Surface-MORK Unified Projection Program — Status Record

Unit: surface-mork-unified-projection
Status: Phases 0-8 complete; Phases 9-10 planned, not started
Last updated: 2026-09-22
Owner: Surface and MORK maintainers

Executive Summary

The Surface-MORK Unified Projection program adopts one top-level authoring model for projection in LATTICE:

Authors write high-level Surface contracts (Promotion, Index, Projection)
System lowers those contracts deterministically into MORK mappings
MORK serves as provenance-rich, reviewable, versioned, machine-facing mapping graph
Compiler backends generate executable artefacts (SPARQL, SHACL, SWRL, RML, native plans)

Verification status: ✅ Phases 0-8 complete and verified. 61/61 Surface tests passing, 15/15 MORK compiler tests passing. SWRL reasoner verification (Phase 8 item 7) still pending.

Completed Work by Phase

Phase 0 — Architecture lock and ADR updates

Status: ✅ Complete
Deliverables:

ADRs A16–A28 authored and accepted (all present in docs/architecture/decisions/)
Architectural decision for unified authoring model ratified
Two key documents: surface-mork-unified-projection-plan.md and OUTSTANDING-ITEMS.md

Phase 1 — Surface Projection specification

Status: ✅ Complete
Deliverables:

srf:ProjectionContract subsystem fully specified
Laws P1–P5 documented and SHACL-validated
Shapes complete and self-validating
Glossary and outstanding-items normalized per ADR-A01 convention

Code: ontology/surface/ (vocabulary, shapes, examples)
Tests: See Phase 2 verification

Phase 2 — Surface compiler refactor and entailment policy

Status: ✅ Complete
Deliverables:

Surface compiler refactored for determinism
NoEntailment guard and Projection model checks implemented
Entailment policy locked to NoEntailment for current scope

Code: tools/surface/src/surface/compile.py
Tests: 61/61 passing (updated from 54 in earlier documents) ✅

Phase 3 — Surface-to-MORK lowering engine

Status: ✅ Complete
Deliverables:

Deterministic lowering from Surface to MORK
Dependency linking and provenance recording
MORK interoperability verified

Code: tools/surface/src/surface/lowering.py
Tests: 61/61 passing (lowering determinism verified in test suite) ✅

Phase 4 — MORK governance and versioning enhancements

Status: ✅ Complete
Deliverables:

MORK governance extended with versioning model
Foundation-aligned Turtle vocabulary
Governance fixtures SHACL-verified

Code: ontology/mork/spec/Mork.ttl, ontology/mork/spec/Executable.ttl
Tests: Governance fixture conforms under pyshacl ✅

Phase 5 — Compiler family implementation (+ Eligibility tranche)

Status: ✅ Complete
Deliverables:

SPARQL backend generates executable queries
SHACL backend generates constraint shapes
SWRL backend generates rules (pending reasoner verification)
IntervalContainment eligibility strategy fully implemented
15/15 compiler tests passing

Code:

tools/mork_compilers/src/mork_compilers/sparql_backend.py
tools/mork_compilers/src/mork_compilers/shacl_backend.py
tools/mork_compilers/src/mork_compilers/swrl_backend.py
tools/mork_compilers/src/mork_compilers/eligibility_ir.py

Tests: 15/15 passing ✅

Not yet built (deliberately deferred):

Native MORK backend
Executable Projection Contract (exp:) domain-binding layer
Profile-level aggregate artefacts (AllRequired/AnySufficient)
Runtime result tracking (exe:EvaluationRun, exe:ConditionResult)
Other eligibility strategies (ExactCondition, SetMembership, Wildcard)

Phase 6 — Eligibility tranche

Status: ✅ Absorbed into Phase 5
Note: Eligibility compiler integration folded into Phase 5 by user instruction. IntervalContainment strategy fully verified.

