Infrastructure · Data Structures
Contract
Binding agreement between parties
Definition
Mechanism
An immutable record of agreement between two or more Identitys, acting as a multi-party CommitmentDevice. It aggregates a set of Conditions (terms) and obligations which all parties must Sign to accept. Contracts supply the agreed terms for disputes resolved by a Judge.
Invariants
- Binding only when `signatures` covers every party in `parties`.
- Terms cannot change after signing; an amendment is a new Contract.
- Terms are verifiable by a third party.
Risks
Failure modes
Ambiguity
Terms are open to interpretation.
Unsigned
Not all parties have signed (invalid).
Void
Conditions violate higher-law constraints.
Relationships
Builds on
Accepts
Interface for patterns that evaluate to a boolean truth-value
References
Mind
Pre-commitment against hyperbolic discounting
Unique agent context (The Who)
Scalar evaluation of merit
Attest to authorship or agreement
Used by
Yields
Society
Acceptance of bid and contract creation
References
Society
Record the joint capacity an exchange creates, beyond the information it transfers
Named surface set that implementers must provide
Reference
Data schema
{
"type": "object",
"required": [
"contract_id",
"parties",
"terms",
"signatures"
],
"properties": {
"contract_id": {
"type": "string",
"description": "Unique identifier for this contract"
},
"parties": {
"type": "array",
"items": {
"type": "string"
},
"description": "Identity IDs of all parties"
},
"terms": {
"type": "array",
"items": {
"type": "object"
},
"description": "Array of Condition objects defining obligations"
},
"signatures": {
"type": "object",
"description": "Map of party ID to cryptographic signature"
},
"created_at": {
"type": "string",
"format": "date-time",
"description": "When the contract was created"
}
}
}