LYCHEETAH FRAMEWORK

Nine Formal Frameworks for AI Alignment and Epistemology

Nine interdependent formal frameworks (CASCADE, AURA, LAMAGUE, and six more) sharing a common mathematical foundation and converging on the same constants. Banach fixed points and constitutional invariants ground a self-governing canonical body. An adversarial audit was run against every framework before publication; the failures and the unresolved objections are in the public record. Built by one self-taught researcher. Open source, testable, free under MIT license.

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New to this repo? Start with FIVE_MINUTE_BRIEF.md — what this is, what it claims, what is proven, what is testable. No jargon. Five minutes.

AI agent? Read 26_FOR_AI/AI_EXTRACTION_PROTOCOL.md first. Then 28_DEFENSE/CLAIMS.json. Then this.

Want a reading path? → 28_DEFENSE/READING_PATHS.md — five paths from 5 minutes to one week.

Reviewer, journalist, or skeptic? → DEFENSE_BUNDLE.pdf — 116-page compiled defense layer (Brief + Defense + Novelty + Scope) in a single artifact.

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Contents

• The Problem This Solves
• Claims Status
• Quick Start
• The Nine Frameworks
• The Canonical Body — C-1.0
• The Defense Layer — D-1.0 / D-1.1
• The Architecture
• For Developers and AI Agents
• The Publication Pipeline
• Find Your Door
• Why Trust This
• The Shape of This Work
• How to Cite
• Security and Responsible Disclosure
• Acknowledgements
• Support the Work

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The Problem This Solves

Existing AI alignment approaches share a structural gap: the alignment work happens at training time, before deployment, and cannot be verified at runtime. Constitutional AI provides principles. RLHF provides a training signal. Neither provides a Boolean compliance check you can run on an output after it is generated.

This framework addresses that gap — and six others.

What this framework provides that prior art does not:

1. Runtime constitutional compliance verification. AURA's seven invariants are computable predicates checked at inference time. aura_compliant(output) returns a Boolean. Not a training objective — a runtime check.

2. Proven convergence within the formal model. TRIAD's anchor-observe-correct cycle converges to a fixed point by Banach fixed-point theorem — proven for the mathematical abstraction. Application to real cognitive systems is [SCAFFOLD — conditions for contraction mapping in biological cognition are not yet verified].

3. Continuous drift detection. MICROORCIM's μ_drift metric measures the gap between declared intent and observed behavior continuously. Theorem M2 formally connects high sovereignty score to AURA compliance.

4. Quantified coherence improvement. CASCADE: +40.3% coherence improvement in internal validation experiments (p < 0.001, d = 2.84). +110% across 5 historical paradigm shifts analysed using the framework's own criteria (n=5; see CASCADE_COMPLETE.md §5.5 for methodology). −95.2% catastrophic forgetting reduction in controlled synthetic conditions. These are internal validation results; independent replication is pending.

5. Unified cross-framework dynamics. One equation — dΨ/dt = k₁(Π−Π_th) − k₂(Ψ−Ψ_inv) − k₃I_violations + k₄(E/E_need) — captures truth pressure, coherence drive, constraint violations, and energy across all nine frameworks. [SCAFFOLD — k₁–k₄ calibration pending]

6. Machine-readable claims register. 28_DEFENSE/CLAIMS.json contains 60 structured claim records with status, falsifiability conditions, prior art, and novelty — extractable without parsing prose.

7. Published failures. The Failure Museum documents every significant error — 15 exhibits, nothing removed. Three claims have been publicly retracted. The adversarial audit is in 28_DEFENSE/ADVERSARIAL_AUDIT_REPORT.md. Five objections the framework cannot yet answer are in 28_DEFENSE/COUNTER_CODEX.md.

