---
title: "Living systems become protocol areas"
description: "The original seven living systems reframed as areas within which clusters of three-layer protocols operate"
url: "/living-systems-become-protocol-areas/"
tags: [foundation]
readingPathPosition: 23
---

# Living systems become protocol areas

The original seven living systems – resource distribution, decision-making, feedback and learning, conflict engagement, information flow, care and support, connection and community – do not disappear in a protocol-based architecture. They become *areas* within which clusters of related protocols operate.

A protocol area is a thematic area of relational life – the space within which a cluster of related protocols operates. When agents adopt the [Collective decision-making](/collective-decision-making.md) cluster around a shared domain, the governance structure that emerges is a [circle](/circles-are-a-basic-unit-of-shared-governance.md). But the protocol area concept is prior to the circle concept: areas exist wherever protocols cluster, whether or not the agents involved have adopted circle-based governance.

Two areas have been developed as full worked examples with specific [protocols](/protocols.md):

- [Collective decision-making](/collective-decision-making.md)
- [Conflict engagement](/conflict-engagement.md)

Five areas have been sketched at the principles level:

- [Resource distribution](/resource-distribution.md)
- [Feedback and learning](/feedback-and-learning.md)
- [Information flow](/information-flow.md)
- [Care and support](/care-and-support.md)
- [Connection and community](/connection-and-community.md)

The specific protocols in these areas remain to be developed through the process described in [Protocol stewardship is distributed](/protocol-stewardship-is-distributed.md).

## In this vault

- Previous: [Circles are a basic unit of shared governance](/circles-are-a-basic-unit-of-shared-governance.md)
- Next: [Collective decision-making](/collective-decision-making.md)
- Referenced by: [Participating means enacting protocols](/participating-means-enacting-protocols.md), [This is a wager, not a blueprint](/this-is-a-wager,-not-a-blueprint.md)