Poesis
Open standard
The Generative System Model.
GSM is an open, vendor-neutral standard for defining and governing software-intensive systems — the THINK layer that the BUILD (pipelines) and RUN (observability) layers enforce and measure against.
Why it matters
The definition layer beneath the projects you already run.
GSM doesn't compete with cloud-native infrastructure — it gives it the shared, portable source of truth it never had. Two analogies say it best.
What OpenTelemetry is to RUN, GSM is to THINK.
OTel set one open, vendor-neutral standard for how systems are observed. GSM does the same for how they are defined and governed — so every obligation is portable across tools instead of trapped in proprietary silos. RUN measures reality; THINK defines intent; both reference the same object.
Kubernetes defines infrastructure to operate it. GSM defines the world to govern it.
Kubernetes proved infrastructure is best declared and driven to a desired state by control loops. GSM generalizes that exact pattern — schema-typed Archetypes, reconciling Mechanisms, an explicit governance grammar and lifecycle — lifted off containers and onto any governed subject. A CRD is an Archetype.
And it composes with the projects that enforce and observe it — GSM holds the definition; they realize it:
Policy & admission
Directives and Norms are the authoritative obligation; OPA / Gatekeeper and Kyverno compile from them as enforcement effectors.
Supply chain
Provenance and signing obligations bind to sigstore, SLSA, in-toto, and TUF as attestation evidence.
Zero-trust
Service couplings are modeled as Interactions, verified against SPIFFE / SPIRE identities and realized by Istio / Linkerd.
Evidence
Norms express SLOs; OpenTelemetry and Prometheus supply the descriptive evidence they are evaluated against.
Delivery
Rollout and GitOps guardrails are governed as definitions; Argo and Flux controllers realize them.
Regulation
GDPR, NIS2, and DORA source into Archetypes — one governed definition, many enforcement points.
What it specifies
A small fixed core, an open type system.
Eight primitives
Structure, Mechanism, Effector, Receptor, Interaction, Archetype, Directive, Norm — a small, fixed core that composes any system.
DNA governance grammar
Directives, Norms, and Ascriptions — a three-tempo grammar for how obligations bind to subjects.
Archetypes — the type system
Typed domain schemas that carry vocabulary, grammar, and semantics, so meaning travels with the type.
Lifecycle, conformance & portability
A normative Ascription lifecycle, defined conformance, sandboxed expression profiles, and a canonical JSON interchange.
Core
Eight primitives.
GSM expresses any system with eight primitives — Structure, Mechanism, Effector, Receptor, Interaction, Archetype, Directive, and Norm. The core is deliberately small and fixed: small enough to stay coherent, universal enough to describe any software-intensive system. Primitives carry no free-form prose; meaning is inferred from typed relations and Archetype schemas, which is what keeps the model machine-checkable.
Governance grammar
The DNA governance grammar.
Governance is expressed in three tempos — Directives (intent), Norms (machine-evaluable assertions), and Ascriptions (typed instances bound to subjects). DNA is how an obligation becomes something a machine can scope, version, and enforce — not prose to reinterpret on every call.
Type system
Archetypes — the open type system.
Archetypes are typed schemas (JSON Schema 2020-12) that fix vocabulary, grammar, and semantics for a domain — so meaning travels with the type rather than living in someone's head. The core is fixed; the type system is open, which is how frameworks and domains extend GSM without forking it.
Interoperability
Lifecycle, conformance & portability.
A normative Ascription lifecycle (DRAFT → PROPOSED → APPROVED → ACTIVE → DEPRECATED) makes governed change auditable. Conformance is defined for documents, producers, consumers, and processors; two sandboxed expression profiles and a canonical JSON interchange make governed definitions portable across conforming tools.
Stewardship
Built for vendor-neutral governance.
GSM is published as an open standard and is being prepared for neutral, multi-stakeholder stewardship (a CNCF-style path). Conformance is defined so independent implementations interoperate — the reference implementation holds no privileged status in the specification.
Status: open specification, pre-1.0. No third-party endorsement is implied.
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