A protocol that only specifies rules of interaction will, over time, produce mindless bureaucracy. A protocol that only cultivates relational practices will produce good intentions without accountability. And a protocol that coordinates effectively but never asks whose interests it serves will reproduce the very patterns of separation it was meant to interrupt.
This is why every Fabric protocol must operate at all three of the following layers simultaneously – not as stages of development, but as inseparable aspects of what it means to inhabit a commitment structure.
Accord (technological register): the explicit agreement governing how participants meet each other – clear, version-controlled, accountable. Example: decisions pass by consent unless someone raises a reasoned objection.
Ritual (ceremonial register): the embodied practices that make the accord real – what you do regularly, with your whole self, that cultivates the relational capacity the accord depends on. Example: somatic check-ins during consent rounds, treating body signals as information alongside analytical reasoning.
Critique & Contemplation (meta-relational register): the recurring inquiry that keeps the protocol honest, held in two inseparable movements – critique of power (whose interests are served, whose voice is absent, what structural conditions exclude) and contemplation of whether it is serving life or reproducing separation. Example: at each review, examine whose objections have been raised and whose have not, what structural conditions make objecting difficult.
Each register draws on a distinct tradition – technology, ceremony, and decolonial inquiry – but the three are not separable. The inseparability of the layers is the “non-optional design feature that structurally requires the interruption of separation logic” (Sarri Bater).
The three layers also map onto a crucial distinction that Sarri names: the difference between coordination and interdependence. Accord layers enable coordination – the essential but insufficient work of aligning autonomous agents. Ritual layers cultivate the relational capacities that make genuine interdependence possible. Critique and contemplation are where the group checks whether it is actually moving from one to the other – or whether it has settled into well-coordinated separation.
The inseparability claim has empirical support from creativity research. Studies of jazz ensembles, improvisational theatre, and collaborative teams show that all creative group work involves both structure and improvisation, always co-present. The quality of output depends on their interaction, not on maximising either.
The three layers can be understood as a more precise formulation of this finding, extended by a third term:
The research shows concretely what happens when layers are missing. All-structure produces rigidity; all-improvisation produces incoherence. What the creativity research lacks – and what the protocol architecture adds – is critique and contemplation: the capacity for a group to examine not just whether it is creative but for whom and at what cost.