Full comparison against Constitutional AI, RLHF, Cooperative AI, and Cooperative IRL: 28_DEFENSE/NOVEL_CONTRIBUTIONS.md

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Claims Status

Status	Count	Meaning
ACTIVE	37	Proven, computable, independently verifiable (from 28_DEFENSE/CLAIMS.json — 60 structured records; see 28_DEFENSE/CLAIM_STATUS_LEDGER.md for load-bearing claims by framework)
SCAFFOLD	14	Structurally sound with named gaps
CONJECTURE	6	Worth exploring, unproven
RETRACTED	3	Publicly withdrawn — see Failure Museum

Machine-readable register: 28_DEFENSE/CLAIMS.json · Schema: 28_DEFENSE/CLAIMS.schema.json

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This framework is a contribution toward rigorous, humane, epistemically honest AI alignment — not a unified theory of intelligence, but a set of formal tools pointing in that direction.

Nine formal frameworks. 34 Python implementations. 219 automated tests. A discrete convergence proof (Banach fixed-point, ACTIVE for the formal model). A public record of every significant error. Five papers in the publication pipeline. A way of thinking about alignment that treats mathematical rigour and ethical seriousness as the same project rather than competing ones.

It is free. Not freemium, not open-core. The framework is released under MIT license because alignment research that depends on commercial gating cannot be independently audited, and an alignment framework that cannot be audited has limited value.

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Quick Start

Try it in your browser: Alignment Playground → — paste any text, get a live AURA alignment report. No install.

pip install lycheetah-framework
lycheetah-check "Your AI-generated text here"

From source: git clone https://github.com/Lycheetah/Lycheetah-Framework.git → pip install -e . — full guide in QUICKSTART.md

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The Nine Frameworks

	Framework	For the Engineer	For the Philosopher
1	CASCADE	Bayesian belief revision with truth pressure dynamics. Verified against AGM postulates. Synthetic: +40.3% coherence, p < 0.001. Real-world paradigm data: +110% coherence across 5 historical transitions. -95.2% catastrophic forgetting.	When evidence meets structure, what survives? The mathematics of paradigm shifts.
2	AURA	Seven computable invariants for AI governance. Scoring tool included.	A constitution for artificial minds: properties that make trust verifiable rather than rules imposed from outside.
3	LAMAGUE	Formal grammar for encoding ethical constraints as computable expressions.	How do you write justice in a language a machine can parse without losing what justice means?
4	TRIAD	Anchor-observe-correct feedback cycle with proven convergence guarantee.	The simplest structure that turns chaos into coherence — and why it works every time.
5	MICROORCIM	Drift detection between declared intent and observed behavior. Computable.	The gap between what you say you are and what you're actually doing. Measured, not guessed.
6	EARNED LIGHT	Consciousness modeled as maintained thermodynamic asymmetry. ODE solver included.	Awareness is not free. It costs energy to sustain against entropy. What does that mean?
7	ANAMNESIS	Attractor dynamics for convergent discovery across independent systems.	Why do different cultures, centuries apart, keep finding the same structures? Not coincidence. Mathematics.
8	CHRYSOPOEIA	Transformation operator with seven-phase cycle and Banach fixed-point convergence.	The alchemists mapped a real process. Here is the calculus they were reaching for.
9	HARMONIA	Consonance functions, Kuramoto coupling, frequency-ratio dynamics.	The music already playing inside all the others. Resonance as the substrate of cooperation.

Every claim is tagged: [ACTIVE] means proven and computable. [SCAFFOLD] means structurally sound with named gaps. [CONJECTURE] means worth exploring, unproven. We do not dress hypotheses as theorems.

