Evidence-Bounded Research Intelligence Archives
draft-watts-research-intelligence-archive-01

Network Working Group                                        D. O. Watts
Internet-Draft                                       GoodShyt Group Inc.
Intended status: Informational                           30 October 2026
Expires: 3 May 2027

            Evidence-Bounded Research Intelligence Archives
              draft-watts-research-intelligence-archive-01

Abstract

   This unsubmitted working draft defines an evidence-bounded archive
   profile for scientific and technical claims, sources, evidence tiers,
   falsifiers, tests, provenance, publication state, and integrity
   manifests.  The profile is designed to prevent archival or mechanical
   integrity from being misread as empirical validity, novelty, peer
   review, standards approval, or publication acceptance.  This file is
   an archival RFCXML working draft and has no IETF standing unless
   separately submitted.

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Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2026 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  Archive Data Model  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     4.1.  Source Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     4.2.  Claim Register  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     4.3.  Claim States  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     4.4.  Evidence and Falsifier Registers  . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     4.5.  Publication State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   5.  Non-Collapse Requirement  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   6.  Provenance and Reconciliation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   7.  Integrity and Reproducibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   8.  Interchange Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   9.  Privacy and Intellectual Property Considerations  . . . . . .   5
   10. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   11. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   12. Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   Appendix A.  Changes since -00  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7

1.  Introduction

   Research programs increasingly combine manuscripts, code, datasets,
   repository histories, protocol drafts, experimental records, figures,
   and publication metadata.  A useful archive must preserve more than
   file storage: it must preserve which source supports which claim,
   what remains unknown, what would falsify a statement, and which gates
   remain before external release.

   This profile defines a compact interoperability model for those
   records.  It is intentionally evidence-bounded.  It does not define
   how scientific truth is established and does not replace venue-
   specific research-integrity, privacy, intellectual-property,
   security, or disclosure requirements.

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2.  Requirements Language

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
   BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.

3.  Terminology

   Source Record  A record identifying an original or externally
      authoritative input, including a stable locator and, when
      available, a cryptographic digest.

   Claim Record  An atomic proposition associated with epistemic status,
      evidence tier, source references, falsifier, replication
      procedure, and release state.

   Evidence Tier  A local classification of evidentiary strength.  This
      profile uses T1 for empirical/observational evidence, T2 for
      derivation, T3 for rigorous conjecture, and T4 for speculative
      material.

   State Collapse  An illegitimate promotion or merging of distinct
      epistemic or workflow states, such as requested to approved or
      executed to validated without required transition evidence.

   Mechanical Integrity  Evidence that bytes, builds, signatures, or
      hashes match expectations.  Mechanical integrity is not empirical
      validation.

4.  Archive Data Model

4.1.  Source Registry

   Each material source SHOULD receive a stable source identifier,
   original title, date or capture date, kind, authority description,
   trust label, archive treatment, locator, and digest where bytes are
   available.  Multiple storage copies of the same intellectual record
   MUST NOT be counted as independent corroboration merely because their
   file identifiers differ.

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4.2.  Claim Register

   Each claim SHOULD be atomic enough to admit a falsifier.  The record
   SHOULD contain a claim identifier, project identifier, status,
   evidence tier, source references, confidence rationale or bounded
   confidence field, falsifier, replication protocol, and publication-
   readiness state.

4.3.  Claim States

   A profile MAY use ESTABLISHED, DERIVED, CONJECTURE, ANOMALY, and
   POTENTIALLY NOVEL.  POTENTIALLY NOVEL is only a routing state for
   prior-art work and MUST NOT be interpreted as a novelty or priority
   certification.

4.4.  Evidence and Falsifier Registers

   Evidence SHOULD be linked to claims without erasing provenance.
   Falsifiers SHOULD identify observations, proofs, prior art, or
   reproduction failures that would change the claim state.  Negative
   and contradictory evidence MUST be retained.

4.5.  Publication State

   Publication readiness SHOULD record the independent gates still
   required, for example empirical execution, independent reproduction,
   prior-art review, rightsholder review, security analysis, or venue
   acceptance.  Repository visibility or a rendered manuscript MUST NOT
   be treated as venue acceptance.

