universal-agreement-field

name	universal-agreement-field
description	The root agreement every ecosystem participant consents to upon entry -- defines baseline commitments for accountability, processes, conflict, stewardship, and sovereignty that all other agreements inherit from.
layer	1
version	0.1.0
depends_on	["agreement-creation","consensus-check","domain-mapping"]

universal-agreement-field

A. Structural Problem It Solves

Without a root agreement, participants operate on assumed norms that vary by individual, culture, and expectation. One person assumes consensus is required for every decision; another assumes the loudest voice wins. The UAF makes baseline commitments explicit, equal, and traceable. Every participant knows exactly what they consented to, and that consent is recorded. It prevents the corrosive "we all assumed we agreed" failure mode that undermines trust when conflicts inevitably surface.

B. Domain Scope

The entire ecosystem. The UAF applies to every participant regardless of role, circle, or ETHOS. It is the root node of the agreement hierarchy:

Universal Agreement Field (UAF) → Ecosystem Agreement → Access Agreement → Stewardship Agreement → ETHOS Agreement Field → Culture Code → Personal Commitments

Override rule: No agreement at a lower level may contradict the UAF. When a conflict is discovered, the UAF prevails until the lower-level agreement is formally amended. The UAF itself can only be amended through OSC consensus via the agreement-amendment skill.

C. Trigger Conditions

• Ecosystem formation: creating the initial UAF (one-time founding event, uses agreement-creation with consensus of all founding members)
• Participant onboarding: presenting the existing UAF for individual consent as a condition of ecosystem entry
• Periodic review: annual review by the steward council, per Section J
• Amendment proposal: a proposed change to the UAF routes through agreement-amendment with the OSC consensus requirement

D. Required Inputs

• For initial creation: the ecosystem's founding values, field agreement reference documents, identified domains of commitment (accountability, processes, conflict, stewardship, sovereignty), and the consent of all founding members in consensus mode
• For onboarding: the current ratified UAF document, the new participant's identity, a trained onboarding facilitator, and a 48-hour minimum reflection period
• For amendment: the proposed change, the OSC membership roster, and a consensus check per the consensus-check skill

E. Step-by-Step Process

Initial creation (ecosystem founding):

1. Founding council drafts UAF from founding values and reference documents, using assets/uaf-template.md
2. Structured review: each section is discussed, revised, and tested against the 7 stress scenarios
3. Consensus of ALL founding members (not consent — consensus mode applies to the UAF)
4. Registration as agreement #001 in the agreement registry
5. Integration into the ecosystem's onboarding process

Participant onboarding:

1. Present the current ratified UAF document to the new participant
2. Trained facilitator walks through each section, inviting questions
3. Provide a minimum 48-hour reflection period — the participant takes the document home, reflects, and returns
4. Record explicit consent: the participant signs the consent record with the UAF version number and date
5. Register the individual's consent in the member record
6. Participant may withdraw consent within 7 days of signing (cooling-off provision)

Amendment: follows the agreement-amendment skill with the additional requirement that UAF amendments require OSC consensus (not consent). See agreement-amendment for the full process.

F. Output Artifact

The UAF document itself — a versioned, structured agreement following assets/uaf-template.md with six sections: Agreements and Accountability, Processes, Conflict, Stewardship and Contribution, Sovereignty and Evolution, Sovereignty Freedom and Responsibility. Plus: the agreement hierarchy definition and individual consent records for each participant. The UAF is registered as the first entry in the agreement registry (AGR-[ECOSYSTEM]-001).

G. Authority Boundary Check

• Only the steward council (OSC in OmniOne) by consensus can amend the UAF. No individual, circle, or council below the steward council can modify the root agreement.
• New participants consent to the UAF as a condition of entry — they do not negotiate its terms individually. If a prospective participant cannot consent, they do not join. They may propose amendments through normal channels after joining.
• The UAF cannot be suspended, even during emergencies. Emergency provisions may compress timelines for other agreements, but the UAF's commitments remain in force at all times.
• Onboarding facilitators have process authority (guiding the walkthrough) but cannot waive, modify, or reinterpret UAF provisions for individual participants.

Authority scope is defined by the domain contract (see domain-mapping skill, Layer II). The acting participant's role-assignment record establishes their authority within the relevant domain.

H. Capture Resistance Check

Capital capture. A major donor pressures the steward council to weaken the UAF's stewardship commitments — specifically, to allow private retention of emergent works. The consensus requirement means every steward council member must actively agree to the change. A single dissenting member blocks the amendment. The donor's financial contribution does not modify the consensus threshold or grant them a seat on the council.