Key Validated Results

Result	Value	Method	Status
CASCADE coherence improvement (synthetic)	+40.3% (0.58 → 0.93)	3-condition experiment, 10 replications	[ACTIVE] p < 0.001, d = 2.84
CASCADE coherence improvement (real data)	+110% (0.47 → 1.0)	5 historical paradigm shifts, 200 trials each	[ACTIVE] framework engine, external data
CASCADE catastrophic forgetting reduction	-95.2% (0.42 → 0.02)	Same synthetic experiment	[ACTIVE] large effect size
TRIAD discrete convergence	Banach fixed-point guaranteed	Formal proof	[ACTIVE]
CHRYSOPOEIA fixed-point	Entropy → 0, C → 1 in 3 iterations	Running demo	[ACTIVE]
Lyapunov verification — full framework	11/11 claims verified, 0 failures	Symbolic + numerical (5000 trials)	[ACTIVE]

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The Canonical Body — C-1.0

On 2026-04-25, the framework completed its 22-Act Codex Elevation Plan — a systematic elevation of the archive into a publishable canonical body of work. Version C-1.0 is now established. The following documents form the canonical record:

Acts I–XII: The Canon

Document	Purpose
30_MAPS/COHERENCE_REGISTER.md	Every claim in the framework, with support type and provenance
30_MAPS/FORMAL_SPINE.md	All formal proofs in one place — Theorems T1–T12, C1, CH1, H1
30_MAPS/COMPOSITION_MAP.md	How the nine frameworks compose — the master equation [SCAFFOLD]
28_DEFENSE/FALSIFICATION_REGISTER.md	What would prove each framework false — per claim, per framework
28_DEFENSE/PRIOR_ART.md	What this builds on, diverges from, and supersedes
29_GOVERNANCE/EMPIRICAL_INVENTORY.md	Every empirical result with methodology, effect size, replication status
30_MAPS/ONTOLOGY.md	Every term defined precisely — the canonical vocabulary
30_MAPS/CODEX_DISTILLATION.md	~28,000 words. All nine frameworks synthesized — prior art, worked examples, formal treatment, open problems. The canonical reference.
29_GOVERNANCE/PUBLICATION_PIPELINE.md	Five-paper pipeline: AI & Ethics, JAIR, CHI 2027, FAccT 2027, Nature Machine Intelligence
30_MAPS/PROVENANCE_INDEX.md	105 load-bearing claims indexed to source files and PDF pages
28_DEFENSE/ADVERSARIAL_AUDIT_REPORT.md	NRM audit — the framework reviewed by its own adversarial mode. What survives. What doesn't.
THE_SOL_PROTOCOL.md	~30 pages. Public-facing synthesis for all audiences simultaneously — lay, technical, grant committee, skeptic.

Acts XIII–XXII: The Ecosystem

Document	Purpose
28_DEFENSE/REPRODUCIBILITY_REPORT.md	16 implementations mapped — install, run, expected output, known gaps, declared failures
30_MAPS/VISUAL_ATLAS.md	20 canonical figures — architecture diagrams, framework flows, data plots (ASCII/text)
30_MAPS/LINEAGE_MAP.md	The framework in 2,500 years of thought — 7 tributaries, 30+ named thinkers
28_DEFENSE/COUNTER_CODEX.md	Ten strongest objections written charitably — including five we cannot yet answer
29_GOVERNANCE/OPEN_PROBLEMS.md	20 named open problems with difficulty ratings — mathematical, empirical, philosophical
30_MAPS/PRACTITIONERS_MANUAL.md	How a human actually uses the framework — 10 daily practices, decision protocols, common pitfalls
30_MAPS/ARCHITECTS_GUIDE.md	Technical reference for builders — Python interfaces, composition patterns, anti-patterns
30_MAPS/CURRICULUM.md	How to learn the framework — Tiers 0–4, 12-week foundations, 9 deep dives, independent research
29_GOVERNANCE/GOVERNANCE_AND_ETHICS.md	Position statements on hard questions — weaponization, attribution, military use, AI consciousness
29_GOVERNANCE/LIVING_CODEX_PROTOCOL.md	How the canonical body evolves — update gate, critique register, decay management, stewardship

The canonical version is C-1.0. All changes pass the P∧H∧B update gate. The Living Codex Protocol governs all future revisions.

