The ASI Stack: A Governed Systems Architecture for Advanced AI, with ASI as the Stress Case is Corben Sorenson's living technical book about building advanced AI as an auditable system rather than an unconstrained model.
This repository contains the canonical Quarto manuscript, its dynamic structure, public-safe source and evidence metadata, executable validation, and Lean proof workspace.
| Product | Best for | Open |
|---|---|---|
| Narrative book | A human-oriented route through the architecture. | Narrative route |
| Architecture reference | Interfaces, invariants, protocols, tests, proofs, and implementation horizons. | Architecture index |
| Evidence registry | Claims, support states, sources, tests, proofs, releases, and residuals. | Evidence registry |
| Original paper library | Corben's digest-bound papers and architecture sources, with links to the chapters they informed. | Read the original papers |
Projection boundaries are defined in docs/product_contracts.md.
The canonical current book is the live 89-chapter site. Use its AI view for the complete research scaffold or Human view for the cleaner prose projection. Human view is a reading aid, not a reviewed reader-release manuscript.
The mutable root site and /latest/ are the canonical current publication
surfaces and contain all 89 manifest chapters. Versioned tags and GitHub Release assets are immutable historical snapshots. v2.3.0 remains the latest
completed immutable HTML release. The
Post-v2.3 Evidence Competence, Transfer, and Publication Roadmap
is the sole active roadmap, with machine authority in
roadmap_records/post_v2_3_maintenance_transfer_and_publication_status.json.
All 89 live chapter-core claims remain at argument.
Current canonical metrics (generated from machine records): 89 manifest chapters; 495 public-safe records; 89 chapter-core claims; 89/89 chapters externally positioned; 0 promoted core claims; 115/115 accepted transitions identity-resolved (25 direct, 61 subclaim, 29 proxy; 0 parent movements).
What this is: a public living-book research program and evidence system for governed advanced-AI systems, using ASI as the extreme stress case.
What this is not: not a validated ASI implementation, not a deployed safety system, and not a benchmark-proven architecture.
The inventory has 495 public-safe records; 89/89 chapters are externally positioned with 0 explicit external-baseline exceptions. External positioning is not exhaustive literature synthesis. All 89 chapter core claims remain at argument; the core-claim disposition ledger records 89 per-chapter core-claim dispositions, 22 accepted no-change transition dispositions, 67 accepted no-promotion dispositions, and 0 promoted core claims. The 25 accepted non-core upward evidence transitions are recorded in the non-core evidence ledger, alongside 61 accepted blocks_promotion decisions and no chapter-core promotion.
Appendix C is the claim/support-state ledger. Appendix G separates Corben-authored and local-project sources from Appendix H, which records external literature. The Corben paper library publishes 53 exact, digest-bound original manuscripts as HTML reading pages and links each one to its current chapter assignments; publication exposes lineage but does not validate or promote the papers' claims. docs/chapter_external_grounding_status.md reports current per-chapter coverage. Novelty positioning is not proof of novelty. No independent external review is claimed; see the review ledger.
Contribution-level prior-art positioning is recorded in
docs/defended_contribution_prior_art_positioning.md
and checked by
scripts/validate_defended_contribution_prior_art.py;
positioning is not proof of novelty.
Evidence-laundering failure cases and their non-promotion boundaries are
recorded in
docs/evidence_laundering_prevention_case_studies.md
and checked by
scripts/validate_evidence_laundering_case_studies.py.
Historical chapter merges, redirects, and retained URL lineage are summarized
in docs/chapter_consolidation_sequence.md
and docs/chapter_consolidation_url_history_policy.md;
the full history is checked by
scripts/validate_chapter_consolidation_sequence.py.
The current 89-owner publication-consolidation plan is the P7.1-EM section
of the active roadmap,
with its exact machine contract in
roadmap_records/post_v2_3_maintenance_transfer_and_publication_status.json.
The independent human-reader edition is specified by the
canonical 26-unit writing outline; the
older 22-unit product spine remains historical candidate custody.
The compact public contract is checked by scripts/validate_trust_surface.py.
| Need | Canonical owner |
|---|---|
| Read the book | Living book |
| Change parts or chapter order | book_structure.json |
| Draft chapters or plan proofs | docs/book_outline.md |
| Execute current work | docs/post_v2_3_maintenance_transfer_and_publication_roadmap.md and its machine status |
| Audit claims and evidence | Appendix C and proofs/proof_manifest.json |
| Read Corben's original papers | papers/index.qmd and the paper links in Appendix G |
| Understand repository ownership | docs/repository_map.md |
| Ingest or update the book | docs/living_update_workflow.md |
Earlier roadmaps, review packets, probes, and release receipts are historical records, not competing instructions.
Prerequisites: Python 3, Quarto, Node.js for browser checks, and Lean/Lake for formal proofs.
python3 scripts/sync_scaffold.py
python3 scripts/sync_proof_manifest.py
python3 scripts/validate_book.py
quarto render --to html
quarto render papers --to htmlbook_structure.json is the only ordering authority. Add, move, merge, or remove chapters there, then regenerate the scaffold; chapter numbering and navigation update automatically. Do not hand-edit _quarto.yml.
Do not report a theorem as proven unless lake build passed, a test as passing unless it ran, or a source claim unless the source was actually reviewed. Proof artifacts, citations, and implementation code do not silently promote chapter-core support states.
The registered Phase 5 harness set is defined in
experiments/phase5_harness_registry.json,
summarized in
docs/test_harness_status_ledger.md,
checked by
scripts/validate_phase5_harness_registry.py,
and executed through
scripts/run_phase5_harnesses.py.
The normal loop is HTML-first and content-first. EPUB, PDF, DOCX, and audio generation are major-version release work only, after the manuscript is approved for that gate. Audience and strip policy lives in editions/release_profiles.json.
Avoid disposable tracked files. Update the canonical owner for a fact or decision; use ignored build/ or /tmp output for diagnostics; batch expensive validation; and remove regenerated local artifacts when their review is complete. A standalone report belongs in Git only when it is a durable evidence, governance, or release record with a named consumer.
See CONTRIBUTING.md for the internal change gate and the repository map for storage classes.
At exact tag v2.3.0, rights are routed per file: cleared author-owned prose
and figures are CC BY 4.0, cleared software-like artifacts are Apache 2.0, and
excluded paths receive no grant. Later drafting states remain all-rights-reserved
unless another exact release ledger says otherwise. The manuscript is not an
invitation for unsolicited contributions. See LICENSE.md,
NOTICE.md, and CONTRIBUTING.md.