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

# Protocols

> Projections that sense one thing inside a World.

A Protocol is a projection onto the SGM's measurement space. It picks one thing to sense inside a World: a construct, a competence, a compliance criterion, an intent alignment: and returns a reading, per-nuance activations, evidence segments, and a fidelity index.

Protocols are versioned, immutable once published, and modality-agnostic. The same Protocol that reads a spoken advisory call reads a written case note.

## Creation modes

| Mode            | How                                                                 |
| --------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Descriptive** | Title and nuance descriptions in plain language. Zero-shot via Eva. |
| **Exemplar**    | Example segments per nuance.                                        |
| **Emergent**    | A corpus. Natural variation axes are discovered from it.            |
| **Contrastive** | Better vs. worse pairs.                                             |
| **Simulated**   | A Stage generates a corpus; a Protocol is discovered from it.       |

Modes compose. Start descriptive; add exemplars as real data accumulates.

## Guarantees

Every published Protocol is:

* **Deterministic**: same input, same output, always
* **Zero-shot**: no domain retraining
* **Glass-box**: every score traces to source evidence
* **Real-time capable**: sub-second on streaming content
* **Modality-agnostic**: text, audio, video, world
* **Language-agnostic**: cross-lingual by construction

## Nuances

A nuance is one detection axis within a Protocol. Each nuance has a label, a description, an importance weight, and a C×B×I dimension tag (Cognitive, Behavioural, Intentional).

The number of nuances determines the maximum ICS consumed per interaction: one ICS per unique nuance activated.

## Control depth

IBE exposes two levels of control on the same Protocol:

* **Basic**: labels, descriptions, importance weights. Guided by Eva.
* **Composition**: fidelity threshold, sensitivity, C×B×I balance.