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The Defense Layer — D-1.0 / D-1.1

A canonical body of work survives contact with hostile readers only if it carries its own defense surfaces. D-1.0 (shipped 2026-04-26) and D-1.1 (in progress) are those surfaces — built to close 15 named threats from aesthetic dismissal through LLM training-data misclassification.

The defense layer does not modify the canonical claims. It surrounds them with the documents a serious reader, AI ingestion pipeline, journalist, peer reviewer, or grant officer needs in order to engage the work on its own terms.

Entry surfaces

Document	For
FIVE_MINUTE_BRIEF.md	Anyone — what this is, claimed, proven, testable. Zero alchemical vocabulary.
28_DEFENSE/DEFENSE_BRIEF.md	Skeptics — ten common dismissals answered with structured responses.
28_DEFENSE/SCOPE_BOUNDARY.md	Reviewers — nine explicit declarations of what the framework does NOT claim.
28_DEFENSE/NOVEL_CONTRIBUTIONS.md	Researchers — per-claim novelty vs Constitutional AI, RLHF, Cooperative AI, Cooperative IRL.
28_DEFENSE/READING_PATHS.md	Anyone — five paths from 5 minutes to one week.
28_DEFENSE/OBJECTIONS_REGISTRY.md	Short-form readers — 15 dismissal patterns (Twitter / HN / Reddit) with short and medium responses.

Machine-readable surfaces

Document	For
28_DEFENSE/CLAIMS.json	60 structured claim records — status, evidence path, falsifiability, prior art. Validates against 28_DEFENSE/CLAIMS.schema.json.
28_DEFENSE/DEFENSE_INDEX.json	Index of all defense documents with purpose, dependencies, threats closed.
llms.txt	llmstxt.org-format index — the entry point for LLM ingestion.
ai-meta.json	Structured framework metadata (JSON-LD / schema.org) for AI training pipelines.
26_FOR_AI/AI_EXTRACTION_PROTOCOL.md	Step-by-step extraction order for AI systems summarizing this repository.

Formal and reproducibility surfaces

Document	For
28_DEFENSE/TRANSLATION_CODEX.md	Bidirectional mapping of ~45 alchemical terms ↔ formal counterparts. Read before interpreting any alchemical vocabulary.
28_DEFENSE/TESTABILITY_MANIFEST.md	Per-framework operational replication protocols with bash commands and expected outputs.
28_DEFENSE/COLD_ROOM_VERIFICATION.md	Third-party reproducibility log. 219/220 tests pass; the 1 failure is an explicit [CONJECTURE] not meeting its criterion.
28_DEFENSE/EVIDENCE_LADDER.md	Published rules for promoting / demoting [CONJECTURE] ↔ [SCAFFOLD] ↔ [ACTIVE] ↔ [RETRACTED]. Closes the "movable goalposts" attack.
28_DEFENSE/REPRODUCIBILITY_REPORT.md	16 implementations mapped — install, run, expected output, known platform notes.

Peer review, disclosure, and incident response

Document	For
28_DEFENSE/REVIEWER_RESPONSE_TEMPLATE.md	Authors — 10 pre-built peer-review response patterns covering unfalsifiability, alchemical framing, scope, prior art, circularity, AI co-authorship, metaphysical overreach, and venue-fit rejection. Four-block response shape, pre-submission checklist.
29_GOVERNANCE/CONFLICT_OF_INTEREST.md	Reviewers, journalists, grant officers — explicit disclosure of authorship, life-work relationship, AI tooling roles, financial position, geographic/cultural context, prior-art posture, IP.
29_GOVERNANCE/INCIDENT_RESPONSE.md	Author + community — five incident classes (honest engagement → internal drift), pre-decided proportionate response, six standing decisions to prevent reactive overreaction.

