ICN Glossary

Status: Reference Document Version: 1.2.0 Last Updated: 2025-12-14

Expanded with contribution credits terminology (Phase 21) and proposed Commons Evolution terms (RFC)

This glossary defines the authoritative terminology for ICN. All documentation, code, and user-facing text should use these terms consistently.

Identity & Trust
Organizations
Economic System
Fuel System
Infrastructure
Governance
Technical Terms
Disambiguation
Related Documents
Proposed Terms (Commons Evolution RFC)

Identity & Trust

DID (Decentralized Identifier)

A self-sovereign identifier in the format did:icn:<base58-pubkey>. Every participant, organization, and the network itself has a DID.

Trust Score

A computed value (0.0 to 1.0) representing the network's confidence in an entity, derived from the trust graph using PageRank-like algorithms.

Trust Graph

The network of trust relationships between DIDs. Edges are directed and labeled (e.g., "vouches for", "has transacted with").

Trust Class

Categories of trust levels that determine rate limits and access:

Isolated (< 0.1): Very limited access
Known (0.1 - 0.4): Basic access
Partner (0.4 - 0.7): Standard access
Federated (0.7+): Full access

Attestation

A signed statement by one DID about another. Used for contribution verification, trust building, and identity claims.

Eligibility requirements for contribution attesters:

Membership age ≥ 90 days
Trust score ≥ 0.3
Max 10 attestations per period
Non-reciprocity (cannot attest someone who attested you)

Organizational Attestation

For large contributions (> 500 credits), at least one attester must be an organizational DID (coop, community, or household), not just individuals.

Sybil Resistance

Protections against fake identity attacks in the attestation system:

Membership age requirements
Trust score thresholds
Attestation budgets
Non-reciprocity rules
Organizational anchoring for large claims

Trust Graph Depth

Attestation weight based on path length from organizational anchors. Members with no path to an org have zero attestation weight.

Organizations

InstitutionalDomain

The structural scope of a governed entity in ICN — an Individual, Cooperative, Community, Federation, or another governed class permitted by domain policy. The addressable, self-governing jurisdiction inside which authority decisions are legitimate. Specified in `docs/spec/institutional-domain.md`.

An InstitutionalDomain is not an entity class. It is the scope the entity owns. Several entity classes can own a domain — see owning entity class below.

LocalDomain

Shorthand for an InstitutionalDomain at the local institutional layer (between member/cell-local scope and federation/commons scope). Prefer LocalDomain over Coop when naming a generic scope-level concept: a local domain may be owned by a Cooperative, a Community, a Federation acting as its own entity, or another governed class permitted by policy.

See `docs/architecture/INSTITUTION_PACKAGE_BOUNDARY.md` §C3 "Entity-scope vocabulary" for the boundary rule.

Owning entity class

The class of governed entity that owns an InstitutionalDomain. Per `docs/spec/institutional-domain.md`, the closed (but extensible by policy) set is Individual / Cooperative / Community / Federation, or another governed entity class permitted by domain policy. The class shapes which adopted-charter forms are permitted and which authority classes the entity may grant.

The owning entity class is a property of a domain, not a substitute for the domain's name. A domain owned by a cooperative is "a domain whose owning entity class is Cooperative," not "a Coop."

Cooperative (Coop)

A formal economic organization with:

Registered membership
Bylaws and governance
Treasury and ledger
Economic activity (trade, production)

Cooperatives are the economic engine of ICN and one possible owning entity class for an InstitutionalDomain. In generic ICN-core architecture text, prefer LocalDomain or InstitutionalDomain when naming a scope; use Cooperative only when the subject is specifically the cooperative entity class (per docs/spec/institutional-domain.md), the cooperative-movement context, or a cooperative-specific setup path / institution package.

Community

A civic organization for:

Mutual aid
Stewardship
Advocacy
Public service

Communities are first-class entities in ICN, not just informal groups. They have DIDs, fuel pools, and governance. A community is one possible owning entity class for an InstitutionalDomain; community-owned domains are parallel to cooperative-owned domains at the local-institutional scope level (per docs/spec/institutional-domain.md).

Federation

A group of cooperatives and/or communities that:

Share exchange agreements
Have common governance
Can trade using federation credits

Household

A grouping of related DIDs (family, friends) that:

Pool device contributions
Share benefits
Have shared resource accounting

Global Commons

The network-wide pool for:

Unaffiliated individual contributions
Network infrastructure
Public goods

Anyone can contribute to the Global Commons without joining a coop.

