INV-ARC-013: Membership by Existence
| Reference Number | Version | Effective Date | Supersedes | Authority Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| INV-ARC-013 | 1.1 | 2026-10-14 | 1.0 | Constitutional |
Important
v1.1 (2026-10-14), developer-documentation modernization pass. Corrected a mislabeled Authority Level: this is a Tier 1 (INV-ARC) document and must read Constitutional, not Foundational – “Foundational” is reserved for INV-CORE (Tier 0). No substantive rule in this document changed.
I. Purpose
Define the membership rule that governs runtime access.
II. Scope
Applies to all membership and class-access decisions.
III. Authority Level
Constitutional within INV-ARC. Derived from INV-CORE-000 Section III.6, Class Identity and Membership Model (Existence-Based), and governed within the hierarchy described by INV-CORE-001.
IV. Dependencies
docs/INVARIANT/CORE/INV-CORE-000_CORE_INVARIANTS.mddocs/INVARIANT/CORE/INV-CORE-001_CAPABILITY_BASED_ARCHITECTURE_AND_AUTHORITY_MODEL.mdINV-ARC-001_SCOPED_REQUEST_CONTEXT.md
V. Core Rule
Membership MUST be determined by existence of valid class association.
State-based membership flags are forbidden as runtime authority.
VI. Rebuild Intent
This rule exists to eliminate lifecycle-state membership logic and to force access control to rest on actual surviving class association.
VII. Downstream Consequence
DOM and FEAT must not branch on active/inactive-style membership flags as authority.
VIII. Amendment
Revisions must preserve existence-based membership.
Last updated: 2026-10-14