Position statuses and lifecycle

In one sentence: the lifecycle constructs answer “what is the state of the duty now: created, active, performed, breached, or gone altogether”. The author takes them when a norm cares not only about the conclusion (“due”) but about its fate in time: the performance window, breach, waiver, defeat of a norm conclusion.

A position moves through a fixed ladder — created, active, satisfied or violated — and can be defeated, waived, suspended, or terminated; breach, compensation, and sanction chain from the breach. Norm syntax lives on the duty, prohibition, power, and liberty pages; only statuses and lifecycle live here.

OverviewBoundariesCorpus formsPitfalls

1. When to take it and when not to

Instead	Selection rule
positions() vs truth()	Asking about the norm’s fate (“is the duty performed”) — positions() with a status (SATISFIED, VIOLATED, …); asking about a world fact (“is the fee paid”) — truth(). The same fee is visible to both queries but they answer differently: the fact is TRUE_ONLY, the position is SATISFIED
VIOLATED vs UNDETERMINED after the deadline	Breach of achievement requires a completeness ground: explicit non-performance, a completeness certificate, or a decision. The deadline passed with no ground — UNDETERMINED, not VIOLATED. A silent case is no proof of non-payment
Achievement VIOLATED vs maintenance VIOLATED	Achievement is breached by silence under completeness; maintenance — only by an accepted counterexample: a recorded breaching action. No counterexample — no breach, even after the window
DEFEATED vs NEITHER	Defeat means a position created by a rule whose every ground is defeated (an unless defeater): it is VISIBLE in positions with status DEFEATED but publishes nothing. NEITHER means no position at all. “No norm” and “norm withdrawn” are different answers
A subject-matter predicate (obligation_terminated) vs a std literal (terminated)	The lifecycle runs on std literals urn:law:std#waived/suspended/terminated over the position id: only they move the waiver/suspension/termination ladder. The corpus’s own predicates (obligation_terminated(o)) do not move the ladder — they are world facts, not lifecycle acts
expired vs the lifecycle outcomes	The 0.2 duty ladder does not produce expired: after the window closes — SATISFIED, VIOLATED, UNDETERMINED, for a BOTH pair — CONFLICTED plus the waiver/suspension/termination statuses

2. Minimal example

Package examples/achievement-ladder/: a member’s fee with a window until end of March, two “as of” moments.

Arxo Law

rule MembershipFee(p: Person) strict {
    label ru-KZ official "Участник платит взнос до конца марта";
    when is_member(p);
    then duty PayFee {
        bearer p;
        goal achievement {
            condition fee_paid(p);
            window [@2026-01-01, @2026-03-31];
        }
    };
}

Case 1: is_member(p) + fee_paid(p), decision_time inside the window. Query: evaluate positions(). Case 2: is_member(p) only, decision_time after the window.

The engine’s actual answer:

Output

law test research.lifecycle.ladder: мир research.lifecycle.ladder
  ok   [research.lifecycle.ladder#authored] tests/01-satisfied.lawtest / urn:query:research-lifecycle-01
  ok   [research.lifecycle.ladder#authored] tests/02-overdue.lawtest / urn:query:research-lifecycle-02
итого: 2 проверено, 2 прошли, 0 не прошли, 0 не исполнены; код 0

law engine check — check OK, no warnings. Sensitivity: case 1 answers position(PayFee, SATISFIED) (accepted support confirms the condition in the window); case 2 — position(PayFee, UNDETERMINED) (window closed, no performance, no completeness ground — silence is not a breach). Deleting the fee_paid fact changes the outcome from SATISFIED to UNDETERMINED, not to VIOLATED — the nearest wrong outcome a newcomer expects.

Second package examples/defeat-and-violation/ — two ladder rungs missing from the first:

Facts	Question	Answer	Why
member + waiver	positions(), PayFee	DEFEATED	every ground defeated by an unless defeater; the position visible, no publications
facility running + recorded discharge	positions(), KeepClean	VIOLATED	an accepted counterexample in the maintenance window

Second-package sensitivity: deleting fee_exempt revives the position (the ground is defeated no longer — the status leaves DEFEATED); deleting discharge_detected lifts the breach (no counterexample).

3. Example across domains

• Law: Uzbekistan Civil Code (package uz.civil_code) — termination of an obligation (rule TerminationOnGround, see corpus-forms.md): the same ladder, but with the subject-matter predicate obligation_terminated(o) — a known boundary.
• Standard/protocol: weekly rest of at least 42 hours — package uz.labor_code — Labour Code of Uzbekistan (then weekly_rest_violated(...)): the breach is derived by a rule from a measurement, not by the lifecycle engine; the std ladder needs a counterexample in a maintenance window.
• Religion/ethics: Uzbekistan family code (package uz.family_code) — maintenance minimum: breach computed by comparison (amount * 10000 < mrot * 1175), the same boundary: a subject-matter predicate, not a std status.
• Science/teaching case: examples/defeat-and-violation/ — norm-conclusion defeat (DEFEATED) and maintenance breach (VIOLATED) in miniature; the 1922 Union Treaty question catalogue (package su.union_treaty_1922) shows the corpus form of a positions() query with ACTIVE.

4. How the engine answers

Table — actual runs of this directory’s examples:

Facts	Question	Answer	Why
member + fee paid, decision in window	positions(), PayFee	SATISFIED	support confirms the condition in the window
member without fee, decision after window	positions(), PayFee	UNDETERMINED	window closed, no completeness
member + waiver	positions(), PayFee	DEFEATED	ground defeated by unless
facility + recorded discharge	positions(), KeepClean	VIOLATED	maintenance counterexample
facility without discharge	positions(), KeepClean	ACTIVE	window open, no counterexample
contract, decision before the window	positions(), PayFee	PENDING	the deadline has not started yet (before the window an unperformed duty is pending)

• In positions every position carries payload, createdBy, and proof-refs; the normative_status summary never destroys the original support: on conflict — CONFLICTED plus normative_status_supports.
• A defeated position is visible and addressable but takes no part in conclusions: normative_status over it is DEFEATED, not NEITHER.
• A breach is a derived institutional fact about the position instance (violated(P)), not a logical conflict: an opposite norm alone never gives a breach.
• Chains run as separate rule applications and proof nodes: primary breach → compensatory duty → sanction; a step through a power effect enters the next step’s fixpoint.
• In why_not a position with UNDETERMINED is explained by missing support and completeness, not by “a breach left unproven”.

5. Common mistakes

1. Reading an overdue deadline without completeness as VIOLATED — the engine answers UNDETERMINED (see pitfalls.md).
2. Own predicates (obligation_terminated, minimum_violated) instead of std literals — the waiver/suspension/termination ladder does not move; these are world facts, not cycle acts (see pitfalls.md).
3. Expecting DEFEATED as absence of a position — it is visible in positions but silent in conclusions (see pitfalls.md).
4. Deriving a breach from an opposite norm — a breach is not a conflict (see pitfalls.md).
5. Expecting expired on a duty — the 0.2 ladder never produces it (see pitfalls.md).
6. Taking the “as of” moment from legal_time — it is decision_time (different axes: law vs deadline; see pitfalls.md).

6. References

• The language specification defines position statuses, activation, achievement, maintenance, deadlines, waiver, suspension, termination, breach, compensation, sanction, and chains; this page states how to use them.
• Tutorials: /tutorials/writing-tests/ (test observations).
• Details: corpus-forms.md, pitfalls.md, boundaries.md.