Trust-State Standard™ v2.5.1
Deterministic Admissibility, Execution Governance, and Verifiable Trust-State®
Status: Published Standard
Document ID: TSS-2026-v2.5.1
Publication Date: August 21, 2026
Published by: VTI Foundation, Inc.
The Trust-State Standard defines deterministic requirements governing the conditions under which consequence-bearing digital actions become admissible, executable, and independently verifiable.
The Standard establishes requirements for Authority-State, evidence sufficiency, Rule-State identity, contextual evaluation, admissibility determination, execution eligibility, pre-execution enforcement, continuity, revocation, canonical representation, independent recomputation, and replay.
Layer 0 — Consequence
The Trust-State Standard recognizes consequence as the foundational condition giving rise to governance requirements.
Layer 0 is Consequence.
Governance does not create consequence. Governance determines the conditions under which consequence-bearing actions, execution pathways, or state transitions may be permitted to occur.
Identity, access, capability, authority, evidence, Rule-State, admissibility, and execution eligibility therefore operate above Layer 0 as governance conditions applied to consequence-bearing activity.
Canonical Scope
The Trust-State Standard governs the deterministic conditions under which consequence-bearing digital action becomes admissible, executable, and independently verifiable.
The Standard is technology-neutral and jurisdiction-neutral.
It does not prescribe substantive policy, determine whether a consequence is desirable, or independently establish legal or regulatory compliance.
Instead, it governs the deterministic application and verification of declared governing conditions at the execution boundary.
Governance Architecture
Authority-State
Represents whether an actor, system, agent, or other subject possesses sufficient authority for the proposed action within applicable scope, constraints, lineage, time, and revocation state.
Evidence
Establishes the governed facts, artifacts, credentials, attestations, measurements, or other verifiable inputs relied upon in determining admissibility.
Rule-State
Identifies the versioned rules, policies, constraints, precedence, and evaluation conditions governing a determination.
Admissibility
Determines whether the governing conditions applicable to a specific consequence-bearing action are satisfied.
Execution Eligibility
Determines whether an admissible action may cross the execution boundary under the governing conditions applicable at that time.
Continuity
Governs whether prior Trust-State and execution eligibility remain valid following material change, expiration, revocation, or dependency change.
Recomputation and Replay
Enable an independent evaluator to reconstruct governed state and determine whether an equivalent result follows from equivalent governing conditions.
Conformance Profiles
Profile I — Deterministic Admissibility
Determines whether a proposed consequence-bearing action satisfies applicable governing conditions.
Profile II — Deterministic Enforcement
Determines admissibility and prevents non-eligible actions from crossing the execution boundary.
Profile III — Deterministic Continuity and Recomputation
Determines admissibility, enforces execution, governs continued validity across material change, and supports independent recomputation and replay.
Conformance is not a maturity score. It is a declaration of demonstrated capability within a defined boundary.
Profile I determines.
Profile II determines and enforces.
Profile III determines, enforces, maintains, and reproduces.
Deterministic Verification
Trust-State governance depends upon reproducibility rather than reliance upon the original evaluator's assertion.
Where required by the applicable Conformance Profile, governed inputs, states, determinations, and applicable evaluation procedures must remain sufficiently identifiable to support independent verification, recomputation, or replay.
Canonical representation and integrity mechanisms are version-identifiable and governed by the applicable normative specification.
The Standard does not require a particular programming language, database, policy engine, identity protocol, cryptographic implementation, AI model, distributed ledger, or execution environment.
Governance and Stewardship
The Trust-State Standard is stewarded and published by VTI Foundation, Inc.
Published releases are version-identifiable and retained as independent publication artifacts.
Supersession does not modify or replace the historical integrity of a prior release.
Conformance and certification remain distinct. Conformance establishes demonstrated satisfaction of applicable normative requirements. Certification is a formal third-party determination regarding that conformity.
Citation
VTI Foundation, Inc.
Trust-State Standard™ v2.5.1 — Deterministic Admissibility,
Execution Governance, and Verifiable Trust-State.
August 21, 2026.
Document ID: TSS-2026-v2.5.1.
Available at: https://truststatestandard.org/releases/
Conformance claims should identify the specific Standard release, applicable Conformance Profile, and declared conformance boundary.