Establish authority
A person determines what a governing source requires. The decision, source, rationale, and identity are recorded together.
Under development
Silcrow
Movable type for governed truth.
Software that can act on rules without deciding what they mean.
The premise
A person decides what a rule means—once, with their name on it.
Silcrow turns that human decision into reusable, machine-readable authority. Deterministic software can then construct practical instructions, forms, tasks, and workflows without reinterpreting the governing meaning.
Every result keeps its relationship to the source, the human determination, the conditions under which it applies, the permitted action, and the evidence of what happened.
The method
Meaning stays human.
Composition stays deterministic.
Compose the work
Deterministic software reuses that adjudicated authority to build operational artifacts. It does not silently reinterpret the rule.
Preserve the evidence
Execution remains traceable from the resulting record back through permission and applicability to the human decision and source.
Governed lineage
From source text to accountable action.
Silcrow keeps five things distinct so they can remain explicit, inspectable, and connected.
- AuthorityWhat the governing source requires
- ApplicabilityThe standing conditions that determine scope
- PermissionWho is authorized to act
- ExecutionThe work performed from governed instructions
- EvidenceWhat occurred, retained with its lineage
Development focus
A concrete demonstration using federal workplace-safety rules.
Silcrow’s initial proof of concept is focused on requirements from 29 CFR 1910.38 and 1910.165: emergency action plans and employee alarm systems.
Test procedures
Inspection checklists
Rotation schedules
Training records
Outage safeguards
Evidence capture
White paper
The first public technical paper is in preparation.
Start a conversation
Interested in governed software?
Silcrow is under active development at Writset.
steve@writset.com