Documentation Constitution
Status: Supreme Domain Authority
1. Purpose
The Documentation Constitution governs the creation, maintenance, validation and evolution of every canonical document within the ZAYAZ platform.
Documentation is architecture.
Architectural documentation is therefore a governed constitutional artifact.
2. Constitutional Philosophy
Documentation shall be:
- canonical;
- consistent;
- replayable;
- machine-readable;
- human-readable;
- architecturally complete;
- internally coherent.
Documentation exists to communicate architecture.
It shall never become an afterthought.
3. Constitutional Authority
Documentation shall conform to:
- ZAYAZ Constitution
- Domain Constitutions
- Approved ADRs
- Canonical Specifications
- Supporting Documentation
Legacy documentation is informative only.
4. Canonical Documentation
CD-001
Every canonical specification shall possess:
- stable identity;
- semantic identity;
- canonical name;
- version;
- governance;
- ownership.
CD-002
Every canonical specification shall include valid frontmatter.
Missing mandatory metadata constitutes a constitutional defect.
CD-003
Identifiers are immutable.
Document titles may evolve.
Identifiers shall not.
CD-004
Specifications shall possess exactly one canonical source.
Duplicate canonical specifications are prohibited.
5. Cross References
Cross-document references shall use document identifiers.
Human-readable titles are supplementary.
Architectural relationships shall never depend upon titles.
6. Multipart Specifications
Large constitutional specifications may be divided into multiple files.
Multipart specifications shall:
- possess one constitutional identity;
- define explicit sequencing;
- avoid duplicated sections;
- preserve cross-part consistency.
7. Frontmatter Governance
Frontmatter constitutes architectural metadata.
It is not presentation metadata.
Mandatory fields shall include:
- id
- semantic_id
- canonical_name
- source_file
- slug
- ontology
- graph
- governance
- ownership
Future mandatory fields shall extend rather than replace existing metadata.
8. Architectural Consistency
Documentation shall remain architecturally consistent across the repository.
Cross-document contradictions are constitutional defects.
Architectural consistency has precedence over local document correctness.
9. Documentation Lint
Documentation linting is constitutionally required.
VW-DL implements the constitutional validation defined by this Constitution.
Lint shall verify, at minimum:
- frontmatter;
- identifiers;
- graph integrity;
- duplicate specifications;
- pipeline consistency;
- replay declarations;
- governance references;
- constitutional references;
- ontology consistency;
- broken links.
10. AI Contributions
AI systems shall:
- preserve architectural intent;
- preserve identifiers;
- preserve constitutional hierarchy;
- avoid speculative edits;
- report uncertainty.
AI shall not silently invent:
- identifiers;
- governance;
- ontology;
- architectural relationships.
11. Constitutional Invariants
CD-100
Documentation defines architecture.
CD-101
Every canonical document possesses one stable identity.
CD-102
Every canonical specification has exactly one authoritative source.
CD-103
Every architectural relationship is explicitly declared.
CD-104
Canonical documentation shall be lint-clean.
CD-105
Every constitutional specification shall satisfy this Constitution.
CD-106
Architecture shall remain internally consistent across documents.
CD-107
Documentation quality is a constitutional concern.
12. Conformance
All constitutional specifications, framework specifications, engine specifications, component specifications and architectural ADRs shall conform to this Constitution.
VW-DL shall verify constitutional conformance before downstream tooling consumes repository artifacts.
This includes, but is not limited to:
- documentation publishing;
- datasheet generation;
- Figma generation;
- ticket generation;
- architectural exports;
- AI-assisted repository modifications.
13. Future Evolution
Future constitutional domains may extend documentation governance.
Extensions shall strengthen architectural consistency while preserving the constitutional principles established herein.