Authoritative Material Classification (AMC)

1. Purpose

The JellyLabs governance system distinguishes between public canonical materials and private authoritative materials.

This document explains:

where authority comes from,
how private deliberation is handled safely,
and how outcomes remain transparent without oversharing.

The goal is to preserve clarity, trust, and accountability while allowing candid internal decision-making.

2. Core Principle

Authority is expressed publicly, even when rationale is private.

No hidden rules exist. No private document creates obligations for readers. Public artifacts are always sufficient to understand what is binding.

3. Material Classifications

All materials fall into exactly one of the following classes.

3.1 Public Canonical Materials

These materials define what is authoritative and binding.

Examples include:

Published specifications
Accepted proposals
Official documentation
Changelogs and status records

Properties:

Publicly accessible
Versioned
Citable
Governed by established protocols

Authority source: Explicit acceptance and publication.

3.2 Private Authoritative Materials

These materials support internal decision-making but are not published.

Examples include:

Decision rationale
Internal reviews or assessments
Legal or strategic analysis
Risk or safety evaluations

Properties:

Access-controlled
Not publicly referenced
Immutable once finalized
Used only to justify decisions

Critical rule:

Private authoritative materials never create public obligations on their own.

Their effects must always appear in public canonical materials.

3.3 Private Non-Authoritative Materials

These materials support exploration and thinking but carry no authority.

Examples include:

Brainstorming notes
AI-assisted ideation
Drafts
Conversations

Properties:

Provisional
Disposable
Non-binding
Not retained as records of decision

These materials are intentionally excluded from governance weight.

4. Authority Flow

Authority flows outward, not inward.

Private deliberation
        ↓
Human decision
        ↓
Public canonical artifact

At no point does authority flow from:

private notes,
conversations,
or unpublished analysis

directly into canon.

5. Transparency Without Oversharing

This system deliberately separates:

what must be public (decisions and outcomes)
what may remain private (rationale and deliberation)

This avoids:

shadow governance,
performative transparency,
and accidental disclosure of sensitive material.

Readers should never need access to private materials to understand or apply the system.

6. Relationship to Other Governance Mechanisms

This classification complements, but does not replace:

Proposal governance (what may exist)
Development protocols (how work converges)
Publication rules (what is released)
Safety boundaries (what must never happen)

It exists solely to clarify where authority lives and how it is expressed.

7. Reader Guidance

If you encounter a situation where:

a decision appears unexplained, or
rationale is not publicly available,

the correct assumption is:

The outcome is authoritative as published. Supporting rationale exists internally but is not required for interpretation.

Absence of rationale does not imply absence of governance.

8. Shadow Authority Audit

The following vectors have been explicitly closed:

Vector	Status	Why
Conversations	No authority	Classified as Private Non-Authoritative
AI outputs	No authority	Explicitly excluded (FTL-011)
Internal rationale	No authority	AMC requires public expression of effects
Docs	No authority	Non-normative, explanatory only
Task ledger	No authority	Tracks work, does not decide
Proposals	Conditional authority	Only upon explicit acceptance
Specs	Full authority	Versioned, published, immutable

Conclusion:

There is no path by which authority can be exercised invisibly.

Every authoritative action must pass through:

a human decision,
an explicit artifact,
and a public expression.

Shadow governance is structurally impossible unless rules are deliberately violated—and such violations are now detectable.

9. Closing Note

This classification exists to make governance legible, not performative.

Private authority is legitimate. Public authority is explicit. Nothing binding is hidden.