Contribution Routing

How infrastructure credits are split when earned. Contributors specify allocations:

Personal: To individual account
Cooperative: To coop treasury
Community: To community
Household: To shared household pool
GlobalCommons: To network-wide pool
Federation: To federation treasury

Exploitation safeguards:

Real membership requirements (2+ independent DIDs for households)
Pass-through ceilings (max % from single source: 25%)
Velocity limits (rapid changes trigger review)

Network

The ICN network as a whole. Has:

Constitutional governance
Network-wide parameters
The Network Treasury DID

Economic System

Credit

A unit of value in ICN's mutual credit system. Credits are internal accounting entries, not tradeable tokens.

Always qualify which type:

Coop-Credits: Spendable within a single cooperative
Federation-Credits: Spendable across federated organizations
Infra-Credits: Earned from infrastructure contribution (converts to coop-credits)

Mutual Credit

An economic system where:

Value comes from reciprocity, not scarcity
Balances can be negative (you owe) or positive (you're owed)
The system is zero-sum (total credits = total debits)
No external tokens or currency backing required

Hours

The default currency unit in most cooperatives. Represents an hour of labor or equivalent value.

Always qualify which type:

Labor-Hours: Human work (tutoring, cooking, etc.)
CPU-Hours: Compute contribution
Uptime-Hours: Node availability

Demurrage

Negative interest on idle credit balances. Encourages circulation, discourages hoarding.

Provenance

The tracked history of a credit unit, including:

Original contributor
How it was earned
Transfer history

Used to determine bridge eligibility.

Bridge

The interface between ICN internal credits and external value (fiat, other networks). Governed and restricted.

Three-Tier System

The graduated exchangeability of credits:

Internal (Tier 1): Within one coop only
Federated (Tier 2): Across federated orgs
Bridge (Tier 3): External exchange (governed)

Network Treasury

The DID did:icn:network:infrastructure that issues credits for infrastructure contributions.

Exchange Pool

An automated market maker (AMM) for swapping between currencies within ICN. Governance-controlled, not speculative.

Marketplace

The internal economy where credits are spent on goods, services, and infrastructure.

Listing types:

Service: Labor with duration (tutoring, repair, care)
Good: Physical items (food, tools, crafts)
Digital: Content with license (software, designs)
Infrastructure: Compute/storage capacity
Subscription: Recurring service access

Human Labor Credit

Credits earned through human work (as opposed to infrastructure contributions).

Labor types:

Organizational labor: Logged via coop/community work tracking
Service delivery: Peer-to-peer marketplace services
Community service: Care work, mutual aid

Labor categories: Governance, Operations, Development, Outreach, Education, Care, Skilled, Creative, Physical

Fuel System

Fuel

Permission to perform network operations. Fuel is:

Regenerative: Refills over time
Non-transferable: Can't be traded
Contribution-based: More contribution = higher max

Fuel is not a token or currency. It's a rate-limiting mechanism.

Fuel Allowance

Your personal fuel capacity, calculated from:

Base allowance (everyone gets this)
Trust bonus (higher trust = more fuel)
Contribution bonus (more contribution = more fuel)

Fuel Pool

Fuel exists at every organizational level:

Network Pool: Cross-federation operations
Federation Pool: Cross-coop operations
Coop Pool: Internal operations
Member Allowance: Individual activity

Regeneration Rate

How fast fuel refills. Default: full regeneration in 24 hours.

Fuel Cost

Each operation consumes fuel:

Publish message: 1 fuel
Ledger transaction: 10 fuel
Create proposal: 50 fuel
Submit compute job: Variable

Fuel Guarantees

Minimum civic fuel (50 units) ensures every member can participate in governance regardless of contribution level.

Guaranteed operations (never blocked by fuel exhaustion):

Cast vote on eligible proposals (1 per proposal)
Create one proposal per governance period
Send 5 direct messages per day
View own balances (unlimited)
Respond to disputes involving self

Fuel Reservation

For compute jobs, fuel is reserved upfront from the submitter's account. Unused fuel is returned when the job completes.

Compute Limit

The execution limit for CCL contract execution. This is distinct from fuel but draws from the same fuel pool when submitting jobs.

Important: In CCL code, the internal execution limit is still called "fuel" for historical reasons. In user-facing documentation, use "compute limit" when referring to contract execution bounds.

Infrastructure

Node

An instance of icnd (the ICN daemon) providing network infrastructure.

Contribution

Resources provided to the network:

Compute: CPU cycles for job execution
Storage: Disk space for data replication
Bandwidth: Network relay capacity
Uptime: Continuous availability

Device Network

A collection of devices (phones, laptops, servers) owned by one DID, contributing resources together.

Attestation (Contribution)

When peers verify that a node actually provided claimed resources. Requires trust-weighted signatures.

Metering

Automatic measurement of resource contribution via Prometheus metrics.

Governance

Proposal

A formal suggestion for change, requiring votes to pass.

Domain

A governance scope (e.g., "coop:food-collective", "federation:pnw").

