Source of Truth

This page defines how authoritative BDL sources are identified, governed, preserved, and interpreted.

BDL documentation is not based on a single undifferentiated source. Different governed sources have different authority, scope, version, and capability-layer responsibilities.

Canonical source registry

The canonical governed source inventory is maintained in source-registry.json.

Each governed source record includes:

• a stable source_id;
• source type;
• governed version;
• governance status;
• preservation state;
• canonical repository path;
• SHA-256 digest;
• artifact size;
• supersession metadata when established.

Current governed baselines

The current governed baselines are:

Source	Version	Governance status
BDL Master Knowledge Pack	5.2.2	current
Native Barsa System Design Contract	2.0.0	current
BDL Runtime/Troubleshooting Knowledge Pack	2.0.0	current

Historical and superseded sources remain preserved for provenance, compatibility analysis, regression investigation, and conflict resolution.

Source authority

Source precedence is determined by scope and governance authority, not simply by publication date.

The default source-type precedence for overlapping claims within compatible scope is:

1. Native Barsa contract
2. BDL Master Knowledge Pack
3. Runtime / Troubleshooting Knowledge Pack
4. Historical source

This precedence must never be used to collapse different capability layers into one generic notion of support.

Capability layers

BDL governance preserves four distinct capability layers:

1. Native Barsa — capabilities and behavior provided by Barsa itself.
2. Runtime Support — behavior demonstrated or supported by the runtime environment.
3. BDL Expressibility — what the BDL language can represent.
4. BDL Authoring Availability — what current authoring tools allow users to create or configure.

Evidence about one layer does not automatically prove another layer.

Source status

Governed sources use one of these canonical statuses:

• current
• historical
• superseded
• deprecated
• withdrawn

Status and preservation are separate concepts. A superseded, historical, or withdrawn source may still require preserved: true.

Supersession

The supersedes field records a direct, formally established replacement relationship.

It is not inferred merely because one source has a higher version number or later date.

When explicit evidence for direct supersession is unavailable, the registry keeps supersedes as null rather than inventing a relationship.

Conflict resolution

When governed sources appear to conflict, the following checks are required before choosing an authoritative interpretation:

1. verify that the claims refer to the same scope;
2. verify that they refer to the same capability layer;
3. apply source precedence;
4. inspect source status and version;
5. inspect any explicit supersession relationship;
6. inspect provenance and supporting evidence;
7. preserve unresolved conflicts when evidence is insufficient.

No material conflict may be silently resolved by deleting, overwriting, or hiding a governed source.

No-Loss rule

Governed source information must not be silently deleted, overwritten, replaced, or made unreachable.

Artifacts, metadata, checksums, provenance, conflict evidence, and historical identity must remain recoverable whenever preservation is required.

Removing a source from public navigation or download access does not authorize deletion of the governed source itself.

Evidence and provenance

Material claims and governance decisions must be traceable to sufficient evidence.

Where possible, evidence should be reproducible, attributable, versioned, and protected from silent modification.

Inference must remain distinguishable from direct authoritative statements.

Integrity

The source registry is verified against real repository artifacts using:

• file existence;
• exact byte size;
• SHA-256 digest;
• unique source_id validation.

The current registry contains seven governed source records, all verified against their corresponding source artifacts.

Governance principle

Implementation without verification is incomplete.

The same principle applies to source governance: authoritative status, conflict resolution, preservation, and publication decisions require sufficient evidence.