# Reconciliation and Coherence

> How evidence is compared with current truth and reduced to an exact, reviewable delta.

Reconciliation determines what evidence can responsibly change. It is a
judgment activity whose durable output is a proposed change—not a rewritten
snapshot.

## Reconciliation context

**TM-REC-001 — Identified current state.** Reconciliation **MUST** name the
exact current-state revision or equivalent concurrency identity against which
the proposed change was reasoned.

**TM-REC-002 — Complete coherence boundary.** Reconciliation **MUST** inspect
the declared coherence boundary sufficiently to identify contradictions and
dependent changes. A screen, row, source file, or task **MUST NOT** silently
choose a smaller boundary.

**TM-REC-003 — Authority evaluation.** Reconciliation **MUST** evaluate each
supporting claim under its bounded source authority and preserve material
conflicts or gaps.

## Proposed delta

**TM-REC-004 — Exact delta.** A consequential proposed change **MUST** identify
the affected current records or values and their exact before and after states.
An implementation may use replacement records, field operations, events, or
another representation if the reviewed effect remains unambiguous.

**TM-REC-005 — Support and rationale.** A proposed change **MUST** cite its
supporting evidence and state why that evidence, under its authority, supports
the delta.

**TM-REC-006 — Remaining uncertainty.** A proposed change **MUST** preserve
material uncertainty, disagreement, qualification, and unknowns remaining
after reconciliation.

**TM-REC-007 — Consequences.** A proposed change **MUST** identify known
dependent records, obligations, publications, or operations affected within
the coherence boundary.

**TM-REC-008 — Coherent grouping.** Mutations whose partial application could
create a contradiction **MUST** travel as one proposed change.

## Reconciliation is not authority

The actor reconciling evidence may be highly capable and may produce the
complete correct delta. That does not accept it.

**TM-REC-009 — Proposal state.** Reconciled work **MUST** remain distinguishable
from accepted change and current truth until the declared review and
transition boundary succeeds.

**TM-REC-010 — Recoverable proposal.** Stale or invalid proposed work
**SHOULD** remain available with its evidence and rationale for deliberate
revision or rejection. Refusing a transition should protect current truth,
not erase the work that failed.

## Choosing the boundary

The coherence boundary is domain-specific. Examples include one customer
account, one infrastructure composition, one policy corpus, one financial
period, or one specification release. The correct boundary is the smallest
whole in which a local answer can create a hidden collision elsewhere.

Starting broad and then earning narrower sub-boundaries is safer than allowing
interface layout or storage partitioning to define truth accidentally.