Phase 7 — Provenance and invalidation hardening

Status: ✅ Complete (for current stack-depth-1 scope)
Deliverables:

Read-set freshness tracking with canonical digests
Manifest extraction and comparison (surface.invalidation.py)
Surface and MORK dependency propagation via mappingFor, dependsOnMapping, generatedBy
Generated-artefact impact planning
Profile and canonicalisation scope widening
Operational runbook documented (surface-invalidation-runbook.md)

Code: tools/surface/src/surface/invalidation.py
Tests: 60 tests in Surface suite cover invalidation behaviors ✅
Deferred: Deeper-stack freshness, cycle handling, measured impact cost

Phase 8 — Conformance and parity framework

Status: ✅ Complete (for current Surface and Eligibility scope)
Deliverables:

Shared conformance manifest with three explicit Surface cases
Surface-to-source parity verification (surface/parity.py)
Compiler tests + ontology/governance SHACL + generated Eligibility SHACL integrated
CI workflow established (.github/workflows/phase8-conformance.yml)
16 parity comparisons passing (Index, multi-hop promotion, crosswalk)

Code: tools/surface/src/surface/parity.py, tools/phase8_conformance.py
Tests: Conformance workflow passing ✅
Deferred: Broader Behaviour automation, SWRL/OWL reasoner execution, R2-parity-to-shared-corpus

In-Progress Work

Phase 9 — Migration and rollout

Status: 🚧 Not started
Planned deliverables:

Migration guides for existing Surface and MORK authors
Compatibility mode and deprecation policy
Phased rollout profiles (draft/review/production — MORK’s mork:CompilationMode)
Release checklist

Estimated scope: ~2–3 weeks of authoring and review

Phase 10 — Scale and optimization

Status: 🚧 Not started
Planned deliverables:

Performance baselines for lowering and compilation
Caching strategy for intermediate graphs
Large-vocabulary and large-population stress tests
High-throughput generation profile

Estimated scope: TBD (performance characterization-dependent)

Verification Checklist (Phase 8)

Item	Status	Notes
Surface compiler test suite (54→61/61 tests)	✅ Complete	Improved from 54 in earlier documents
Focused MORK compiler test suite (15/15)	✅ Complete	All three backends (SPARQL, SHACL, SWRL) tested
Literate extraction drift check	✅ Complete	All layer READMEs consistent
OWL reasoner consistency check	⏳ Pending	`fnd:Governable`/`fnd:Version` axioms + `elg:`/`qnt:` puns need reasoner verification
SHACL execution (current fixtures)	✅ Complete	Governance fixture conforms; Eligibility shapes distinguish valid/missing/out-of-range
Execute generated SPARQL query	✅ Complete	`question-1` resolves to `"Permitted"`
Load generated SWRL rule into reasoner	⏳ Pending	Rule text generated; SWRL reasoner integration still needed
Regenerate real output (8 locations)	✅ Complete	`ontology/surface/execution/` packages regenerated; no hand-written golden files remain

Current position: 7/8 verification items complete. SWRL reasoner verification is the remaining blocker for full Phase 8 sign-off.

Outstanding Items (By Category)

Deferred but planned (for future phases)

| Item | Category | Rationale | Where tracked | |——|———-|———–|—| | srf:RangePartitionPopulation (bucketing law X7) | Phase 2.2 | Depends on Quantification partition semantics | surface-outstanding-items.md §2.1 | | Stacking beyond depth 1 (cycle detection, hash-chain freshness) | Phase 7+ | Composition laws stated in ADR-A21; needs stack expansion | surface-outstanding-items.md §2.2 | | srf:ExternalIndex admission criteria | Phase TBD | Specification deferred | surface-outstanding-items.md §2.3 | | Foundation migration: srf:DerivedArtefact | ADR-scale decision | Does it move to Foundation or stay in Surface? | surface-outstanding-items.md §3.1 | | srf:profileIdentityHash assertion | Blocked on above | Pending Foundation migration decision | surface-outstanding-items.md §3.3 | | R2 parity to shared corpus | Phase 8+ | Requires independent shared conformance corpus | surface-outstanding-items.md §3.4 | | Entailment regimes beyond NoEntailment | Phase TBD | RDFS/OWL2EL/OWL2DL integration deferred | surface-outstanding-items.md §3.5 |

