> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.spineworkspace.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# 01 — Overview

> What the triage system is: the classifier, linker, stager, and gatekeeper between incoming evidence and governed promotion.

# Triage System — Overview

## What Is Triage

Triage is the cognitive intake and classification boundary between incoming evidence/AI output and the governed organizational-memory promotion path.

Triage is:

* the **classifier** — it determines what something is
* the **linker** — it connects evidence to known entities
* the **stager** — it prepares candidates for human review
* the **gatekeeper** — it blocks low-quality or conflicting material

Triage is NOT:

* the owner of canonical truth
* a canonical writer
* an authority grantor
* a promotion engine

## Why Triage Exists

Without triage, every AI output, every conversation, every connector event would flow directly into organizational memory. The result would be noise — duplicates, conflicts, stale data, low-confidence claims all treated as truth.

Triage exists to:

1. **Filter** — reject spam, low-confidence, and irrelevant material
2. **Classify** — categorize evidence by type, domain, and sensitivity
3. **Link** — connect new evidence to existing entities and work
4. **Deduplicate** — identify conflicts with canonical truth
5. **Stage** — prepare candidates for governed human review
6. **Audit** — emit a durable trail of every classification decision

## The Canonical Law

> **Triage classifies. Governance decides. The Pipeline promotes. Spine owns organizational memory. Twin consumes the governed result.**

This sentence defines the four responsibilities:

| Responsibility | Owner | What It Does |
| - | - | - |
| **Classify** | Triage | Determines what the evidence is, links it, evaluates quality |
| **Decide** | Governance (Human) | Approves, rejects, or defers the candidate |
| **Promote** | Pipeline | Writes approved candidates to canonical organizational memory |
| **Own** | Spine | Stores and serves organizational memory as governed truth |

## Triage and the Two-Path Architecture

Triage operates at the boundary between the **User Path** (human experience) and the **System Path** (operational pipeline).

### System Path — Where Triage Runs

On the System Path, triage is the classification and staging phase of the pipeline:

```
Intake → Load → Normalize → Resolve Identity → Thread Events → Triage → Contextualize → Project → OODA → Governance → Execute → Reconcile
```

The System Path handles the mechanical work:

* Classifying incoming evidence by type, domain, and sensitivity
* Linking evidence to canonical entities
* Deduplicating against existing memory
* Staging candidates for human review
* Emitting audit trails

### User Path — Where Triage Is Decided

On the User Path, triage is the governance touchpoint. The human sees candidates in the Triage Inbox and decides:

```
Enter → Discover → Understand → Contextualize → DECIDE (approve/reject/defer) → Act → Review → Continue
```

The User Path handles the human judgment:

* Reviewing candidates with full context
* Approving, rejecting, or deferring
* Seeing the impact of decisions on organizational memory
* Moving on with continuity intact

### The Boundary

Triage is the handoff point between paths:

| Path | Triage Role | What Happens |
| - | - | - |
| **System Path** | Classifier + Stager | Mechanical: classify, link, dedup, stage, audit |
| **User Path** | Governance Touchpoint | Human: review, decide, approve/reject/defer |
| **Both** | Boundary | Candidates flow from System to User; decisions flow from User to System |

The System Path never writes canonical memory. The User Path never classifies. Neither path can bypass the other.

## Relationship to Flow C

Triage is the intake boundary for **Flow C** — the AI reasoning pipeline. Flow C NEVER writes directly to Spine. All AI-generated content goes through:

```
AI Source → Triage (System Path) → Staging → Governance Review (User Path) → Promotion → Org Memory
```

## Memory Scopes

Triage operates at the boundary between evidence and truth:

| Scope | What It Is | Triage's Role |
| - | - | - |
| Personal | Private user memory | Never triaged — owner-controlled |
| Conversational | Session/thread working memory | Evidence source for triage |
| Agent | Agent/Twin working memory | Evidence source for triage |
| Organizational staging | Candidate for org memory | Triage writes here |
| Organizational published | Approved tenant-wide truth | Pipeline writes here (never triage) |

## Key Principle

> **AI may propose organizational memory; only the governed promotion path can publish it.**

High confidence does not authorize promotion. Confidence describes evidence quality — it is an input to human judgement, never a substitute for it.


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