1. Scope and Preamble
All preceding revisions of this document have been observed to fail their intended objectives. Wealth, labor, wisdom, pleasure, and reputation, taken as primary success criteria, have each been formally classified as vapor — a transient phenomenon that cannot be retained, cannot be carried forward across system boundaries, and cannot be relied upon to provide nominal operation under stress. The requirements below supersede all earlier criteria.
2. High-Level Requirements
LIFE-HLR-001:
The system shall acknowledge that all accumulated assets — including but not limited to grain, gold, monuments, projects, and reputation — degrade or transfer to other parties upon end-of-life.
Observed across all prior revisions. Vapor.
LIFE-HLR-002:
The system shall not adopt the accumulation of assets as a primary success criterion. Such accumulation may proceed only as a side-effect of nominal operation, never as the operational goal.
See LIFE-HLR-001. Designing toward a goal that does not persist produces a system that does not satisfy its purpose.
LIFE-HLR-003:
The system shall eat its bread, drink its wine, and enjoy the work of its hands within the day in which they occur.
The present day is the only interval within which the system is verified to be running. Deferring enjoyment to an unverified future interval introduces unbounded risk.
LIFE-HLR-004:
The system shall operate in cooperation with at least one other instance. Two are better than one; a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
Single-instance operation has been demonstrated to fail gracelessly on fall, on cold, and on attack. Redundancy is not optional at Level A criticality.
LIFE-HLR-005:
The system shall, upon encountering another instance in distress, lift it up. This behavior shall not be conditional on prior credit or expected return.
Derived from LIFE-HLR-004. The cooperative property fails if it is contingent. Unconditional response is the only specification that holds under all observed fault modes.
LIFE-HLR-006:
The system shall accept that there is a time appointed for every activity under the sun, and shall not attempt to force activities outside their appointed times.
A time to plant, a time to pluck up. A time to keep silence, a time to speak. Operating outside the appointed envelope produces incorrect outputs without exception.
LIFE-HLR-007:
The system shall not store up bitterness against another instance. Where offense has occurred, the system shall release it within a bounded interval not to exceed the setting of the sun.
Bitterness, when retained, has been observed to consume processing capacity required for LIFE-HLR-004 and LIFE-HLR-005.
LIFE-HLR-008:
The system shall remember its origin in the days of its strength, before the difficult days come and the silver cord is loosed.
Initial conditions are recoverable only if logged. Remembering, in this system, is a form of hope.
3. Conclusion of the Matter
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole specification: revere the Author of the system, and keep these requirements; for this is the whole duty of the instance. All other revisions have been tried. This one has not yet been found wanting where it has been followed. The vapor is real, and the work is still good, and the company of another is still the chief safeguard against the night.