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reference
HAO Framework Terminology (Extended Glossary)
An authoritative reference for all core concepts, entities, and constructs in the Humanized Autonomous Organization model.
I. Structural Entities
| Term | Definition | Plain name |
|---|---|---|
| HAO (Humanized Autonomous Organization) | A socio-technical framework that centers human agency, polycentric governance, and ethical alignment while integrating AI, economic coordination, and trust systems. | the network’s coordinating framework |
| ICN (Integrated Cooperative Network) | A specific instantiation of the HAO model designed for trickle-out economics and distributed entrepreneurship via UMEs and SEPs. | the reference cooperative business network |
| MTU (Member Trust Union) | A cooperative financial infrastructure layer of the ICN, designed to reimagine banking around trust-centered services, decentralized credit, and financial sovereignty. | the network’s credit-union-like financial institution |
| UME (United Micro Enterprise) | The smallest operational unit in the HAO/ICN, typically a semi-autonomous, self-governing team or business with embedded ethical, financial, and governance protocols. | a small, self-managing venture team (≤ ~15 people) |
| SEP (Strategic Enterprise Partnership) | A time-bound or goal-specific alliance between two or more UMEs formed to pursue a shared opportunity, project, or market interface. | a joint venture between teams |
| MEE (Micro Enterprise Ecosystem) | The protected internal economy in which UMEs operate, distinct from (but connected to) external markets through defined interfaces. | the network’s protected internal economy |
II. Governance and Agreements
| Term | Definition | Plain name |
|---|---|---|
| AGF (Adaptive Governance Framework) | The multi-level, polycentric governance model in HAOs that enables distributed authority while maintaining value coherence. | the network’s layered governance system |
| DEA (Dynamic Enterprise Agreement) | A versioned, evolving governance charter that replaces fixed bylaws; it formalizes the rules, roles, and operational principles of a HAO or UME. | a versioned operating agreement replacing fixed bylaws |
| IR (Intentional Redundancy) | The design principle of overlapping roles, responsibilities, or systems to increase resilience and fault tolerance without sacrificing efficiency. | |
| EIA (Enterprise Integration Assessment) | A formalized process for evaluating whether and how external entities (individuals, UMEs, organizations) can be integrated into the ICN or HAO. | |
| VAM (Value Alignment Monitoring) | Systems or protocols designed to continuously track whether behaviors, outputs, and decisions align with the stated principles of the HAO/ICN. | ongoing checks that actions match stated principles |
| Governance Node | A locus of decision-making authority in a polycentric network, whether at the UME, regional, or network-wide level. | |
| Consent Governance | A decision-making model focused on resolving objections rather than achieving majority rule; often used for proposals and conflict mitigation. |
III. Financial Architecture
| Term | Definition | Plain name |
|---|---|---|
| Trickle-Out Economics | A financial design where capital flows from the coordinating entity (HAO) outward to the edge (UMEs) based on value-creation potential. A separate diminishing contribution protocol returns a declining share of revenue to shared infrastructure as UMEs mature. | |
| Mutual Credit System | A network-internal financial mechanism in which credits are created at the moment of value creation and circulate without requiring fiat injection. | |
| Revenue Allocation Framework | A structured, milestone-based protocol defining how revenues are shared between UMEs, SEPs, and the HAO over time. | |
| SEP Revenue Contract | A dynamic revenue-sharing agreement specific to a SEP that defines contribution, risk, trust weight, and revenue distribution logic. | |
| Distributed Secure Credit | A decentralized form of credit issuance where trust, not collateral, underwrites lending, and risk is spread across the network. | |
| Resilience Reserve | A portion of revenue set aside by the HAO or UMEs to support recovery, failure mitigation, or reinvestment in emergent opportunities. | |
| Public Market Interface | A buffer mechanism (like Contribulo) that allows regulated interaction between the MEE and traditional financial markets, insulating UMEs from external volatility. | a buffer company between the network and outside investors |
IV. Trust, Identity, and Participation
