Accord — In a protocol, the technological register of explicit agreement: clear, version-controlled, accountable rules that enable coordination. See Every protocol has three inseparable layers.
Adoption — The voluntary but consequential act of committing to a protocol or cluster of protocols, which constitutes membership in the network and creates interoperability with other adopters. See Participating means enacting protocols.
Agent — A person or organisation that participates in the Fabric network by adopting freely chosen protocol clusters. Membership is defined by which protocols an agent has adopted, not by position in a hierarchy. See Participating means enacting protocols.
Area — A thematic area of relational life within which clusters of related protocols operate. The seven areas — collective decision-making, conflict engagement, resource distribution, feedback and learning, information flow, care and support, connection and community — are the original living systems reframed as protocol areas. Not to be confused with domain, which names the specific bounded scope of a circle or mandate-holder. See Living systems become protocol areas.
Circle — A self-governing group that emerges when agents adopt the collective decision-making protocol cluster around a shared domain. Distinguished by its governance function: making and evolving the agreements that guide work within its domain. See Circles are a basic unit of shared governance.
Collective agency in service to life — Fabric’s aim: the shared capacity to act as one, from below, in ways that keep the network and the wider living systems it belongs to in right relations. Its outward face is collective power — what that agency can bring to bear on the systems Fabric acts within; agency is prior, power derived. See Agency in relationship builds collective power.
Conflict — Energy and information that emerges when tension involves specific harm, specific parties, or has been suppressed long enough to rupture relationship. Treated as a source of learning about structural conditions, not a failure. See Conflict-as-information.
Consent — A decision-making process where a proposal passes unless someone has a reasoned objection — a grounded belief that it would cause harm or that there is a worthwhile improvement. Paired with somatic check-ins attending to both analytical and embodied dimensions. See Consent-as-default.
Critique & Contemplation — In a protocol, the meta-relational register that keeps it honest, held in two inseparable movements: critique of power — whose interests are served, whose voice is absent, what structural conditions enable or prevent participation — and contemplation of whether the protocol serves life or reproduces separation. See Every protocol has three inseparable layers.
Domain — The specific bounded area of work and decision-making for which a circle or mandate-holder is responsible and empowered to decide. Not to be confused with area. Boundaries are periodically examined through critique and contemplation. See Mandate clarity.
Emergence — A property of a whole that cannot be found in or predicted from its parts alone. In Fabric, emergence names the irreducibly collective creative output that arises when agents adopting the same protocols develop shared capacities and become interoperable. The network’s topology itself is an emergent property of voluntary adoption. See What scales is the pattern of relating.
Governance — The function of making and evolving the agreements that guide how work is done, distinguished from operations by its reflective capacity to revise rather than merely coordinate. See Circles are a basic unit of shared governance.
Network — A system of interconnected agents whose structure emerges from the relationships between them rather than being imposed from above. Fabric is such a network: a web of relationships between agents for social change whose topology is defined by the protocols its members actually enact, with no fixed shape or central authority. See Fabric is a web of relationships.
Objection — A reasoned belief, grounded in argument, that a proposal would cause harm to the network’s shared purpose or that there is a worthwhile improvement. Treated as information that reveals what needs attention, not an obstacle. See Consent-as-default.
Protocol — A freely adopted agreement about how to be in relationship, held through three inseparable layers (accord, ritual, critique & contemplation) and enacted by agents to shape the network’s topology. See Every protocol has three inseparable layers.
Ritual — In a protocol, the embodied discipline and relational practices that make the accord real — what you do regularly, with your whole self, to cultivate the capacity the accord depends on. See Every protocol has three inseparable layers.
Role — An area of accountability delegated by a group to an individual, held for defined terms and distinguished from the person holding it through the “role vs. soul” distinction. Rotated to prevent accumulation of informal authority. See Tending shared roles.
Stewardship — Specified, accountable tending of protocols — never assumed but always named with detail about what is needed, by whom, for how long, with what resources, and reviewed on what schedule. See Protocol stewardship is distributed.
Tension — A productive state where information reveals a pull in two directions — where a protocol’s promise conflicts with its effects, or where two goods compete. Drives protocol evolution when held rather than suppressed. See Tension drives development.
Voice — The capacity and access for any member to raise concerns, objections, and information. Actively designed through asynchronous participation, multiple channels, objection support, and funded participation budgets. See Make voice cheap.