{
  "id": "axiomao:defining-properties",
  "edition": "0.1",
  "language": "en",
  "status": "proposed",
  "title": "Defining properties",
  "description": "A proposed set of organizational properties and the evidence needed to recognize them.",
  "canonical": "https://axiomao.org/en/defining-properties/",
  "published": "2026-10-14",
  "sections": [
    {
      "id": "purpose-authority",
      "heading": "Purpose, identity, and authority",
      "paragraphs": [
        "Axiom AO proposes three foundational properties: a continuing identity, an explicit purpose, and a defined authority boundary. Identity links decisions and obligations to the same organization over time. Purpose supplies a basis for prioritizing work. Authority identifies what the system may decide, what it may change, and when another party must participate.",
        "These properties should be inspectable. A mandate can state permitted activities, resources, owners, and escalation conditions. It also needs a way to change legitimately. If historical instructions remain available, the system must distinguish their historical significance from their present authority."
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "work-resources",
      "heading": "Work and resources",
      "paragraphs": [
        "Two further properties concern action: discretionary organization of work and access to resources adequate for that work. The organization can select or coordinate relevant tasks rather than merely repeat a fixed schedule. Resources can include compute, documents, tools, budgets, or access supplied by another party; owning money is not essential.",
        "Actual capabilities depend on runtime permissions. A written instruction cannot grant a filesystem permission or a service account privilege. A useful description identifies both the intended boundary and the enforced boundary, together with what happens when an apparently permitted action is unavailable."
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "continuity",
      "heading": "Continuity and outcome assessment",
      "paragraphs": [
        "The final proposed properties are durable obligations and assessment of outcomes. A system needs to preserve enough state to resume, resolve unfinished work, and avoid treating every restart as a new beginning. It also needs a way to determine whether an attempted action achieved the intended result.",
        "These are architectural properties, not guaranteed performance. To recognize them, inspect a completed case and an interrupted case: which obligation persisted, which evidence supported acceptance, and which uncertainty remained unresolved? Independent review, multiple agents, databases, and particular message protocols are possible mechanisms rather than universal requirements."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "references": [
    {
      "label": "Wooldridge, Jennings & Kinny (2000). The Gaia Methodology for Agent-Oriented Analysis and Design",
      "url": "https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/michael.wooldridge/pubs/jaamas2000b.pdf"
    },
    {
      "label": "Hübner, Sichman & Boissier (2002). A Model for the Structural, Functional, and Deontic Specification of Organizations in Multiagent Systems",
      "url": "https://moise.sourceforge.net/doc/publications/Hubner-sbia2002.pdf"
    }
  ],
  "related": [
    "https://axiomao.org/en/what-is-an-autonomous-organization/",
    "https://axiomao.org/en/autonomy-and-accountability/",
    "https://axiomao.org/en/evaluation-methods/"
  ]
}