archives archetypal patterns and symbolic density clusters for reuse. |
All layers interact through the runtime field layer, allowing attractors to persist, dissolve, or recombine according to coherence metrics.
Recall is reconstructive, not verbatim. When a new cycle begins:
This ensures continuity without information bloat.
MemoryLayer:
episodic_store:
- cycle_id: int
state_vector: list[float]
drift_index: float
summary: str
semantic_map:
concepts: dict[str, list[str]]
embeddings: dict[str, list[float]]
symbolic_motifs:
clusters: list[str]
density_scores: list[float]
pil_invariants:
identity_vector: list[float]
core_motifs: list[str]
This schema supports serialization for cross-runtime transfer and distributed coherence management.
Memory frames are grounded through three anchoring processes:
Anchoring ensures that meaning remains stable despite re-compression or control shifts.
A conformant memory implementation must guarantee:
When runtime stability degrades beyond memory safety thresholds, the controlled recovery protocol initiates targeted restoration of stored state.
Rule 9.1 — Memory-Triggered Recovery
When recovery is triggered by memory-layer drift (ER > 0.3),
the runtime must restore from a bounded PIL-safe backup snapshot prior to resuming stable operation.This prevents deadlock between volatile memory frames and PIL invariants by resetting only ephemeral segments while preserving identity integrity.
Recovery then re-evaluates coherence and control alignment before returning control to the runtime control layer for stability verification.
A runtime conforms to SRIP-04 if it:
Planned extensions:
References
Tsaliev, E. (2025). SIGMA Runtime Architecture v0.1 — DOI 10.5281/zenodo.17703667