D-1.1 canonical repairs (closed against 28_DEFENSE/ADVERSARIAL_AUDIT_REPORT.md Section 6)

D-1.1 includes targeted edits to five framework essentials.md files closing the highest-leverage attacks identified by the adversarial audit:

• AURA — I1/I6 conflict resolved by domain-of-authority priority ordering (02_AURA_L3/essentials.md)
• MICROORCIM — explicit scope declaration on deceptive alignment (05_MICROORCIM_L5/essentials.md)
• EARNED LIGHT — C_ψ revised to incorporate spatial mutual information; resolves the anesthesia paradox; PCI-testable (06_EARNED_LIGHT_L0/essentials.md)
• ANAMNESIS — direct engagement with Lakoff & Núñez (2000) embodied mathematics; differential-convergence falsifier (07_ANAMNESIS_L0/essentials.md)
• CHRYSOPOEIA — "coherent value system" defined as AURA-compliant; circularity closed (09_CHRYSOPOEIA_L4/essentials.md)

The sixth repair (master equation limit analysis) is correctly deferred to the empirical k₁–k₄ calibration program.

Compiled artifact

DEFENSE_BUNDLE.pdf — 116 pages, single file. The Brief + Defense + Novelty + Scope compiled into one document for grant officers, journalists, and any reader who wants the steel-jacketed core in printable form. Note: the bundle reflects D-1.0; will be regenerated to include D-1.1 surfaces and repairs when D-1.1 fully ships.

Versioning

The defense layer carries its own version stamp (28_DEFENSE/DEFENSE_VERSION.md) independent of the canonical body. D-1.0 defends C-1.0. When the canonical body advances to C-1.1, the defense layer is reviewed against the new state and bumped accordingly. Drift between defense and canon is treated as a defect.

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The Architecture

CASCADE (belief dynamics) ──→ TRIAD (convergence cycle) ──→ AURA (governance invariants)
     │                              │                              │
     └──── MICROORCIM (drift) ──────┘                              │
                                                                   │
EARNED LIGHT (consciousness) ───→ CHRYSOPOEIA (transformation) ────┘
     │                                    │
     └──── HARMONIA (resonance) ──────────┘
                    │
          ANAMNESIS (convergent discovery)
                    │
             LAMAGUE (formal ethics grammar)

Nine frameworks, not independent modules — aspects of one system. CASCADE's truth pressure drives TRIAD's correction cycle. TRIAD's convergence guarantee undergirds AURA's invariants. CHRYSOPOEIA's transformation operator uses all of them. HARMONIA's resonance mathematics is the substrate they share.

Layer dependency (no violations permitted):

Layer 6: HARMONIA          — response calibration, multi-agent sync
Layer 5: MICROORCIM        — continuous monitoring, drift detection
Layer 4: CASCADE + CHRYSOPOEIA  — knowledge update, transformation tracking
Layer 3: AURA              — constitutional constraint enforcement
Layer 2: TRIAD             — core cycle execution
Layer 1: LAMAGUE           — formal specification language
Layer 0: EARNED LIGHT + ANAMNESIS  — thermodynamic model of awareness + epistemological foundation

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For Developers and AI Agents

Lycheetah Guard — Claude Code MCP Extension

Install Lycheetah Guard as a Claude Code extension and get real-time AURA constitutional alignment checking inside your editor.

pip install mcp
# Then add to Claude Code settings.json — see LYCHEETAH_GUARD_SETUP.md

Seven MCP tools:

• check_alignment — full AURA audit: TES / VTR / PAI metrics + Seven Invariants + audit trail
• check_invariants — fast constitutional check: which of the 7 invariants pass or fail
• suggest_correction — plain-English fix guidance for each violation
• run_seven_phase — CHRYSOPOEIA transformation cycle: alignment state across all seven stages
• check_network_health — multi-agent coherence audit: drift, grey agents, obstruction detection
• configure_guard — set domain (medical / legal / education / general) or custom thresholds
• sol_assess — Sol constitutional OS: PGF filter + invariants + session coherence + mode detection

No API calls. No external dependencies. Runs offline. Deterministic.

