“Meta-primer governs both the topical primers and the romer, ensuring cross-aligned behaviour and trace policy”

“XPlain does the how, not the what”

XPlain-R Romer Trace – Full Architecture Overview

The Romer Trace function sits inside the XPlain-R framework as the audit and assurance spine. It connects the meta-primer (global rules), topical primers (job-specific rules), and the romer runtime (navigation engine) into an explainable, versioned trace that can be reviewed and compared across platforms and time.

Layers

• Meta-Primer Layer – defines global reasoning constraints, logging obligations, and governance rules that apply to every job.
• Topical Primer Layer – binds the meta-primer to a specific domain or use case (e.g. GRC assessment, supply chain audit).
• Romer Runtime Layer – executes the combined rules, generates waypoints and sub-questions, and drives the reasoning path.
• Trace Layer – normalises and persists romer events as an ordered, version-aware trace with state snapshots.
• Storage & Analytics Layer – provides immutable trace storage and cross-job analytics on romer behaviour and method performance.
• Experience Layer – exposes traces to humans via viewers, dashboards, and export packs for audit and research.

Key Design Properties

• Version-aware – every trace event is tagged with primer and meta-primer versions, so behaviour can be explained in context.
• Append-only – traces are immutable; any corrections are new events, not edits.
• Separation of concerns – primers define rules, the romer defines navigation, and the trace service defines auditability.
• Cross-platform – the event schema can be implemented across different AI backends while preserving a common trace format.
• Assurance-ready – designed to support architecture review, internal and external audit, and regulatory explainability requirements.

Typical Flow

1. A job is started with a meta-primer and a topical primer bound to it.
2. The romer runtime applies these rules to explore, evaluate, and synthesise, emitting structured events.
3. The Romer Trace Service enriches these events with versions and state snapshots and writes them to the Trace Store.
4. Analytics and observability tools read from the Trace Store to surface patterns, anomalies, and performance metrics.
5. Trace viewers and export packs present a human-readable reconstruction of what happened and why.

Flow Summary (End-to-End)

1. Meta-Primer & Topical Primer
   • Provide rule sets, governance constraints, and version fingerprints.
2. Romer Runtime
   • Executes the job, generating waypoints and decisions.
   • Emits structured events to the Romer Trace Service.
3. Romer Trace Service
   • Normalises and enriches events.
   • Inserts romer state snapshots (mode, focus, constraints).
   • Annotates each event with primer + meta-primer versions.
   • Writes to an append-only, immutable trace log.
4. Trace Store
   • Maintains a fully ordered event stream per job.
   • Supports index/search by job, agent, version, or timeframe.
5. Analytics Layer
   • Extracts path patterns, rule usage profiles, and cross-job behaviour.
   • Powers QA, assurance, and lineage dashboards.
6. Trace Viewer / Audit Tools
   • Presents a job-specific reconstruction:
     • Start → waypoints → checks → evidence → outcome.
   • Allows filtered export for architecture and compliance review.

The Stack at a Glance

Directive → Meta-Primer → Topical Primer → Romer → Process → Job → Learning

1. Directive

   Sets ethics, licensing, and scope. Defines permitted artifacts and oversight for auditable operation.

2. Meta-Primer

   Construction rules for how domain primers are built, validated, and governed.

3. Topical Primer

   Domain logic: evidence gates, thresholds, escalation triggers, and audit requirements.

4. Romer

   Executable reasoning derived from the Primer (lens selection, rules, pause points, trace logging).

5. Process

   Orchestrates stages and handoffs: intake → validation → execution → review → outputs → learning capture.

6. Job

   Validated output plus an audit trail suitable for business and system readers.

7. Learning

   Feeds improvements back into the Primer (captured edge cases, overrides, drift findings).

Why It Works

• Scaffold-dependent reasoning: XPlain keeps agents inside explicit boundaries (“lenses,” rules, and gates), delivering consistent, auditable results that degrade gracefully on edge cases.
• Assurance by design: Confidence floors, boundary bands, drift checks, and mandatory pause points are first-class citizens.
• Full traceability: Every decision can be surfaced via a Romer Trace (inputs → transformations → judgments → outputs).

Layered Architecture (Embed Any Framework, Including IFAAMAS)

1) Governance Layer — Directive
Defines permitted artifacts, interpretive scope, and oversight. This keeps the system auditable and non-opaque across platforms.

2) Construction Layer — Meta-Primer & Primers

• Meta-Primer: the construction rules (purpose, scope, lenses, validation criteria).
• Topical Primers: domain-specific standards, evidence gates, thresholds, escalation triggers, and audit requirements.

3) Execution Layer — Romer

• Translates the Primer into executable reasoning: choose lens (R_logic, R_prob, R_hybrid, etc.), run decision nodes, apply weights/thresholds, and produce a traceable result.
• Explicit human-in-the-loop triggers (confidence < floor, boundary cases, bias flags).

4) Orchestration Layer — Process

• Intake → Primer selection → Romer activation → Validation gates → Conditional human review → Finalization → Learning capture.
• Ensures repeatability, variance reduction, and governance in practice.

5) Assurance & Trace Layer

• Romer Trace provides the black-box recorder for reasoning; audit mode surfaces full chains with overrides and rationale.
• Learning capture converts edge cases into bounded updates.

IFAAMAS-Compatible by Design

XPlain embeds AAMAS concepts without locking you to a specific runtime:

• BDI Alignment:
  • Beliefs ↔ evidence + lenses in Primers
  • Desires ↔ stated objectives and metrics
  • Intentions ↔ Romer plan selection + commitment rules, logged in the trace
    This makes agent goals and commitments explicit and verifiable.
• Norms & Governance:
  Evidence gates, pause points, and change budgets operationalize institutional norms and oversight—core AAMAS themes adapted to modern LLM agents.
• Protocols & Coordination:
  Process handoffs and audit-ready traces provide the substrate for formal interaction patterns (e.g., you can layer FIPA/contract-net semantics over the same gated decisions).

Bottom line: XPlain is the integration surface—bring BDI, norms, or mechanism-design ideas from AAMAS, and bind them to evidence, gates, and traces for real-world assurance.

---

What You Get (Out-of-the-Box Behaviors)

• Consistency & comparability: identical inputs → identical governed logic.
• Human-in-the-loop by rule, not by hope: explicit triggers for review and escalation.
• Dual-reader outputs: concise business report + detailed system report + full trace on demand.

---

Example (Abbreviated)

• Primer: Third-Party Security (v2.1) — mandatory evidence, confidence floor, and constraints to reference ISO/NIST.
• Romer: R_hybrid lens applies scoring and thresholds; boundary cases escalate.
• Output: Risk score with confidence, evidence summary, and audit trail pointer—repeatable across vendors.

---

Governance Note

This page reflects XPlain’s interpretive architecture and permitted artifacts (Primers, Romers, Traces, Processes). Executable analytics or data-run simulations fall outside the governed scope unless explicitly authorized.

CTA

Design your first Primer → Encode your domain rules, evidence gates, and assurance thresholds, then derive a Romer to make your agent auditable from day one.