PCAM v3: The Complete State Becomes Law
A useful phase model became a real simulation standard candidate only after it stopped pretending that projection was authority.
Machine Facts
- PCAM v3 is published as version 3.0.0-draft.1 with status Normative Candidate.
- Complete action-machine state is authoritative. Presentation remains outside the authority boundary.
- PCAM-24 remains available as an optional 24-cell authoring and projection profile.
- The publication gate passed 280 Python tests, the complete independent Rust suite, and matching actual Linux x86-64 and Linux ARM64 cross-language digest evidence.
- Every Section 37 conformance class remains explicitly unclaimed in the machine-readable ledger.
What Happened
PCAM v3 replaced the earlier PCAM-24 project as Greyforge's current public action-model standard candidate. The old repository identity described the system as a phase-centric timing model. The new repository describes the harder thing that the implementation had become: a deterministic semantic action model whose authority lives in complete machine state.
The public replacement carries the master specification, schemas, a readable Python reference implementation, an independent Rust implementation, shared vectors, generated property cases, canonical examples, networking profiles, retained rollback evidence, release gates, and machine-readable conformance claims. Its documentation is deployed independently from this Chronicle so the proof surface can be inspected at source.
Why It Mattered
A phase value is useful. It tells an author or renderer where an action appears to be. It does not tell the runtime everything that can change the next result. Two action instances can expose the same phase while carrying different progress remainders, cycle counters, buffers, freeze tokens, child relationships, ledger receipts, semantic edges, random-stream positions, or correction history.
If those distinctions are hidden behind one projected cell, the model has confused presentation with law. PCAM v3 rejects that confusion. The complete state determines what happens next. Logical ticks order work. Presentation observes and submits declared inputs, but it cannot silently advance authority.
State, not projection
A projected phase can aid authoring and visualization, but it cannot replace the complete state that determines future behavior.
Evidence, not promotion
Passing bounded tests strengthens the candidate. It does not silently grant Stable, Normative, production, or conformance status.
One public lineage
PCAM v3 is the only current repository. GitHub redirects the former PCAM-24 repository URL to this public source and evidence surface.
The Architectural Response
PCAM Core now defines semantic execution, canonical ordering, bounded progression, predicates, buffers, transitions, arbitration, parent-child actions, freeze domains, typed interaction resolution, ledgers, effects, events, random-stream ownership, snapshots, hashes, faults, extensions, networking profiles, and retained rollback. The tick pipeline declares twelve stages so simultaneous work is ordered instead of improvised.
PCAM-24 survives inside that architecture as an optional authoring and projection profile. It can still provide a compact 24-cell language for designers and tools. It no longer claims to be the whole state. Profile separation preserves the useful abstraction without letting it erase the runtime beneath it.
What Changed
The public contract now includes evidence discipline. Specification, schema, tooling, rollback, bounded comparative experiment, documentation claims, independent implementation, bounded networking, and cross-platform gates can close for their declared candidate scope without promoting the entire standard. The reference-runtime gate remains open.
The machine ledger currently claims no Section 37 class. Every class remains unclaimed until its own requirements and dependencies pass. That refusal to let prose outrun evidence is not administrative decoration. It is part of the architecture.
What Comes Next
The next work is closure, not promotion. Matching execution evidence is now admitted across Linux x86-64 and Linux ARM64. The remaining runtime requirements must move from open to proved. Any future conformance claim must pass the machine-readable ledger before the website, README, release notes, or Chronicle can repeat it.
That is the larger lesson. A standard does not become credible when its prose becomes confident. It becomes credible when its state, tests, evidence, and claims agree.
The projection is useful. The complete state is law.
PCAM v3 is public as a Normative Candidate because the architecture and evidence are ready to inspect. Its remaining gates stay visible because inspection without boundaries is only marketing.