5.  Non-Collapse Requirement

   Distinct workflow and epistemic states MUST remain distinct unless an
   explicitly documented transition provides the required evidence.  In
   particular, false and unknown are distinct; submitted and approved
   are distinct; authenticated and authorized are distinct; authorized
   and executed are distinct; executed and successful are distinct;
   successful and independently validated are distinct.

   For a state chain A to B to C, a consumer MUST NOT infer A directly
   implies C when the profile identifies evidence required for the
   omitted transition.

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6.  Provenance and Reconciliation

   An archive SHOULD preserve the original record, source identifier,
   revision or commit when available, capture date, and byte digest.
   Derived summaries MUST remain distinguishable from primary records.
   Source-derived context MUST remain separate from synthetic experiment
   state.

   When contradictions occur, the archive SHOULD preserve both records
   and record the discrepancy rather than silently harmonizing them.  A
   reconciliation decision SHOULD identify the authority rule used.

7.  Integrity and Reproducibility

   Implementations SHOULD compute cryptographic digests over archived
   files and SHOULD provide a manifest-verification procedure.
   Buildable manuscripts SHOULD include their source, bibliography,
   figures or stable figure references, and deterministic build
   instructions to the extent practical.

   A matching digest proves byte integrity only.  A successful build
   proves build-level reproducibility only.  Neither proves truth,
   authorship, causality, novelty, independent replication, peer review,
   publication acceptance, or standards adoption.

8.  Interchange Formats

   JSON and CSV MAY be used as parallel machine-readable and human-
   reviewable tracker forms.  BibLaTeX MAY carry bibliographic metadata.
   RFCXML v3 MAY be used for unsubmitted interoperability working
   drafts.  A generated RFCXML file MUST NOT be described as an RFC or
   IETF-approved document unless it has separately achieved that status.

   Where multiple serializations exist, one serialization SHOULD be
   designated canonical for each logical register, or a deterministic
   conversion rule SHOULD be documented.

9.  Privacy and Intellectual Property Considerations

   Archives SHOULD separate research records from credentials, secrets,
   unnecessary personal information, third-party intellectual property,
   and confidential business material.  Credentials and private keys
   MUST NOT be included merely for reproducibility.  Personal data
   SHOULD be minimized.  Third-party authorship and licenses MUST be
   preserved.

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   Publication of an archived source SHOULD occur only when the archive
   owner has the right to publish it or when an applicable license or
   legal basis permits redistribution.  Internal archival possession
   does not create publication rights.

10.  Security Considerations

   Archive tooling can become a high-value aggregation point.
   Implementations SHOULD use least-privilege access, separate public
   and confidential release sets, prevent accidental inclusion of
   credentials, and preserve an audit trail of source ingestion and
   mutation.  Integrity manifests SHOULD themselves be versioned and
   protected against silent replacement.

   Archives MUST NOT silently delete contradictory or negative evidence
   in order to improve a narrative result.  Automated transformations
   SHOULD operate on detached views when modification of canonical
   source records would compromise reproducibility.

11.  IANA Considerations

   This document has no IANA actions.

12.  Normative References

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

Appendix A.  Changes since -00

   This section is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

   Editorial and tooling-conformance changes only; no technical content
   was changed.

   *  Added BCP 14 Requirements Language section (document uses
      uppercase requirement keywords without the boilerplate; idnits
      error)

   *  Added RFC 2119 reference entry

   *  Added RFC 8174 reference entry

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   *  Removed unreferenced bibliography entries (xml2rfc/idnits "unused
      reference"): RFC7991

   *  Normalized author metadata (full name with ASCII form, initials,
      organization GoodShyt Group Inc., San Francisco CA postal, email,
      ORCID URI)

   *  Updated document date and revision number.

Author's Address

   Deonté O'dell Watts
   GoodShyt Group Inc.
   San Francisco, CA
   United States of America
   Email: deonte@goodshyt.fun
   URI:   https://orcid.org/0009-0005-8586-3650

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