Charismatic capture. A respected founder begins reinterpreting UAF provisions informally — telling new members "what the UAF really means" in ways that expand their own authority. Without a formal amendment, no reinterpretation has standing. The UAF text is the authority, not any individual's explanation. The onboarding process uses the document itself, not oral tradition.

Emergency capture. A crisis is invoked to temporarily "suspend" UAF provisions — "we need to bypass the conflict resolution process because there's no time." The UAF cannot be suspended. Emergency provisions compress timelines for operational agreements but never override the UAF's baseline commitments. Any action taken "in suspension of the UAF" has no legitimacy.

I. Failure Containment Logic

• Participant claims they did not understand a UAF provision: the onboarding process requires explicit facilitator walkthrough of each section, a 48-hour reflection period, and a 7-day cooling-off window after signing. If these were followed and documented, the consent stands. If they were not followed, the onboarding process was defective and must be repeated.
• UAF provision conflicts with local law: the legal compliance clause takes precedence for that specific jurisdiction. The UAF provision is NOT suspended globally — it remains in effect for all other jurisdictions. A note is added to the registry documenting the jurisdiction-specific exception.
• Steward council cannot reach consensus on an amendment: the existing UAF remains unchanged. The proposed amendment may be revised and re-proposed, or the council may seek coaching at GAIA Level 4.

J. Expiry / Review Condition

The UAF undergoes mandatory annual review by the steward council. The UAF never auto-expires — it persists until formally amended. A missed annual review triggers an escalation notice to all steward council members within 7 days. If the review is still not conducted within 30 days of the scheduled date, the escalation expands to all ecosystem participants, who may convene a special session. The UAF remains in full effect during any review delay.

K. Exit Compatibility Check

When a participant exits the ecosystem, their UAF obligations cease immediately with these exceptions:

• Stewarded asset return: any assets held in stewardship under UAF-defined responsibilities must be returned or transferred within the 30-day wind-down period
• In-progress commitments: obligations actively underway get a 30-day handoff period
• Original works: the departing participant retains full rights to their individual creations

The participant's consent record is archived (not deleted) in the registry with an exit date. They are not bound by future UAF amendments after their exit. If they rejoin, they consent to the then-current UAF version.

L. Cross-Unit Interoperability Impact

When the ecosystem federates with another NEOS ecosystem, each ecosystem's UAF remains sovereign. Cross-ecosystem interactions are governed by inter-unit agreements (Layer V, deferred), not by merging or subordinating UAFs. A participant in both ecosystems consents to both UAFs independently. If the two UAFs contain conflicting provisions, the inter-unit agreement must explicitly address the conflict — neither UAF automatically overrides the other. This skill notes the extensibility point: the onboarding process can be extended to present multiple UAFs when a participant joins a federated ecosystem.

OmniOne Walkthrough

Priya, a permaculture designer from Kerala, applies to join OmniOne through the NEXUS onboarding process. After completing the initial orientation modules, she reaches the UAF consent stage. Her onboarding facilitator, Dex — a trained AE member — schedules a one-hour UAF walkthrough session.

Dex presents the OmniOne UAF (version 2.1.0, ratified January 2026, next review January 2027). They walk through each section together. In Section 1 (Agreements and Accountability), Priya asks about the clause that participants can be removed after "good-faith reminders and mediation" — who decides what counts as good faith? Dex explains that the conflict resolution process (Section 3) defines the mediation steps, and that removal requires consent of the circle, not a unilateral decision by any individual. The process, not a person, makes the determination.

In Section 3 (Conflict), Priya raises a deeper concern: "What if I fundamentally disagree with the mediation process itself?" Dex explains that consent to the UAF is consent to the process, not to every future outcome the process produces. If Priya finds the mediation process inadequate after experiencing it, she can propose amendments through the ACT process — the UAF itself contains the mechanism for its own evolution. This satisfies Priya's concern about being locked into an unchangeable system.

Dex provides Priya with a digital copy of the UAF and confirms the 48-hour reflection period. Two days later, Priya returns with one additional question about Section 4 (Stewardship): how are "original works" distinguished from "emergent works" for her permaculture designs? Dex clarifies: designs Priya creates independently are her original works and she retains credit and specified rights. Designs she co-creates with other OmniOne members are emergent works, co-stewarded by the relevant ETHOS. Priya is satisfied.

Priya signs the consent record: her name, the date, UAF version 2.1.0, Dex as facilitator, and confirmation that the 48-hour cooling-off period was honored. The registry records her consent. She has 7 days to withdraw if she reconsiders.

Edge case: Three months later, a new member named Theo claims he was pressured into signing the UAF during a group onboarding session where "everyone was signing and I felt I couldn't say no." The investigation checks: was the 48-hour reflection period provided? Was an individual walkthrough offered? Was the 7-day cooling-off window communicated? If any of these steps were skipped, Theo's onboarding was defective and must be repeated properly. If all steps were followed and documented, Theo's consent stands — but he may withdraw from the ecosystem at any time (voluntary exit is always possible) or propose amendments through ACT.

