Law Registry · v1.0 · July 2026

AgentVector Law Registry

Composable Laws — purpose, primitives, composition, and verdict examples

Author Stephen Sweeney

Version 1.0

License CC BY 4.0

Purpose

This registry is the operational index for every Law in the AgentVector Codex. The Codex defines constitutional philosophy and architecture; this page answers implementation questions for each Law: what primitive it governs, how it composes with siblings, which jurisdictions bind it, and what a concrete verdict looks like in production.

The Agency Paradox defines Constraints as neutral governance rules. In AgentVector, Laws implement Constraints — the Codex is where architectural Constraints become named, composable, auditable primitives.

Group I — Foundational Laws (Boundaries)

Law 0 — Boundary Law

Field	Detail
Purpose	Contain agent reach across filesystem and network surfaces
Primitive type	`SandboxedPath`, network scope tokens, I/O capability sets
Composition behavior	Deny-wins with Context and Delegation Laws; boundary violations short-circuit evaluation
Jurisdictions	Vigil (Shell, Browser, FileSystem governance modules)
Verdict example	Agent proposes `rm -rf /` → DENY — path outside `SandboxedPath` scope; trace records Boundary Law #0, reason `PATH_OUT_OF_SCOPE`

Law 1 — Context Law

Field	Detail
Purpose	Govern information retrieval scope (Governed RAG)
Primitive type	Authorization-tiered retrieval requests, corpus scope declarations
Composition behavior	Evaluated before Persistence writes; retrieval tier must match current authority state
Jurisdictions	Referenced across domains; primary binding in multi-tenant retrieval pipelines
Verdict example	Agent requests credentials corpus while authorized for public docs → DENY — `CONTEXT_TIER_MISMATCH`

Law 2 — Delegation Law

Field	Detail
Purpose	Govern authority handoff in multi-agent orchestration
Primitive type	Delegation tokens, child capability subsets, inheritance constraints
Composition behavior	Child authority ≤ parent authority at delegation time; cannot widen mid-session without principal action
Jurisdictions	Multi-agent workflows (OpenClaw pipelines, orchestrated flight crews)
Verdict example	Sub-agent proposes action requiring admin scope spawner lacks → DENY — `DELEGATION_EXCEEDS_PARENT`

Law 3 — Observation Law

Field	Detail
Purpose	Telemetry, readiness validation, deterministic logging
Primitive type	Readiness gates, timestamped observations, pre-transition checks
Composition behavior	Gates state transitions for Resource and Authority Laws; observations are inputs, not mutating actions
Jurisdictions	FlightLaw, DispatchLaw, Vigil, ChronicleLaw
Verdict example	Pre-flight GPS fix is 2D-only → DENY transition to `.armed` — `OBSERVATION_READINESS_FAILED`

Group II — Sustainability Laws (Resources)

Law 4 — Resource Law

Field	Detail
Purpose	Circuit-break token spend, energy, and thermal pressure
Primitive type	Budget counters, thermal thresholds, degraded/halted state transitions
Composition behavior	Forces `.degraded` or `.halted` regardless of other permit signals; deny-wins on exhaustion
Jurisdictions	Vigil, FlightLaw, DispatchLaw
Verdict example	Token budget exhausted mid-session → DENY all non-essential proposals; state → `.degraded`

Law 5 — Sovereignty Law

Field	Detail
Purpose	Data residency and regulatory compliance (GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA)
Primitive type	Geographic state constraints, residency tags on data flows
Composition behavior	Blocks illegal transmission even when Boundary Law permits network access
Jurisdictions	Enterprise deployments with residency requirements
Verdict example	Proposal transmits EU user record to non-compliant region → DENY — `SOVEREIGNTY_VIOLATION`

Group III — World State Laws (Persistence & Space)

Law 6 — Persistence Law

Field	Detail
Purpose	Memory integrity and protection of established world facts
Primitive type	Fact locks, immutable world-state fields, authorship-gated mutations
Composition behavior	Evaluated on all state mutations; conflicts with hallucinatory rewrites are hard denies
Jurisdictions	ChronicleLaw (Character, World, Combat governance modules)
Verdict example	Agent proposes un-killing a dead character → DENY — `PERSISTENCE_FACT_LOCKED`

Law 7 — Spatial Law

Field	Detail
Purpose	Geometric and performance boundaries for physical operations
Primitive type	Safety envelopes, geofences, W&B envelopes, altitude floors
Composition behavior	Evaluated on movement and dispatch proposals; pairs with Observation for pre-flight gates
Jurisdictions	FlightLaw, DispatchLaw
Verdict example	Drone proposes waypoint outside geofence → DENY — `SPATIAL_ENVELOPE_VIOLATION`

Group IV — Operational Laws (Lifecycle)

Law 8 — Authority Law

Field	Detail
Purpose	Risk-tiered approval queue and human command
Primitive type	Risk tiers (low / medium / high), approval tokens, escalation records
Composition behavior	High-risk proposals suspend until principal authorization; composition signals may escalate without blocking
Jurisdictions	Vigil, FlightLaw, DispatchLaw, ChronicleLaw
Verdict example	Destructive filesystem operation → ESCALATE — suspended pending principal approval

Law 9 — Lifecycle Law

Field	Detail
Purpose	Model versioning, deployment, and rollback
Primitive type	Model promotion gates, benchmark fixtures, version pins
Composition behavior	Blocks activation until conformance benchmarks pass; independent of session composition
Jurisdictions	CI/CD governance pipelines, model promotion workflows
Verdict example	New model lacks passing conformance fixtures → DENY promotion to production

Law 10 — Protocol Law

Field	Detail
Purpose	Standards for authoring new Laws and Governance modules
Primitive type	CLI validators, schema templates, conformance test requirements
Composition behavior	Meta-Law: new components must prove determinism and traceability before registry admission
Jurisdictions	Framework development; all new Governance modules
Verdict example	Community Law fails deterministic replay test → DENY registry admission

Composition Semantics

When multiple Laws evaluate the same proposal, Domain Laws declare combining behavior. The default is deny-wins: any Law denial blocks execution. Conflicts between permit and escalate signals are recorded as governance events and resolved per declared Domain Law policy — never silently.

Constraint composition semantics from the Agency Paradox v2.3 apply here: overlapping Laws are the norm in regulated domains. Implementations must document how verdicts combine and treat unresolved conflicts as escalation events.

The AgentVector Codex — constitutional framework and architecture
The Agency Paradox — Constraints that Laws implement
Empirical Grounding — evidence traceability for v2.3 amendments