Ontological Governance
Ontological governance is the discipline of governing what the platform means by its categories over time — enforced through four throttled CSV ledgers that define classification vocabulary, and a human-verification loop that prevents automated extraction errors from compounding.
Ontological governance is the framework that keeps the
platform's classification vocabulary stable and its extracted
identity data accurate. It operates across two mechanisms: the
four control ledgers that govern how service-content classifies
knowledge, and the verification surveyor that forces extracted
identity fragments through human review before they are permanently
written into the verified ledger. These two mechanisms are
structurally separate but serve the same goal: preventing
accumulated classification drift from undermining the integrity of
long-lived institutional data.
The three-stage extraction pipeline
Data extraction across the platform is mechanically isolated into three services:
service-email(ingestion). Processes MIME payloads and deposits raw text and CSV files into the spool. No classification is applied at this stage.service-people(identity resolution). Scans the spool for human identity clusters and routes them to the verification surveyor before committing to the verified ledger.service-content(linguistic classification). Scans the spool for narrative knowledge and cross-references text against the four control ledgers.
The four control ledgers
service-content is governed by four CSV ledgers that update at
heavily throttled rates to preserve longitudinal data stability:
| Ledger | Minimum update interval | Governs |
|---|---|---|
| Archetypes | More than 24 months | The psychological and functional identity of the firm (for example, "The Fiduciary") |
| Chart of Accounts | 18–24 months; requires executive override | The structural and financial geometry of the operation (for example, "Compliance", "IT Support") |
| Domains | More than 12 months | Bilingual glossaries defining the macro-categories: Corporate (Finance), Projects (Real Estate), Documentation (Technology) |
| Themes | 3–8 months | The active frontline narratives (for example, "Co-Location Expansion") |
Update rates are intentionally asymmetric. The slowest ledgers (Archetypes, Chart of Accounts) capture what the firm fundamentally is; the fastest (Themes) capture what it is currently working on. Premature updates to the slower ledgers corrupt the longitudinal coherence of the data corpus.
The verification loop
service-people uses a human-in-the-loop verification step to
prevent automated extraction errors from entering the verified
ledger. The process is described in detail at
Verification Surveyor. In brief:
the system isolates unverified identity fragments for operator
review; the operator verifies each entity using their own personal
browser and off-network lookup; the verified result is then
committed to the ledger. The daily throughput limit ensures that
operator attention remains high-fidelity rather than habitual.