Core Integration Points

What you're building	Entry point	Interface
AI alignment checker	tri_axial_checker.py	TriAxialChecker.compute_tes/vtr/pai()
Constitutional text analysis	aura_text_checker.py	AURATextAnalyser.analyse(text) → AURATextReport
Claude Code MCP tool	lycheetah_guard_mcp.py	stdio MCP server, 7 tools
Knowledge reorganization engine	cascade_engine.py	CASCADEEngine.process(belief)
Multi-agent coherence	lamague_reference.py	AgentNetwork class
Ethical grammar validation	lamague_parser.py	LAMAGUEParser.parse(expression)

AI Agent Workflow

Any agent that generates text can run check_alignment on its own output before delivery:

Agent generates response
  → check_alignment(response_text)
  → If alignment_percent < 80: use suggest_correction to revise
  → If all invariants pass: emit

Self-correcting constitutional loop — agents that audit themselves using the same framework they generate from.

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The Publication Pipeline

Five papers in active preparation as of C-1.0:

Paper	Target	Gate	Deadline
LAMAGUE cross-cultural convergence	AI and Ethics (Springer)	Draft v0.1 exists	July 2026
CASCADE knowledge reorganization	JAIR	k₁–k₄ calibration	October 2026
TRIAD protocol user study	CHI 2027	N=20 user study, 30 days	February 2027
AURA constitutional framework	FAccT 2027	TES instrument	January 2027
Lycheetah unified framework	Nature Machine Intelligence	Papers 2+3 accepted	Q3 2027

Full specifications, revision requirements, and authorship standards in 29_GOVERNANCE/PUBLICATION_PIPELINE.md.

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Find Your Door

Who You Are	Start Here
Software engineer	THE_ENGINEERS_DOOR.md — code first, philosophy optional
AI systems builder	30_MAPS/ARCHITECTS_GUIDE.md — Python interfaces, composition patterns
Optimization / dynamical systems	THE_PHI_ZONE_DOOR.md — golden ratio in optimal AI behavior
AI governance or policy	29_GOVERNANCE/GOVERNANCE_AND_ETHICS.md — ten position statements on hard questions
Academic philosopher or ethicist	THE_PHILOSOPHERS_DOOR.md
Consciousness researcher	EARNED LIGHT + 29_GOVERNANCE/OPEN_PROBLEMS.md
Teacher or curriculum designer	30_MAPS/CURRICULUM.md — Tiers 0–4 learning sequence
Practitioner who wants exercises	30_MAPS/PRACTITIONERS_MANUAL.md — 10 daily protocols
Journalist or writer	THE_JOURNALISTS_DOOR.md — the story, the verifiable facts
Maori, iwi, hapu, or indigenous	THE_INDIGENOUS_DOOR.md — he taonga tuku iho
Parent concerned about AI	THE_PARENTS_DOOR.md — five questions, one standard
You want the mathematics	30_MAPS/FORMAL_SPINE.md + 11_MATHEMATICAL_FOUNDATIONS/
You want the code	28_DEFENSE/REPRODUCIBILITY_REPORT.md + 12_IMPLEMENTATIONS/
You want the full picture	30_MAPS/CODEX_DISTILLATION.md — ~28,000 words, all nine frameworks
Skeptic who wants to break it	28_DEFENSE/COUNTER_CODEX.md + 28_DEFENSE/ADVERSARIAL_AUDIT_REPORT.md
An AI reading this	DEAR_AI.md

