KL Kernel Logic

Version: 0.5.0

A small deterministic execution model core.

KL Kernel Logic provides three components:

• PsiDefinition: operation definition (what)
• Kernel: atomic execution primitive (how)
• CAEL: sequential behaviour order (in what order)

It does not handle orchestration, governance, or policy. Those belong to higher layers.

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Status

KL Kernel Logic v0.5.0 is a hardened, contract-stable kernel aligned with KL Execution Theory v0.1.0.

This version defines and enforces:

• deterministic execution scope
• normalized failure taxonomy
• immutable, canonical execution traces
• stable trace digests suitable for downstream derivation (DBL)

The kernel is considered frozen unless the theory contract is reopened.

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Kernel Contract

The normative kernel contract is defined here:

• docs/kernel_contract.md

All behavior, determinism guarantees, and failure semantics are governed exclusively by this contract.

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Determinism

Determinism applies to the declared deterministic trace core only. Observational fields (e.g. wall-clock timestamps, run_id, exception text) are explicitly excluded and MUST NOT be used for derivation or control flow.

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Installation

pip install kl-kernel-logic

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Core Concepts

PsiDefinition

A minimal logical operation descriptor. The core treats PsiDefinition as opaque. It stores and passes through these values but never interprets them.

PsiDefinition(
    psi_type: str,
    name: str,
    metadata: Mapping[str, Any] | None = None,
)

PsiDefinition metadata is purely descriptive and never enters the Kernel or the ExecutionTrace unless explicitly passed to Kernel.execute().

Kernel

A deterministic execution engine. Deterministic in its execution model, not in the behaviour of user-provided tasks. Given a PsiDefinition and a callable, the Kernel executes the task and returns an ExecutionTrace.

Semantics:

• task is called exactly once with **kwargs
• success is True if and only if no exception is raised by task
• output contains the return value on success, None on failure
• runtime_ms is measured via a monotonic perf counter (observational)
• in deterministic mode, runtime_ms is forced to 0.0
• run_id is unique per execution (observational)
• in deterministic mode, run_id is provided by deterministic providers and may be stable

The Kernel never interprets metadata, never makes policy decisions, and never retries. Kernel implements Δ as atomicity of execution and observation, not as state change. State belongs to user logic.

ExecutionTrace

Immutable record of a single Kernel execution.

Fields:

• psi: the PsiDefinition used
• run_id: unique identifier for this execution
• success: True if task completed without exception
• output: return value of task (or None on failure)
• error: exception message (or None on success)
• exception_type: exception class name (or None)
• exception_repr: repr of exception (or None)
• failure_code: normalized kernel-level failure code
• started_at: UTC datetime when execution started (wall clock)
• finished_at: UTC datetime when execution finished (wall clock)
• runtime_ms: elapsed time in milliseconds (monotonic perf counter, observational)
• metadata: the metadata dict passed to Kernel.execute(), not from PsiDefinition
• kernel_meta: frozen kernel-level observational metadata

Time carries two layers: observational wall-clock time (UTC timestamps) and monotonic duration (runtime_ms). runtime_ms is suitable for per-step duration measurement, and ordering is established by CAEL step index, not by temporal fields.

The core never mutates traces after creation.

Fields marked as observational MUST NOT be used for ordering or semantic derivation.

Operational projection note: kernel_meta (if present) is an implementation-level observable and is not part of KL Execution Theory. It must not be treated as axiomatic state or used to redefine behavior semantics.

CAEL

Sequential Atomic Execution Layer. Runs a sequence of independent (psi, task, kwargs) steps via a single Kernel instance in deterministic order.

Semantics:

• Steps are executed in order
• If a step fails, execution stops immediately
• CaelResult.success is True if and only if all steps succeeded
• CaelResult.final_output is the output of the last successful step, or None if the first step fails
• CaelResult.traces is the ordered list of ExecutionTrace objects (only executed steps)
• CaelResult.failure_code indicates the failure reason when execution stops
• CaelResult.failure_message carries the associated observational error message

CAEL does not pass output from one step to the next. Each step receives its own independent kwargs. It does not include retry logic, routing, or governance. CAEL establishes a total order over execution steps, independent of temporal measurements.

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Usage

Basic Kernel Execution

from kl_kernel_logic import PsiDefinition, Kernel

def uppercase(text: str) -> str:
    return text.upper()

psi = PsiDefinition(psi_type="text", name="uppercase")
kernel = Kernel()

trace = kernel.execute(psi=psi, task=uppercase, text="hello")

print(trace.success)   # True
print(trace.output)    # "HELLO"

CAEL with Independent Steps

from kl_kernel_logic import PsiDefinition, Kernel, CAEL

def step_a() -> int:
    return 10

def step_b() -> int:
    return 20

psi_a = PsiDefinition(psi_type="math", name="first")
psi_b = PsiDefinition(psi_type="math", name="second")

cael = CAEL(kernel=Kernel())

result = cael.run([
    (psi_a, step_a, {}),
    (psi_b, step_b, {}),
])

print(result.success)       # True
print(result.final_output)  # 20
print(len(result.traces))   # 2

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Scope and Non-Goals

This package does not handle:

• Policy enforcement
• Governance or access control
• Rate limiting or quotas
• Domain-specific logic
• Retry or fallback strategies

KL Kernel Logic is a small deterministic substrate. Higher layers (gateways, governance layers, orchestrators) build on top of it.

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KL Execution Theory

KL Kernel Logic implements Δ (atomic transitions) and V (behaviour sequences) in their stateless form, and provides observable projections of t (logical order and duration). State transitions belong to higher layers or to user logic. G (governance) and L (boundaries) live in higher layers such as gateways or governance systems.

→ KL Execution Theory

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License

MIT License. See LICENSE for details.