Quorum

The minimum participation required for a vote to be valid.

Threshold

The percentage of approval required for a proposal to pass.

Protocol Contract

Economic rules encoded in CCL. Can be:

Adopted: Used as-is
Extended: Customized with additions
Replaced: Completely custom

Key protocol contracts:

infrastructure-credit/v1: Rates for infrastructure → credit conversion
fuel-allocation/v1: Fuel allowance calculation rules
demurrage/v1: Circulation charge policies

Role

A governance position with specific powers:

Steward: Day-to-day administration
Facilitator: Meeting and process management
Delegate: Represents org in federation

AuthorityClass

Closed enumeration of constitutional authority kinds, frozen in ADR-0014. Exactly three variants:

Representation — speaking/voting in place of another within a bounded scope
Execution — carrying out an action that mutates institutional state
Attestation — issuing signed statements of fact downstream consumers may rely on

These three are distinct and must not be silently conflated. Representation does not confer Execution authority; Execution does not confer Attestation authority.

AuthorityGrant

A bounded, auditable grant of authority issued by a sovereign entity to a grantee, in exactly one AuthorityClass. Carries: grantor entity, grantee DID or entity identifier (for example, a federation or cooperative, or a shared-service entity acting as an institutional actor), TypedScope, optional proposal_id + decision_hash provenance, validity window, optional revocation timestamp. App-layer constitutional meaning, not a kernel primitive. The ICN runtime, daemon, or gateway are never valid grantors. Frozen in ADR-0014; not yet implemented.

TypedScope

Typed replacement path for today's RoleAssignment.authority_scope: Vec<String> capability strings. Conjunction of present scope categories: domain, proposal-class, action-kind, amount/ceiling, time-window. Absent categories are "unbounded along that axis"; at least one category must be populated for a grant to be meaningful. Frozen in ADR-0014.

Mandate

The constitutional mediation layer between a governance decision and the execution of its effects. Binds a GovernanceDecisionReceipt (the decision) to one or more AuthorityGrants, optionally an executor and a deadline, with lifecycle Pending → InProgress → Discharged | Expired | Revoked. Not a delegation, not a role assignment, not an office, not an InstitutionalEffectRecord, not a raw receipt, not a federation agreement, not a charter. It is the missing object between proposal/decision and execution/effect/evidence. Frozen in ADR-0014; not yet implemented.

Technical Terms

CCL (Cooperative Contract Language)

ICN's domain-specific language for expressing agreements and economic rules. Intentionally limited (not Turing-complete).

Ledger

The double-entry accounting system tracking all credit movements. Uses Merkle-DAG for integrity.

Gossip

The P2P messaging protocol for distributing information across the network.

QUIC

The transport protocol used for node-to-node communication (over UDP, with TLS).

Gateway

The REST/WebSocket API for applications to interact with ICN.

Disambiguation

Fuel vs. Gas

Concept	ICN Fuel	Blockchain Gas
Acquired by	Contribution + trust	Buying tokens
Transferable	No	Yes
Speculation	Impossible	Common
Regeneration	Yes (time-based)	No
Purpose	Rate limiting	Payment

Fuel vs. Compute Limit

Context	Term to Use
User-facing docs	"Fuel" for network ops, "compute limit" for CCL jobs
CCL internal code	"fuel" (historical, internal only)
API parameters	`fuel_limit` for compute jobs
Metrics	`icn_fuel_*` for all fuel metrics

Credit vs. Token

ICN Credits	Crypto Tokens
Internal accounting	External asset
Mutual credit (can be negative)	Always positive
No exchange trading	Exchange tradeable
Value from reciprocity	Value from scarcity
Designed to circulate	Designed to appreciate

Community vs. Cooperative

Community	Cooperative
Civic focus	Economic focus
Mutual aid, stewardship	Trade, production
Belonging	Livelihood
May not have currency	Has currency/ledger
Less formal governance	Formal bylaws

Both are first-class ICN entities. Individuals typically belong to both.

Internal vs. Federated vs. Bridge

Tier	Scope	Can Cash Out?
Internal	One coop	No
Federated	Partner orgs	No
Bridge	External	Yes (governed)

Usage Guidelines

In Documentation

Always qualify credit types: "coop-credits", not just "credits"
Always qualify hour types: "labor-hours", "CPU-hours"
Use "fuel" for network operations
Use "compute limit" for CCL execution bounds

In Code

Variable names should match glossary terms
Comments should use glossary terms
Error messages should use glossary terms

In User Interfaces

Prefer plain language with glossary terms
Provide tooltips linking to glossary
Avoid jargon without explanation

Proposed Terms (Commons Evolution RFC)

These terms are proposed in COMMONS_EVOLUTION.md and are under review for v0.3.x+. They are not yet implemented.