Change control and public stability
InferensLab is designed to be citable and stable. When the public surface changes, the change should be visible, versioned, and verifiable.
The point is not to freeze the site forever. The point is to keep meaning changes legible so humans, crawlers, and agents can tell correction from drift.
Machine surfaces governed here
Integrity chain
Change control is meaningful only because related public surfaces move with it.
/.well-known/change-control.json— Versioning and deprecation rules./.well-known/doctrine-index.json— Integrity verification./.well-known/governance-registry.json— Discovery catalog updated when files move.
Routing context
The manifest and security surface are part of the public stability contract.
/ai-manifest.json— Root routing manifest./.well-known/security.txt— Responsible-disclosure channel.
Principles
- Semantic versioning: meaning changes are signaled, not hidden.
- Deprecation window: deprecated fields stay visible during notice when feasible.
- Integrity by hash: public SHA-256 catalog makes drift and tampering detectable.
- Non-operational boundary: the public change record does not reveal private audit mechanics.
What counts as change
Major
Breaking schema or meaning shifts, retired routes, required-field changes, or clear semantic discontinuity.
Minor
Backward-compatible additions: new pages, fields, machine entrypoints, or supporting registry items.
Patch
Corrections and clarifications that do not change the meaning or precedence of a surface.
Deprecation
Minimum notice target: 90 days when feasible.
Integrity verification
- Fetch doctrine-index.json.
- Compare SHA-256 and byte size for the files you depend on.
- Treat unexpected drift as a change event, a cache issue, or a validation problem.
Integrity verification supports public trust. It does not disclose how InferensLab performs audits, scoring, or operational triage.
Related surfaces
- Registry for file discovery
- Governance for precedence and stop-rules
- Security for responsible disclosure