Layer 0 · Identity
1 Purpose Charter
- Layer: 0 — Identity & Scope
- Status: Stub — not yet adopted
- RCOS reference: §2.1, §2.4, §2.5
Primary Purpose
RCOS definition2.1.1, 2.1.2, 2.1.5
- 2.1.1 A community MUST define exactly one primary purpose.
- 2.1.2 The primary purpose MUST describe the enduring reason for the community’s existence and MUST NOT be a short-term goal, project, or strategy.
- 2.1.5 No action, decision, or allocation of resources MAY materially contradict the stated primary purpose.
Why a single enduring purpose?
Every decision, role, and allocation of resources downstream has to stay consistent with one thing — the community’s primary purpose. If it drifts, shifts with trends, or gets diluted by competing goals, the community loses coherence.
<The community’s primary purpose — to be defined.>
Secondary Purposes
RCOS definition2.1.4
- 2.1.4 Secondary purposes MAY be defined, but MUST NOT conflict with or override the primary purpose.
Why allow secondary purposes?
A community rarely does only one thing. Secondary purposes make space for the other concrete outcomes the community pursues — but they are subordinate. If a secondary purpose ever conflicts with the primary purpose, the primary purpose takes precedence.
<Secondary purposes — to be defined.>
Non-Goals and Exclusions
Why state what the community is not?
Communities drift by accretion — one uncontested assumption at a time. Naming what the community is explicitly *not* makes boundary violations visible early, and gives anyone a clear basis to object when scope creep begins.
<Non-goals and explicit exclusions — to be defined.>
Conditions for Purpose Change
RCOS definition2.1.3
- 2.1.3 The primary purpose MUST be stable across time and MUST only be changed through a constitutional decision as defined in Layer 2 and executed via the change process defined in Layer 6.
Why make changing the purpose hard?
Purpose is the one thing everything else depends on. If it were easy to change, nothing above it in the stack — membership, governance, invariants — could be trusted to mean the same thing from one decision cycle to the next.
<Conditions and decision type required to change the primary purpose — to be defined.>
Ratification Record
- Adopted:
- Decision type: Constitutional
- Version:
- Decision record: