Specification

Normative short claims live in spec/canonical.json. Markdown files under spec/ expand context. The repository containing these documents will be published when a public source URL exists; until then, filenames below are repository paths.

Open — what people may freely use, fork, and improve.

• philosophy
• specification text (forkable)
• documentation
• value-equation frameworks
• governance models
• reference software
• research
• ability to fork

Canonical / protected — what may not be claimed casually.

• official Missionism specification versions
• compatibility claims
• certification
• the official Missionism name and brand

Canonical

Required to call an implementation Missionism-compatible. Short claims live only in spec/canonical.json.

Proposed

Preferred direction, but not yet part of the canonical protocol.

Experimental

Something we actively want implementations to test.

Open

Problem identified; no preferred solution yet.

• spec/canonical.json — Normative short claims (single source)
• spec/CORE.md — Constitutional index and context
• spec/RIGHTS_AND_CONSTRAINTS.md — Human constraints; what Missionism does not decide
• spec/MISSIONS.md — Missions, parent/child, recursion
• spec/VALUE.md — Value requirements vs open measurement
• spec/OWNERSHIP.md — Ownership constraints and deep design
• spec/GOVERNANCE.md — Governance
• spec/FORKING.md — Fork as feature; canonical name protected
• spec/COMPATIBILITY.md — What Missionism-compatible means

Deeper design notes still live alongside these files, including HUMAN_COMPACT.md, CERTIFICATION.md, ERA_ECONOMICS.md, MCU_PROTOCOL.md, FOUNDER_CLOCK.md, DECISION_COMPILER.md. See spec/README.md for the map.

An implementation may claim Missionism compatibility only against a published version and its canonical requirements. Certification, when used, is about inspectable commitments—not moral approval. See spec/COMPATIBILITY.md and spec/CERTIFICATION.md.

Missionism is not only a fairness story. It is a hypothesis about how to organize work so incentives reinforce the mission.

Better structural alignment → less required control → more human autonomy at greater organizational complexity.

If Missionism structure is working, we should tend to see:

• Less monitoring and managerial machinery needed to keep people pointed at the mission
• Better succession: people prepare replacements instead of hoarding indispensability
• More knowledge sharing and documentation
• Less incentive to cling to personal power at the expense of the institution
• Contributors behaving more like long-term owners of the mission
• The mission surviving individual departures

If those things do not happen, the mechanism is not working. Change the rules prospectively — or conclude this approach failed for that organization.

Design constraint: Every rule Missionism adds should remove more coordination complexity than it creates.

Not Canonical. This is how the experiment stays falsifiable. See Why now and Open questions.

Changelog · Why now · Open questions · Principles