#A.6.C:4.1 — Four questions for contract-like boundary wording

Preface node heading:a-6-c-4-1-four-questions-for-contract-like-boundary-wording:11876

#What this page is

This is generated FPF reference text from the specification preface or supporting sections. It helps interpret FPF; it is not FPF Reference product documentation.

#Methodology

Use it to understand how the specification wants to be read, then return to a route, pattern, or work packet for active work. Cite generated IDs only when the wording changes the task decision.

#Content

Whenever a text uses “contract”, “guarantee”, “promise”, “SLA”, or “interface agreement”, ask the four questions below. A question may yield zero, one, or several atomic Claim Register rows; the question itself is not a bundle part or direct-object kind.

1. What was promised?

   • The promised value or effect (the promise content) in the intended scope.
   • In FPF terms (A.2.3), U.PromiseContent is promise content—a promise content, not an execution event (U.Work) and not, by itself, an obtaining individual deontic relation (U.Commitment).
   • Prose head rule (normative). When referring to U.PromiseContent in normative prose, authors SHALL use the head phrase promise content (or service offering clause or service promise clause) and SHALL NOT rely on the bare head noun service. If the surrounding text also talks about endpoints, systems, and operations, apply A.6.P:4.11a only when the current relied-on use still hides which concrete subject or relation is meant; examples include a service access point, service delivery system, or service-delivery Work occurrence. Mere proximity to those words creates no additional claim or recovery duty.
   • Recommendation: give the promise-content a stable local ID (e.g., SVC-*) so it can be cited from commitments, gates, evidence, and MVPK faces without paraphrase drift.
   • Claim-classification discipline: keep meanings and definitions of the promised behavior in L. A generic prescription about that behavior is a separate D claim about its exact normative source and applicable rule content. If an actual System or separately governed party has that duty, state a separate D claim about the exact U.Commitment, plus any A-* and E-* references needed by that claim.

2. What was said, published, or instituted?

   • Speech-act row: if the boundary decision depends on who stated, published, or approved something, record that exact A.2.9 U.SpeechAct <: U.Work occurrence.
   • Description/publication rows: record the versioned utterance epistemes separately from their publication occurrences, forms, renderings, and carriers. None is the speech act.
   • A speech act may institute or update a commitment or strong grant only when the exact context policy recognizes that act type and the subject pattern's obtaining conditions are met.
   • The published utterance descriptions (signature or mechanism descriptions plus MVPK faces) carry L/A/D/E-classified claims. The act is not “the contract”; it is the Work occurrence that created or updated those descriptions and may have a separately governed institutional effect.
   • World-side obtaining rule (normative). The predicates defined in A.2.8 and the cited context policy decide whether a commitment obtains; the predicate defined in A.2.8.PER together with that policy decides whether a strong grant obtains. They use the actual instituting speech act, participants, scope/window, current policy, and any revocation or supersession conditions. A Claim Register row, utterance description, publication, carrier, or identifier creates or proves neither relation. Publication or approval may establish a publication/status relation only through that relation's exact predicate and obtaining facts.
   • Representation and reliance rule (normative). The model MAY assert or rely on a commitment or grant only through a separate atomic claim that identifies the exact U.Commitment or GrantedPermissionRelation@Context occurrence and cites its exact predicate, SubjectPatternLocator, instituting act and policy, participants, scope/window, and the currentness or evidence required by that use. Never infer the relation from Publish/Approve wording, a document, carrier, or completed-looking record alone.

3. What governance or permission-looking claim exists?

   • A generic prescription states what one exact policy or other normative episteme requires; it does not create an individual duty bearer or commitment occurrence. A claim that one actual System or separately governed party has that duty instead cites one separately obtaining A.2.8 U.Commitment. Here the normative episteme may be a contract, SLA, protocol, or policy, and the generic claim also states where its rule applies.
   • When the model asserts or relies on an individual obligation, recommendation-as-duty, or prohibition, write a separate atomic D claim whose direct object is that exact separately obtaining U.Commitment. The claim describes that relation for use; it neither institutes it nor proves that it obtains.
   • For permission-looking wording, select one A.6 A6-AW-* row. Only A6-AW-NORM-GRANT enters D; A6-AW-GATE enters A; exercise, weak evaluation, conflict, and observed-source claims enter E when their closing facts are present. Classification under A.2.8.PER alone selects no quadrant.
   • Individual-commitment checklist (use only for the individual branch):
     • identify one exact U.Commitment occurrence and the separate D-claim or CommitmentAssertion about it;
     • select exactly one actual bearer branch: an admitted U.System or separately governed party;
     • name non-empty exact duty referents, any actual counterparties, normalized modality, scope, and validity window;
     • cite the exact current constitutive policy, its individualizing rule, and the actual instituting basis required by that rule;
     • cite a system-role assignment only when that rule uses the assignment as an applicability ground—the assignment is neither bearer nor duty; and
     • add evidence-claim or carrier references only when the receiving reliance or adjudication needs them.
   • Permission-branch pointer: cite the selected A6-AW-* row, its exact A.2.8.PER object when applicable, and that atomic claim's quadrant. Preserve the object's own schema, participants, and references; do not reuse the commitment checklist.
   • A commitment is not “the spec text”: an utterance description carries the statement, while U.Commitment is the separately obtaining relation described by that statement (A.7 and A.2.8).

4. What happened, what followed, and what supports reliance?

   • Work: For one exact dated W : U.Work, recover each exact actual performer through A.13 and let A.15.1 independently admit the occurrence from that performer, enacted Method, extent, and containing System. Add an exact A.2.1 assignment reference and F.6 only when this account or a receiving use expressly consumes precise assignment-bound attribution through the same obtaining A.13 assignment; F.6 identifies neither the assignment nor the performer, and missing or failed F.6 leaves the Work intact. The Work can exist without a result, production, delivery, evidence-use, or acceptance claim.
   • Result or consequence: only when the sentence asks for one, select the matching A.15.1:4.6 row—an A.6.1 application/result binding or independently obtaining WorkResultRelation, A.15.PROD production branch, A.3.4 change, evaluation result, subject-specific delivery/transfer relation, or acceptance relation. An absent row stays absent.
   • Evidence: only when a receiving use relies on Work or one of those consequences, state an A.10 claim-bound evidence path and carrier. Evidence supports the named claim; it creates neither the Work nor its result.

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Last Updated: 2026-09-03 — upstream FPF commit b999972c (github.com/ailev/FPF)