Authorship and provenance — who made what

# Authorship and provenance — who made what

**Meridians was conceived, designed, and built end to end by
[Jason Yu](https://github.com/jasonyu0100).** The architecture, product constitution, founding
vocabulary, and experiential direction are his authored work. This is a statement of origin and
continuing stewardship, not a claim over every world, source, or action that passes through the
instrument.

Authorship is part of Meridians' authority model. A legible world must distinguish who made the
instrument, who supplied its source material, who established its canon and rules, who chose an action,
and what was generated in response.

## The provenance layers

| Layer | Authorship or authority |
|---|---|
| **Meridians itself** | Jason Yu (`jasonyu0100`) is the creator and architectural author. Constitutional product decisions remain human-held under his stewardship. |
| **Akashyatra** | Jason Yu is the creator and canon authority for Meridians' founding first-party universe. Structured extraction and played variants never silently overwrite that canon. |
| **A user's Domain** | Its source authors, rights holders, and world builders retain their own authorship and authority. Running material through Meridians does not transfer either to Jason or to Meridians. |
| **Program and agent output** | Generated material carries its model, operation, source, and operator provenance. It may propose, interpret, or extend; it is not creator-authored canon unless an authorised write makes its status explicit. |
| **Scenario and World history** | Each act remains attributable to the human, agent, seat, tool, and governing world that produced it. A plural history can be enabled by an authored instrument without being solely authored by its maker. |

## What must remain true

1. **Name the maker where origin changes interpretation.** Foundational, architectural,
   constitutional, first-party-canon, and public provenance surfaces should identify Jason directly.
2. **Keep creator and operator distinct.** Jason made the instrument; the operator is the person or
   agent currently directing it. Neither identity should be collapsed into the other.
3. **Do not absorb downstream authorship.** User sources, licensed canon, Domain rules, world-builder
   choices, and participant actions retain their own provenance.
4. **Do not launder generation into canon.** Extraction may structure a source and generation may
   propose a continuation, but authority must make the transition into canon or shared state explicit.
5. **Preserve the claim through implementation.** Authored core contracts carry the
   `// @jasonyu0100` marker, while every model-facing context receives the instrument creator separately
   from the current operator through
   [`contextPreamble()`](../../../src/lib/core/utils/context-preamble.ts).

This contract governs provenance, not fame or decorative bylines. Repeating a name where it adds no
authority signal weakens the distinction; omitting it where origin determines trust weakens the system.

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