{
  "schemaVersion": "1.0.0",
  "status": "canonical",
  "decisionDate": "2026-07-31",
  "policyRevision": "2026-07-31-social-eye-boundary",
  "diagnosis": "The public catalog currently labels 100 useful visual assets as characters, but only the first two families consistently express agency, emotion, self-directed movement, vulnerability, and relationships. Some artifact visuals still use eyes or face-like signals, which makes the living-versus-object boundary harder to read even though their function remains artifact-like.",
  "guidingPolicy": "Preserve every released asset, classify living characters separately from world artifacts, require at least one social eye plus the living-character rubric for characters, and forbid social eyes on artifacts while allowing clearly non-social functional optics.",
  "kinds": {
    "character": {
      "labelJa": "いきもの",
      "labelEn": "Living Characters",
      "counterJa": "体",
      "definition": "A someone with at least one social eye, agency, affect, needs, vulnerabilities, relationships, and self-directed behavior.",
      "eyeRule": "social-eye-required"
    },
    "artifact": {
      "labelJa": "アーティファクト",
      "labelEn": "World Artifacts",
      "counterJa": "点",
      "definition": "A something with no social eyes that characters can use, inhabit, follow, grow, fear, collect, or trigger.",
      "eyeRule": "social-eye-forbidden"
    }
  },
  "visualIdentityPolicy": {
    "grammar": "entity-eye-grammar.json",
    "artifactAudit": "artifact-eye-audit.json",
    "characterGate": "At least one visible social eye is required, but it is not sufficient without passing the living-character rubric.",
    "artifactGate": "Directional pupils, gaze, blink, eyelid affect, paired face-like eyes, and cyclopean social gaze are forbidden.",
    "functionalOptics": "Lenses, lamps, gauges, meters, apertures, sensor slots, status lights, and mechanical pivots are allowed only when they do not read or behave as social gaze.",
    "legacyPolicy": "A retained visual may be recorded as legacy-noncompliant or pending-visual-audit without changing its entityKind, ID, URL, download, or immutable versioned bytes."
  },
  "familyClassification": {
    "observers": {
      "kind": "character",
      "reason": "Each member has a recognizable disposition, gaze, emotional response, and small self-directed behavior."
    },
    "kakera": {
      "kind": "character",
      "reason": "Although crystalline, each member reads as an autonomous creature through eyes, posture, movement, and environmental response."
    },
    "tools": {
      "kind": "artifact",
      "reason": "The silhouettes and behavior are primarily tools for mediating relationships."
    },
    "weather": {
      "kind": "artifact",
      "reason": "The family contract intentionally defines face-free environmental phenomena."
    },
    "garden": {
      "kind": "artifact",
      "reason": "The members are growth mechanisms, habitats, and game-world flora rather than autonomous cast members."
    },
    "tactile": {
      "kind": "artifact",
      "reason": "The members are explicitly physics props that require player input."
    },
    "locomotion": {
      "kind": "artifact",
      "reason": "The current release visualizes locomotion controllers more strongly than living personalities.",
      "redesignCandidate": true
    },
    "encounter": {
      "kind": "artifact",
      "reason": "The members are readable ability telegraphs, zones, defenses, and encounter effects."
    },
    "scene": {
      "kind": "artifact",
      "reason": "The members are screen, stream, video, and UI state cues."
    },
    "input": {
      "kind": "artifact",
      "reason": "The members are input feedback mechanisms even where sensory eyes and movement cues are present."
    }
  },
  "currentCounts": {
    "totalAssets": 100,
    "characters": 20,
    "artifacts": 80
  },
  "compatibility": {
    "keepExistingIds": true,
    "keepExistingReleaseUrls": true,
    "keepExistingDownloads": true,
    "keepImmutableReleaseBytes": true,
    "legacyCharactersArray": "Retained as a compatibility collection of catalog entities; consumers should use entityKind for new integrations.",
    "legacyVisualStatus": "Eye-grammar compliance is a migration state, not permission to rewrite or silently reclassify a released entity."
  },
  "notDoing": [
    "Adding generic eyes and limbs to artifacts",
    "Deleting or rewriting immutable historical releases",
    "Retouching a published version in place to hide a noncompliant social eye",
    "Counting artifacts toward the living-character goal",
    "Making every family share the same paired-eye mochi body",
    "Publishing a new family before it passes the living-character rubric"
  ],
  "firstReviewCheckpoint": {
    "deliverable": "One lineup of ten living-character concepts",
    "passSignals": [
      "At least three members are plausible favorites without knowing their utility",
      "Every living character has at least one clearly social eye in the canonical lineup",
      "Every member suggests a specific idle and locomotion pattern",
      "Pairs of members imply relationships or story situations",
      "The family belongs beside Thought Observers and Field Fragments without repeating their bodies or eyes",
      "All ten pass the deterministic living-character rubric before public catalog inclusion"
    ]
  }
}