Concepts/Concept

Application context

Template matching returns template_id=tpl_84721. The import step must receive that exact value for the same tenant and run. A valid-looking identifier reconstructed from conversation can point to the wrong entity even when its type and format pass schema validation.

Definition

The Mechanical State Plane stores exact values that drive business operations together with their provenance coordinates. A coordinate identifies the producing tool call, tenant, run, field, version, timestamp, and validation state. Downstream code reads the value by reference instead of asking the model to reproduce it.

Engineering mechanism

{
  "key": "matched_template_id",
  "value": "tpl_84721",
  "source": {"run": "r-19", "tool_call": "tc-7", "field": "template_id"},
  "scope": {"tenant": "sg-04", "task": "payroll-setup"},
  "version": 3
}

Tool adapters write state after response validation. Plan nodes declare required keys and scope. Before a call, the runtime checks existence, provenance, tenant, freshness, and expected producer. Sensitive values may be stored behind opaque references.

Boundary

The plane fits managed tools whose outputs and state keys can be registered. Open-ended external tools require an admission layer before their values become trusted state. Narrative summaries may describe the result, but they cannot overwrite the stored value.

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