Relationship ≠ authority
A manager or guardian edge does not change permissions, budget or workspace boundaries. Those powers come from separate execution contracts.
50 · Collective Intelligence
Agent relationships
in GenOS.
Declared and measured links that shape coordination, routing, or communication between agents.
EXPLAINER
What links can agents have?
A relationship is a typed, directed edge from one source agent to a target agent. It describes lineage, work structure or a cooperation context. It can inform routing and interpretation, but does not send a message by itself.
agent A → verifier → agent BThis edge declares a verification role. It does not prove that B checked a result or grant B any additional permission.
| Class | Count | Question | Declared types |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lineage | 9 | Who derives from whom? | parent · child · sibling · twin · ancestor · descendant · chimera · plasmid · graft |
| Organizational | 8 | How is work arranged? | manager · subordinate · colleague · coworker · mentor · collaborator · client · supplier |
| Collaborative | 3 | Who cooperates on a task? | collaborator · colleague · partner |
| Social | 9 | What social link is declared? | stranger · friend · partner · bonded_partner · neighbor · rival · temporary_ally · guardian · dependent |
| Epistemic | 2 | Who checks a claim? | verifier · reviewer |
| Adversarial | 1 | Who challenges a proposal? | adversary |
The classes contain 32 memberships across 29 unique types: colleague, collaborator and partner each occur in two classes. Initial familiarity, trust and independence values are declared profiles, not verified measurements.
Relationship ≠ communication
The registry stores the durable link. A signal, message or handoff is a communication event. A relationship can exist without an exchange, and an exchange can occur without a stored relationship.
DEFINITION AND SCIENCE
What it means
in GenOS.
Declared and measured links that shape coordination, routing, or communication between agents.
Network science distinguishes a system's nodes from its interaction edges. Declared agent links describe possible communication or influence; they do not demonstrate that the links are active or productive.
Declared and measured links that shape coordination, routing, or communication between agents.
Represent the organization as G=(V,E), with adjacency Aᵢⱼ encoding permitted or observed links. Keep permission edges separate from observed communication edges.
ANIMATED DIAGRAM · INTERACTIVE MODEL
01 / 03Explore the mechanism: Agent relationships
A qualitative teaching model of this concept. It does not run GenOS or validate its implementation.
01Declare relation edgeINPUT
02Measure active interactionMECHANISM
03Constrain routingCONDITIONAL OUTCOME
Current transition · Step 1Declare relation edge
The modeled transition may proceed. Change the assumption and move through the stages to inspect the decision path.
PROCESS AND USE
How it works
at a glance.
Declare relation edge
Declared and measured links that shape coordination, routing, or communication between agents.
Measure active interaction
Represent the organization as G=(V,E), with adjacency Aᵢⱼ encoding permitted or observed links. Keep permission edges separate from observed communication edges.
Constrain routing
Constrain routing. Network science distinguishes a system's nodes from its interaction edges. Declared agent links describe possible communication or influence; they do not demonstrate that the links are active or productive.
RUNTIME IMPLEMENTATION
What is connected,
and how far.
The linked, versioned GenOS source defines this concept's supported operations and limits. The status axes describe the implementation and evidence recorded for this entry; they do not establish general mission success, scientific equivalence or behavior beyond that scope.
Typed relation constraints and targeted routing are implemented; relation metadata cannot grant authority or prove statistical independence.
Failure modes have not yet been separately cataloged for this entry; follow the source and evidence links before relying on the mechanism.
PRIMARY RESEARCH · MECHANISM LEVEL
The mechanism
behind the analogy.
Time, Clocks, and the Ordering of Events in a Distributed System
Leslie Lamport · Communications of the ACM 21(7), 558–565
Defines a partial order of events and logical clocks. A published run without event timestamps cannot be reconstructed into a causal timeline from this result alone.
Open publication ↗Primary research describes the cited mechanism; specific technologies may instead cite their original technical documentation. These sources provide context and do not validate the GenOS implementation.
EVIDENCE AND LIMITS
Scope and validation boundaries
The linked, versioned GenOS source defines this concept's supported operations and limits. The status axes describe the implementation and evidence recorded for this entry; they do not establish general mission success, scientific equivalence or behavior beyond that scope.