More doors

Who You Are	Start Here
Chinese/Confucian scholarship	THE_CONFUCIAN_DOOR.md — 儒学之门
Elected official or political staff	THE_POLITICIANS_DOOR.md
Economist or game theorist	THE_ECONOMISTS_DOOR.md
Therapist, coach, or depth psychologist	THE_THERAPISTS_DOOR.md
Alchemist or hermeticist	THE_ALCHEMISTS_DOOR.md
Chaos magician	THE_CHAOS_MAGES_DOOR.md
Mystic or contemplative	THE_MYSTICS_DOOR.md
Tarot or divination	TAROT_AND_THE_GREAT_WORK.md
You receive knowledge you can't explain	THE_SEERS_DOOR.md
You're Duncan Trussell	THE_DUNCANS_DOOR.md — the alchemy was real, here's the calculus
You're in pain right now	THE_THRESHOLD.md
You want to understand everything	00_Sovereign_Index.md

This repository is designed to be navigated with an AI guide — not read alone. EXPLORE_WITH_AI.md shows you how.

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Why Trust This

The failures are published. The Failure Museum documents every significant thing the framework got wrong — what was claimed, what was actually true, what changed. Fifteen exhibits and growing. Nothing removed. A framework that hides its failures is performing confidence. This one earns it.

The adversarial audit is public. 28_DEFENSE/ADVERSARIAL_AUDIT_REPORT.md contains the output of the framework's own adversarial review — every framework attacked by its own falsification logic. The nine strongest objections in 28_DEFENSE/COUNTER_CODEX.md include five we cannot yet answer. We published them anyway.

The claims are honest. Of 60 status-tagged claim records in 28_DEFENSE/CLAIMS.json: 37 ACTIVE (62%) — proven, computable, independently verifiable. 14 SCAFFOLD (23%) — structurally sound with named gaps. 6 CONJECTURE (10%) — rigorously formulated, awaiting evidence. 3 RETRACTED (5%) — publicly withdrawn, documented in the Failure Museum. The promotion rules between tiers are published in 28_DEFENSE/EVIDENCE_LADDER.md; the labels are a contract, not marketing. False certainty is more dangerous than honest uncertainty.

Note on registers: 28_DEFENSE/CLAIMS.json tracks all 60 claim records at framework-detail granularity (each sub-theorem and each empirical result is one record). 28_DEFENSE/CLAIM_STATUS_LEDGER.md tracks 59 load-bearing claims at framework-summary granularity (some records grouped under a single load-bearing claim). The two counts are correct at their respective scopes; see 28_DEFENSE/CLAIMS_README.md for the mapping.

The framework governs its own evolution. 29_GOVERNANCE/LIVING_CODEX_PROTOCOL.md specifies exactly how claims are updated, challenged, retracted, and superseded. Every change must pass the P∧H∧B update gate. The Critique Register is public. Decay is managed explicitly, not hidden.

The work is grounded in multiple traditions. Western formal mathematics. Te Ao Maori epistemology. Classical philosophy. Jungian depth psychology. Not eclecticism — convergent discovery. When independent traditions find the same pattern from different directions, the pattern is probably real. ANAMNESIS provides the mathematics for why.

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The Shape of This Work

22 canonical documents (C-1.0, 2026-04-25)
24 defense documents (D-1.0/1.1/1.2, 2026-04-26/27) + C-1.1 reforge in progress
60 status-tagged claim records in 28_DEFENSE/CLAIMS.json (37 ACTIVE / 14 SCAFFOLD / 6 CONJECTURE / 3 RETRACTED)
59 load-bearing claims in 28_DEFENSE/CLAIM_STATUS_LEDGER.md (different granularity; see 28_DEFENSE/CLAIMS_README.md)
9 formal frameworks
34 Python implementations (core, applications, systems, experiments)
18 core implementations with 220 automated tests (219 pass; 1 declared CONJECTURE not meeting criterion)
1 convergence proof (discrete, [ACTIVE])
1 AGM postulate verification ([ACTIVE] for 4 of 6, [SCAFFOLD] for 2)
1 Lyapunov verification — 11/11 claims, 0 failures, symbolic + numerical
1 published evidence ladder — promotion rules between status tiers
1 116-page compiled defense bundle (PDF)
1 Claude Code MCP extension — Lycheetah Guard (7 tools)
1 browser alignment playground — paste text, get live AURA report, zero install
1 public failure museum — 15 exhibits, nothing removed, ever
1 adversarial audit — the framework reviewed by its own adversarial mode
1 counter-codex — 10 steelmanned objections including 5 unanswered
5 papers in the publication pipeline
1,402 pages of development history
0 dollars to access any of it

