Vocabulary

What the words mean.

ICN uses a small number of words precisely. Each one below leads with what it means in ordinary language; the internal term the code and documentation use is named alongside it.

Looking for technical reference — DIDs, trust classes, mutual credit mechanics? That is the technical glossary.

Closure-loop stations (ordered)

Who you are ICN calls this identity · loop station 01
Cryptographic identity held by the member — not a platform account.
Your recognized status ICN calls this standing · loop station 02
Provable participation inside a scope. The institution can verify it directly.
What you are allowed to do ICN calls this authority · loop station 03
Derived from scope rules and the decisions members have made under them.
How group decisions are made ICN calls this governance · loop station 04
Proposals, deliberation, and decisions the institution will honor.
The rules this follows ICN calls this policy · loop station 05
Shared rules produced by decisions, shaping what can happen next.
How resources and obligations are tracked ICN calls this accounting · loop station 06
Obligations, treasury, patronage, mutual-credit positions — governed social accounting.
What actually happens ICN calls this execution · loop station 07
Where accepted decisions translate into real operational effect.
History and proof ICN calls this provenance · loop station 08
The chain from authority to outcome — durable, auditable institutional memory.
What people can do and see ICN calls this member experience · loop station 09 (convergence)
Where all of the above becomes something a person can see, use, and live in.

Scope concepts

Where you are acting ICN calls this scope
A distinct institutional entity the system recognizes — a member, a cooperative, a community, a federation, or a commons.
A cooperative ICN calls this cooperative
A scoped institution owned and governed by its members.
A community ICN calls this community
A scoped institution of people organized around shared rules and purpose, not necessarily an economic coop.
How groups work together ICN calls this federation
A coordinating scope that connects distinct cooperatives and communities without dissolving them.
Shared resources ICN calls this commons
A scoped domain of shared resources governed by the institutions that participate in it.

Economic concepts

A formal relationship ICN calls this agreement
A recorded understanding between scopes or members, with standing inside the system.
What has been assigned ICN calls this allocation
A decision to direct resources, obligations, or authority to a specific party.
What is owed or required ICN calls this obligation
A structured claim one party has on another within the system's rules.
How accounts are resolved ICN calls this settlement
The process of discharging obligations between parties.
A verified claim ICN calls this attestation
A signed statement by one party that another party can rely on.

Membership concepts

Your function in this context ICN calls this role
A named bundle of authority and responsibility within a scope.
Your place in the group ICN calls this membership
Recognized participation in a scope.
Something shared, used, or governed ICN calls this resource
A tangible or intangible asset the institution tracks and allocates.

Generated from docs/design-language/concept-map.md, the design language's canonical concept map. The website never authors a public label for an ICN concept — if wording here should change, it changes there.