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Trust Graph | A weighted, dynamic graph structure representing the multi-dimensional trust relationships between agents (members, UMEs, SEPs) in the HAO. |
| Progressive Trust Verification | A non-binary, layered approach to trust wherein permissions, roles, and credit access grow as reputational signals accrue over time. |
| Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) | A decentralized identity system where individuals control their credentials, proofs, and disclosures without reliance on central authorities. |
| ZKP (Zero-Knowledge Proof) | A cryptographic method allowing users to prove something (e.g., experience level) without revealing personal details, used in trust-preserving verifications. |
| Trust Horizon | The maximum range of transactional or governance influence an agent can have based on their trust profile and relationship map. |
| Reputation Inertia | The tendency of reputation systems to resist updates after infrequent or outdated participation; countered by time-decay mechanisms in HAOs. |
| Trust Decay Curve | A rate at which unused or unrefreshed trust scores lose weight, ensuring that reputation remains current and context-relevant. |
V. Technology and Intelligence Systems
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| CIN (Collaborative Intelligence Network) | A network layer of AI agents, data systems, and human feedback loops that augment decision-making, value monitoring, and governance workflows. |
| AI-Augmented Governance | The practice of using AI agents as advisors, validators, or summarizers within governance—without removing final human authority. |
| Ethical ML Pipeline | A monitored machine learning architecture in HAOs that is trained on value-aligned data and outputs interpretable decisions for human governance. |
| Collective Memory System | A structured digital memory of proposals, outcomes, and decisions that informs future deliberations and captures organizational evolution. |
| Deliberation Agent | An LLM or rules-based bot tasked with surfacing overlooked perspectives, summarizing positions, and reducing cognitive load in decision-making. |
| Dynamic Risk Model | A live-adjusting risk framework that recalibrates credit or governance exposure based on behavior, context, and network-wide metrics. |
VI. Lifecycle and Health Management
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| UME Lifecycle Management | A process framework for tracking and supporting a UME from inception to maturity, potential degradation, or exit. |
| Enterprise Degradation | The process by which a UME or SEP drifts from HAO-aligned principles due to cultural, financial, or operational misalignment. |
| Enterprise Collapse | A terminal state where a UME ceases operation due to internal failure, misalignment, or systemic risk exposure. |
| Antifragility Event | A network-level stressor that, rather than destroying the system, triggers learning, reconfiguration, and resilience strengthening. |
| Intentional Cannibalization | A design pattern where the HAO proactively dissolves or restructures outdated UMEs to seed new, better-aligned entities. |
| Health Signal Aggregator | A CIN node or tool that collects multi-modal data on cultural, financial, operational, and trust metrics to assess HAO health. |
VII. Meta-Frameworks and Principles
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| PARTS Model | The five-part foundational architecture of the HAO: Participatory Evolution Model (PEM), Adaptive Resilience Model (ARM), Resilience Operations Model (ROM), Transformative Infrastructure Model (TIM), and Systems Integration Model (SIM). |
| ETHICAL Framework | A values foundation for all HAO design: Empathy, Transparency, Harmony, Integrity, Collaboration, Accountability, Learning & Longevity. |
| MMM (Members, Mission, Market) | A priority ordering for what a UME attends to: members precede mission, because the people present outlast any particular mission; mission precedes market, because market opportunity alone does not determine what is worth building; market is the viability test the first two must pass. The framework’s source documents are marked as working documents, not yet reviewed, and its content is treated as provisional here; see docs/appendices/open-questions.md for the framework’s own open questions. |
| HAO Ontology Layer | A shared semantic layer describing roles, relationships, functions, and transitions within the HAO system. |
| Participatory Evolution Model (PEM) | A model that emphasizes continuous refinement of governance through structured proposals, reflection, and consensus loops. |