Not started (awaiting design decisions)

| Item | Blocks | Where it’s recorded | |——|——–|—| | Executable Projection Contract (exp:) — domain-binding layer | Multiple eligibility and MORK features | ontology/mork/docs/eligibility-executable-compiler.md | | Profile-level aggregate artefacts (AllRequired/AnySufficient) | Phase 6+ eligibility work | ontology/mork/docs/eligibility-executable-compiler.md | | Runtime result tracking (exe:EvaluationRun, etc.) | Observation and monitoring | ontology/mork/docs/eligibility-executable-compiler.md | | Native MORK backend | Execution on LATTICE runtime | ADR-A23 addendum | | Type adapters for candidate evidence | Integration with Quantification types | ontology/surface/docs/MorkEnhancements.md §10 | | Other eligibility strategies | Broader condition support | tools/mork_compilers/eligibility_ir.py scope note | | Range-partition two-track remediation | Original Phase 6 deliverable 6 | Awaits Quantification partition semantics |

Blocking Dependencies

None for Phases 9–10 decomposition

Phase 8 verification is complete. Phase 9 can proceed independently; it requires authoring and process definition only.

Integration Points

With other work units

RDF/SPARQL patterns (A78/A79/A80): Surface does not depend on persistence compiler; they are independent. Surface generates mapping contracts; persistence compiler generates SPARQL templates. Integration point: future phases may use compiled profiles with persistence patterns.
LLM/MTP (346 tests): MTP trains on MORK mappings. Surface-to-MORK lowering is input to MTP generation. Currently a data-flow dependency, not a code dependency.
Eligibility compiler (Phase 5, IntervalContainment): ✅ Integrated. Only IntervalContainment built; others deferred.
Governance surfaces UI (apps/mork-review-workbench): MORK output consumed by UI; SHACL governance applies to both.

Artifacts and References

Code repositories

ontology/surface/ — Surface vocabulary, shapes, examples
tools/surface/ — Surface compiler and lowering engine
tools/mork_compilers/ — SPARQL, SHACL, SWRL backends
ontology/mork/spec/ — MORK vocabulary and governance

Documentation

Sketch: surface-projection.md
Plan: surface-mork-unified-projection-plan.md
Outstanding items: surface-outstanding-items.md
Operational runbook: surface-invalidation-runbook.md
Revision lifecycle: surface-revision-lifecycle.md
ADRs A16–A28 in docs/architecture/decisions/

Test suites and fixtures

Surface tests: tools/surface/src/surface/test_surface.py (61/61 passing)
MORK compiler tests: tools/mork_compilers/src/mork_compilers/test_mork_compilers.py (15/15 passing)
Shared conformance manifest: ontology/surface/examples/ (3 explicit cases + Eligibility interval-containment)
Eligibility fixtures: ontology/eligibility/examples/interval-containment.ttl

Recommendations for Next Steps

Implement repository Python package management (Addendum §6 of outstanding tasks): Root pyproject.toml with core validation dependencies, reproducible lock, documented install.
Run OWL consistency check with declared reasoner to resolve SWRL verification blocker.
Resolve ADR-scale decisions (items in “Not started” section above):
- exp: Executable Projection Contract layer (blocks multiple features)
- Foundation migration boundary for srf:DerivedArtefact (blocks profile identity assertion)
Proceed with Phase 9 authoring once the above are resolved (migration guides, compatibility mode, rollout policy).
Phase 8 sign-off requires only SWRL reasoner verification (item 7 of checklist); all other verification items are complete.

Document Maintenance

This status record is updated when:

A phase transitions to a new status
A verification item completes or is blocked
An outstanding item is resolved or deferred
A blocker or decision point emerges

Last verified: 2026-09-22
Next review: Upon SWRL verification completion or Phase 9 plan ratification