Order-Flow Standard \u2014 Interface-First Standard (RFC-lite reference document)
The Order-Flow Standard (OFS-2.1) defines a computable representation of change across three complementary profiles. It provides a single global Flow-Time axis, a Meaning-Time layer for human and societal context, and a Civil Display format for adoption-first dual-display. OFS does not replace legally recognized time standards; it augments them with interoperable structure.
Human-readable OFS clock + ISO dual-display. Adoption-first: keep ISO for law, add OFS for interoperability.
FT integer epoch pulses for monotonic ordering. Deterministic, reversible to ISO 8601.
MT event object with id, ftRange, causality, consent, and privacy fields. Privacy levels: public, restricted, private.
All OFS representations must be reversible to ISO 8601. Civil Display always appears alongside ISO time in dual-display mode. No OFS implementation may obscure, replace, or override legally recognized time for end users.
Implementations may use a smear strategy to maintain monotonic flow; legal time remains ISO/UTC. Safety-critical systems should rely on dedicated time sources and must not depend on OFS alone for precision timing.
Meaning-Time events carry explicit privacy and consent fields. Privacy levels are: public (unrestricted), restricted (visible to participants), and private (owner-only). Consent values are: explicit, implicit, and withdrawn. Implementations must default to the most restrictive level when no consent signal is present.
OFS is not a monitoring framework, not a behavioral scoring system, and not a replacement for legal time. Using OFS to build fine-grained behavioral monitoring, workplace scoring, or coercive scheduling systems violates the standard’s normative safeguards. Attention-first defaults are normative goals.
OFS follows semantic versioning. Major versions (e.g., 2.x → 3.x) may introduce breaking changes. Minor versions (e.g., 2.0 → 2.1) add backward-compatible features. Change proposals are reviewed by the OFS governance body (Arcer Governance LLP). Public comment periods precede major version releases. Current version: OFS-2.1.
OFS adoption follows an interface-first model. Start with Civil Display (dual-display), then add System Flow (FT) for machine ordering, and Meaning-Time (MT) for consent/privacy/causality as needed. Institutions follow tools; tools follow the standard.
Interface-first adoption: tools before institutions.
Non-normative
OFS was designed around three constraints: (1) legal time must never be obscured, (2) machines need a single sortable axis, and (3) human context—consent, privacy, causality—must be representable without surveillance.
The Phase (Φ) and Pulse (ψ) units were chosen to segment the day into calm coordination windows rather than minute-level fragmentation. The separator is explicitly not a decimal point: Φ.ψψψψψ is a display format, not a floating-point number.
Meaning-Time (MT) encodes what happened, why, and who consented—not who was where at sub-second resolution. Privacy levels (public / restricted / private) default to the most restrictive when no consent signal is present.
The adoption-first approach (Civil Display before System Flow before Meaning-Time) is deliberate: it lets interfaces adopt OFS without institutional buy-in, lowering the barrier to interoperability.