| Adaptive Resilience Model (ARM) | A model for absorbing disruption and reconfiguring afterward, directed at shocks that cannot be enumerated in advance rather than at risks that can: proactive stress testing, scenario modeling across disruption types, crisis-response training, and redundancy in key systems. Its source frames it as deliberate exposure to measured stress to surface vulnerabilities that abstract analysis misses, and treats some inefficiency as a hedge. §VI’s Antifragility Event is the same concept under another name. §VI’s Intentional Cannibalization is related but not identical: it dissolves units judged outdated, where this source proposes dismantling parts of a thriving unit during abundance, to keep attachment to any single asset in check. ARM and ROM are not cleanly distinguished in the source material — the archive’s ROM brief reproduces most of the ARM brief verbatim, still naming ARM throughout — and this glossary does not supply a distinction the sources do not make. Imported from provide.coop/docs/parts/02-adaptive-resilience-model.mdx, an unreviewed brainstorming brief; see §VII note below. |
| Resilience Operations Model (ROM) | A model for resource allocation and decision-making under uncertainty or constraint—favoring redundancy, adaptability, and fairness. |
| Transformative Infrastructure Model (TIM) | A model governing how the network builds and procures technology so that the technology carries the network’s stated commitments rather than eroding them. Its stated scope is wider than user-facing software: algorithm design, data ownership, and vendor and hardware supply chains. Its source proposes screening vendors against a values standard, auditing the network’s own tools for effects that are technically efficient but reduce member agency, accepting deliberate inefficiency or reduced data collection where efficiency would cost more than it returns, and monitoring the network’s own systems for unintended consequences, the last of these framed by the source as watching for the pattern §9.1.3 catalogs as Mission Creep. Imported from provide.coop/docs/parts/04-transformative-infrastructure-model.mdx, an unreviewed brainstorming brief; see §VII note below. |
| Systems Integration Model (SIM) | An architectural model that monitors and manages interfaces between the HAO and external systems (e.g., markets, governments, protocols). |
Note on the ARM and TIM entries. The corpus names all five PARTS models but
describes only three of them in its own text. ARM and TIM appear in
~/code/hao/docs only inside the PARTS Model row above, so their entries were
imported from the source archive at
~/code/site-provide-coop/provide.coop/docs/parts/.
Those two briefs are AI-generated ideation, not ratified specification. They are written largely as open questions (“Could the ICN…”), they use the earlier ICN vocabulary rather than the current terms, and several of their proposals are posed rather than adopted. The entries above record what each model is for and the mechanisms its brief names; they do not adopt those proposals as network policy. Both entries are narrower than their sources, and should be read as the least the source supports rather than the most. What is left out is chiefly the ARM brief’s stress-test scenarios and the TIM brief’s “slow tech” brand positioning; the TIM brief’s vendor-screening mechanism is kept above, minus its “blacklist” framing.
This does not make ARM and TIM weaker entries than their neighbors. PEM, ROM, and SIM are no better attested: ROM appears nowhere in the corpus outside this table, and PEM and SIM appear only in a single chapter 09 passage that glosses them from this table. All five rows of this section trace to material no one has verified. The difference is that ARM and TIM name the file they came from, and it can be read; the other three do not.
VIII. Common Failure Modes (and Mitigations)
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Alignment Drift | A slow, unintentional shift away from founding principles; mitigated by VAM and CIN interventions. |
| Governance Capture | A scenario in which a powerful subset controls decision-making; addressed via trust decay, consent models, and rotating facilitation. |
| SEP Entropy | The disorganization or confusion that arises in multi-UME projects without clear agreements; solved through enforceable DEA branches and structured retrospectives. |
| Credit Inflation | A collapse in mutual credit value due to unchecked issuance or low circulation; mitigated with issuance limits, time-bound credits, or decay mechanisms. |
| Reputation Exploits | Gaming of the trust system by collusion or sybil-like tactics; requires graph analysis and anomaly detection tooling. |