Queries: boundaries

What the construct does NOT do: limits, reserved values, neighbouring constructs and the selection rule.

OverviewBoundariesCorpus formsPitfalls

Does not do

• Not execute focused_truth. A 0.3-semantics kind: in 0.2 the refusal is FOCUS_UNSUPPORTED_SEMANTICS (fatal) without a result, the document a separate focused-evaluation form, not accepted by the audit-document consumer. A conformance scenario pins the refusal.
• Not substitute a non-marginal kind with a neighbour. An implementation not executing the named query kind must reject it with a diagnostic. The kind list is a menu, not a guarantee that every kind executes in 0.2.
• Not add support via query. A named query declaration computes over the law (let/return) but adds no support to the legal state. Anyone waiting for a declared query to “lay a fact” mistakes the level: facts are laid by the case and by rules; a query only reads.
• Not carry a term error in positions/collect. The status ladder raises the status only on truth/why_not; other kinds (positions, collect, argumentation) do not carry a candidate term error in their status — a named but unclosed boundary.
• Not answer an off-schema question. A question failing the question schema is rejected before computation with QUERY_INVALID: a kind-less literal used to answer COMPUTED instead of REQUIRES_JUDGMENT — an answer different in meaning.
• Not count in the explanation. why_not names a rule with a computable head by compatibility, not equality, and does not tell “would have concluded another value” apart; substitution continuations read store witnesses only, cap eight per rule with a truncated flag.
• Not iterate worlds without presentation. counterfactual requires a finite content-addressed set of candidate patches (law.core.counterfactual-input/0.1), explicit mutable/immutable, a cost model with a canonical nonnegative Decimal and full tier success (TRUE_ONLY of the goal and all constraints); any fatal before the proven cutoff is COUNTERFACTUAL_SEARCH_INCOMPLETE, no partial minimum published. Without a cost function “minimal change” is undefined — the kind does not execute “thinking for the author”.

Reserved and closed

• The observation dictionary is closed and grows additively: applied, any_applied, status_support, position_proved, deadline_trace, judgment_request(P[, A]), collected*, position_*, conflict_*, certificate, refused. There is no unknown observation — there is a lowering refusal (LDC-E1316 on short position_count, confirmed by run).
• The status list is closed (a computation-refusal envelope is a full document with an issue and a status, without a value; top-level error is only a pre-computation query/version refusal).
• Literalless kinds (positions, calendar operations) have nothing to check against a signature: arity checking does not apply to them.
• A standalone question’s queryId is a URN of the case-package namespace; the completion form is deterministic, deriving from path/date/record form is forbidden (mismatch — LDC-E1356).

Neighbours and the selection rule

• truth vs why_not: status vs explanation. See the selection table in README.md.
• truth vs positions(): one proposition vs a norm-position slice.
• collect vs truth with a value: listing vs checking.
• query declaration vs standard kind: computation over the law vs question to the law; the declaration carries the result contract (result contract), a runtime mismatch is a conformance error.
• deadline questions (calendar operations, deadline policy policies) vs truth about a period: a calendar operation is asked in its own kind, the date trace reads via the deadline_trace observation; output carry and cutoff-shift give one date on different days — the observation tells them apart, the date does not.
• interpretation_analysis vs truth: a question under each reading of the group; the only place where a query takes a query, and nesting is one level only.
• weak_permission vs strong permission (liberty): the weak one is “not prohibited under the closure policy”, asked as a query kind, not as a position.