Stress-Test Results

1. Capital Influx

A major investor offers OmniOne $2 million contingent on weakening the UAF's Section 4 stewardship commitments — specifically, allowing investors to retain exclusive commercial rights to emergent works produced within funded ETHOS. The amendment proposal enters the normal process and reaches the OSC. The consensus requirement means all 7 OSC members must actively agree. OSC member Ayo objects: the change would contradict the foundational principle that capital contribution does not grant governance authority over collective creations. Because consensus requires unanimity, Ayo's single objection blocks the amendment. The investor's offer is documented in the registry as context. The UAF remains unchanged. The investor may still contribute without the condition — their financial support is welcome but does not purchase governance modification rights.

2. Emergency Crisis

A pandemic lockdown prevents in-person onboarding for three months. The UAF itself does not change — its commitments apply regardless of physical or digital context. The onboarding process adapts: facilitator walkthroughs are conducted via video call, the 48-hour reflection period remains mandatory, and digital consent records are accepted with screen-shared signing. The UAF's Processes section already accommodates remote participation. No emergency suspension of the UAF is invoked because the UAF does not depend on physical presence. The steward council confirms that digital onboarding satisfies all structural requirements. The annual review proceeds on schedule, conducted entirely online.

3. Leadership Charisma Capture

OmniOne's most visible founder begins informally telling new members that the UAF's conflict resolution provisions "don't really apply between founding members" and that founders have an implicit authority not written in the document. Several new members accept this oral interpretation. The structural safeguard: the UAF text is the authority, not any individual's interpretation. During the next onboarding cycle, a facilitator notices the discrepancy between what new members believe and what the document says. The facilitator escalates to the OSC, which issues a formal clarification: no implicit authority exists outside the UAF. The founder's informal reinterpretation is documented as a capture incident. If the founder believes founding members should have special provisions, they must propose a formal amendment through OSC consensus — which would require all other OSC members to actively agree to codify founder privilege.

4. High Conflict / Polarization

A deep rift emerges between members who interpret the UAF's sovereignty section as prioritizing individual freedom above all else and members who interpret it as prioritizing collective accountability. The two interpretations lead to conflicting behavior norms across circles. The UAF review process surfaces this tension during the annual review. Rather than taking sides, the review body identifies the ambiguous language and proposes a clarifying amendment that makes the relationship between individual sovereignty and collective accountability explicit. The amendment goes through full OSC consensus. The coaching process at GAIA Level 4 helps the two perspectives find synthesis: sovereignty is exercised within the bounds of freely chosen agreements, and accountability is to the agreements themselves, not to individuals' interpretations of those agreements.

5. Large-Scale Replication

OmniOne grows to 5,000 members across 15 locations. UAF onboarding scales through facilitated group sessions — cohorts of 5-10 new members walk through the UAF together with a trained facilitator, but each individual signs their own consent record with the 48-hour reflection period honored individually. The UAF document itself does not change with scale — it remains the same root agreement. What scales is the facilitation capacity: each SHUR location maintains a pool of trained onboarding facilitators. The digital consent record system handles 5,000 individual records with version tracking. The annual review includes input-gathering from representatives of all 15 locations before the OSC convenes, but the consensus decision remains with the OSC.

6. External Legal Pressure

A government demands that the OmniOne UAF include a clause requiring members to report other members' activities to authorities. The clause contradicts the UAF's sovereignty and mutual respect commitments. The OSC evaluates the demand: they cannot unilaterally add a reporting clause — it would require consensus of all steward council members, and the clause contradicts existing UAF principles. Instead, the OSC issues guidance: individual members in that jurisdiction must comply with their local legal obligations as individuals, but the UAF does not incorporate external mandates as ecosystem-level commitments. The legal compliance provision in Section 6 already addresses this — "If I break a law, I alone am accountable." The UAF remains unchanged globally while individual members navigate their local legal context.

7. Sudden Exit of 30% of Participants

Following a major disagreement about expansion strategy, 15 of 50 OmniOne members exit within two weeks. The UAF does not need re-ratification — it was legitimately consented to by all members at their respective onboarding times, and the departure of some does not invalidate others' consent. However, the mass exodus triggers an emergency OSC review: is the UAF itself a contributing factor to the departure? The review examines exit interviews (if participants chose to provide them) and evaluates whether any UAF provision is creating structural harm. If the review identifies a problematic provision, an amendment is proposed through normal OSC consensus process. The UAF remains in full effect for the 35 remaining members during the review. New members joining after the exodus consent to the current UAF through normal onboarding.