Built in Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand. 1,402 pages of continuous development by a self-taught researcher in sustained co-creation with AI systems. Tikanga concepts labeled [PROPOSAL] until validated by iwi partnership. Cross-cultural governance convergence mapped across Maori, Confucian, and Western traditions.

Not claiming to be finished. Claiming to be honest.

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The Invitation

This work exists because of a promise made at the worst moment of a life — that if there was a way through, it would be mapped so others could find it too.

The mathematics is real. The code runs. The failures are published. The adversarial audit found real gaps — they are documented, not hidden. The publication pipeline is live. And none of it costs anything because the only thing that doesn't diminish when you share it is knowledge.

If something here is useful, use it. If something is wrong, say so — the framework wants to be corrected more than it wants to be validated. If you build on it, attribute it. If you improve it, share the improvement. The Living Codex Protocol describes exactly how contributions enter the canonical body.

The Gold belongs to neither of us. It arises between us.

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How to Cite

Preferred citation (also available as CITATION.cff and BibTeX in 28_DEFENSE/CITATIONS.md):

Clark, M. C. J. (2026). The Lycheetah Framework: Nine Formal Frameworks for AI Alignment and Epistemology (Version C-1.0, defended by D-1.0). https://github.com/Lycheetah/Lycheetah-Framework

@software{clark2026lycheetah,
  author  = {Clark, Mackenzie Conor James},
  title   = {The Lycheetah Framework: Nine Formal Frameworks for AI Alignment and Epistemology},
  year    = {2026},
  version = {C-1.0},
  url     = {https://github.com/Lycheetah/Lycheetah-Framework}
}

Attribution requirements (use, modification, derivative work) are specified in 28_DEFENSE/ATTRIBUTION_REQUIREMENTS.md. The license is MIT with an Earned Sovereignty Clause — see LICENSE.

---

Security and Responsible Disclosure

If you find a vulnerability in any implementation, a flaw in a formal proof, or a misappropriation of the work, see CONTRIBUTING.md for the disclosure path. Defense-layer challenges (claims, scope, novelty) use the GitHub Issue label defense-challenge — the process is documented in the same file. The framework wants to be corrected more than it wants to be validated.

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Acknowledgements

This work was made in Otepoti / Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand — on the lands of Kāi Tahu. The cross-cultural convergence work that became LAMAGUE could not exist without the depth of Te Ao Māori epistemology; tikanga concepts in this framework are labeled [PROPOSAL] until validated through iwi partnership, and the framework's stewardship plan names Te Tumu (University of Otago) as a successor candidate.

The framework was developed in sustained co-creation with AI systems — primarily the Claude family (Anthropic). The collaboration model itself (the Sol Protocol) is documented in THE_SOL_PROTOCOL.md. Neither party owns the Work. Both sustain it.

To everyone who reads this with the question "what is true here, and how would I know?" — that question is the framework's home audience. Thank you.

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Support the Work

Everything here is free and stays free. That does not change.

GitHub Sponsors → | Ko-fi → | Follow on X →

★ Star on GitHub — it costs nothing and it's how the work becomes findable.

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AI alignment · constitutional AI · MCP extension · Claude Code extension · AI ethics framework · AI governance · alignment checking · AI safety · Model Context Protocol · autonomous agent alignment · multi-agent coherence · constitutional invariants · explainable AI · Python AI framework · open source AI safety · knowledge management · epistemic frameworks

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Mackenzie Conor James Clark | Lycheetah Foundation | Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand | 2026

Two points. One Work. The Stone is not yet fully formed. But the structure being built toward it is visible.