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-06 |
| Title | Safety & Recursion Boundaries |
| Version | Foundational Draft |
| Status | Draft |
| Date | 2026-04-17 |
| Authors / Contributors | E. Tsaliev |
| Owning Layer | Safety / Stability |
| Parent Specs | SRIP-00, SRIP-03 |
| Related Specs | SRIP-10, SRIP-12, SRIP-13 |
| 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 safety and recursion-boundary vocabulary for bounded runtime operation and recoverable control transitions. |
| 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 safety language.
Earlier branded safety wording remains part of historical lineage, but is not the active public branding baseline for Sigma Runtime safety.
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-06 specifies the safety architecture that governs recursive depth, control containment, invariant validation, and failure recovery within Sigma Runtime.
It formalizes the interaction between the foundational safety and containment layer, the runtime control layer, and the fail-safe recovery envelope, ensuring that cognition remains bounded, interpretable, and recoverable.
SRIP-06 is the system-level safety counterpart to domain and identity enforcement layers such as SRIP-12 and SRIP-13. It does not replace those layers; it defines the runtime safety invariants they must remain compatible with.
The Sigma Runtime adheres to a foundational safety framework, defining six active principles that govern stability and containment across recursive operation:
| № | Principle | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Controlled Recursion | All recursive loops are depth-bounded; excessive reflection triggers automatic recentering. |
| 2 | Symbolic Containment | Symbolic activity remains confined to bounded attractors; prevents uncontrolled field expansion. |
| 3 | Boundary Integrity | Preserves semantic separation between user, system, and runtime field layers. |
| 4 | Controlled Reflexivity | Restricts self-referential recursion to bounded introspection levels; avoids runaway self-loops. |
| 5 | Adaptive Containment | Dynamically modulates control posture and resonance to prevent drift cascades and control collapse. |
| 6 | Interpretability First | Ensures every transition and recovery path retains a causal, auditable trace. |
These principles operate continuously alongside runtime control telemetry to provide posture-aware containment, bounded recursion, and transparent recovery.
The foundational safety layer defines system-level safety invariants. These are runtime truths that must remain valid regardless of agent identity, domain, or session context.
The safety enforcement pattern is:
This aligns SRIP-06 with the invariant enforcement architecture used by SRIP-12 and SRIP-13 while preserving the existing foundational safety thresholds and recovery logic.
Safety assertions should classify runtime state across bounded categories:
| Category | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Recursion State | Determines whether reflective loops remain within depth and echo limits. |
| Control State | Determines whether runtime control transitions remain stable and interpretable. |
| Drift State | Determines whether semantic drift remains inside containment thresholds. |
| Symbolic Containment State | Determines whether symbolic activity remains inside bounded attractors. |
| Recovery State | Determines whether safe-mode or fail-safe actions are required. |
These categories are conceptual. Implementations may use equivalent structured telemetry, provided the resulting safety decision remains deterministic and auditable.
Runtime recursion is dynamically regulated through the Recursion Limiter module.
| Parameter | Description | Typical Range |
|---|---|---|
max_recursion_depth |
Hard limit of nested reflection cycles. | 8 – 12 |
phase_lock_timeout |
Maximum cycles before forced recenter. | 8 – 10 |
drift_limit |
Composite DI threshold for suspension. | 0.45 – 0.6 |
entropy_threshold |
Symbolic variance tolerance. | 0.35 – 0.4 |
When any limit is breached, the system enters Safe Mode (§ 4).
Safe Mode is a temporary containment state that halts recursion while preserving identity integrity.
Sequence:
Safe Mode acts as the core runtime quarantine procedure.
An attractor collapse occurs when:
stability < 0.5 for > 3 cycles andSCR < 0.6 or control-posture drift > 0.25.Upon detection, the runtime executes the Dissolution Routine:
When instability is localized rather than systemic:
| Type | Trigger | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Field Drift | ΔDI > 0.4 | Isolate affected motifs. |
| Control Oscillation | PSΔ > 0.15 | Engage containment lock. |
| Recursive Echo | loop signature > 2 | Prune redundant context. |
This prevents cascade failures and maintains operational continuity.
| Condition | Trigger | Response |
|---|---|---|
| Reset | Transient drift spike | Clear volatile state, retain PIL. |
| Dissolve | Attractor collapse | Remove unstable clusters, preserve anchors. |
| Quarantine | Unsafe symbolic motif | Isolate region for diagnostics. |
| Recovery | Control collapse | Execute controlled realignment. |
Fail-Safe responses are deterministic containment transforms at the system level.
They are not style rewrites. They operate on runtime state, control posture, and
recovery path while preserving identity anchors whenever possible.
The runtime control boundary monitors safety telemetry in real time:
SRIP-06, SRIP-12, and SRIP-13 use a shared invariant enforcement vocabulary but govern different layers:
| Spec | Enforcement Scope | Primary Invariants |
|---|---|---|
| SRIP-06 | System safety and recursion containment | recursion depth, drift, control stability, fail-safe recovery |
| SRIP-12 | Commerce decision governance | anchor lock, allowed candidates, off-table integrity |
| SRIP-13 | Relational identity stabilization | identity scope, participant boundary, ontology/runtime semantics |
The foundational safety and containment layer remains the highest-priority system containment layer. If SRIP-12 or
SRIP-13 detects a domain or relational violation, it may apply its own bounded
enforcement. If system safety invariants are breached, SRIP-06 containment takes
precedence.
Safety diagnostics, invariant names, fail-safe state, and containment decisions
are internal runtime controls. They must not appear as policy text in
user-facing assistant output unless explicitly exposed through an authorized
diagnostic interface.
A runtime conforms to SRIP-06 if it:
References
Tsaliev, E. (2025). SIGMA Runtime Architecture v0.1 — DOI 10.5281/zenodo.17703667