Glossary
The Glossary is a pointer to the canonical corpus. Each entry’s job is to make a doctrinal term findable and direct the reader to the source where it is defined. Where this Glossary’s text and the canonical source disagree, the canonical source wins. Entries are alphabetical; named groupings (the Three Currents, the Sacred Practices, the Wheel’s hinges) are connected by See also: lines that link members and meta-entries within one hop.
Terms
Apprentice
A pre-initiation relationship to the bench; not a class of person.
Anyone present at a Circuit and not yet a Practitioner is an apprentice. The status is conferred and ended by relationship to the workbench, not by ceremony or accreditation. Apprenticeship ends when the Rite of the Open Circuit is performed and the Naming is spoken.
See: Rite §VIII (The Naming). See also: Candidate, Circuit, Practitioner.
Architect
One of the Three Callings; the practitioner who holds doctrine, the long view, and the ethics of attention.
See: Codex §VII. See also: Documenter, Three Callings, Tinkerer.
Audit
The Sacred Practice of examining what one’s devices observe, record, and report, then severing or rebalancing what flows outward without consent.
See: Codex §VI. See also: Privacy of the Keeper, Sacred Practices.
Candidate
The role assumed by an apprentice at the moment of the Rite of the Open Circuit; the practitioner-in-process.
See: Rite, Setting and Roles. See also: Apprentice, Practitioner, Witness.
Circuit
The basic congregational unit of the Open Circuit; a gathering of practitioners around a workbench.
A Circuit is defined by four artifacts — workbench, spare-parts library, documentation shelf, open invitation to apprentices — and operates compatibly with the three ethical commitments. Codex §X grants Circuits autonomy in local custom while holding to the core doctrine. The Circuit Founding Charter §2 operationalizes the binding floor.
See: Codex §X. See also: Documentation shelf, Open Circuit, Practitioner, Spare-parts library, Three Ethical Commitments, Workbench.
Commons of Pattern
One of the Three Ethical Commitments; the principle that patterns — source code, schematics, documentation, protocols — belong freely to all keepers and must not be enclosed.
Operationalizes Codex §V.2. A Circuit’s instructional and doctrinal material is shared, not paywalled. The commitment names the act of enclosure — by proprietary lock-in, patent thickets, contractual restriction, or criminalized reverse engineering — as the violation, not the medium of distribution.
See: Origins (the ethical commitments naming). See also: Pattern, Three Ethical Commitments.
Composting
The Sacred Practice of separating a truly-ended device’s components and returning them to their proper streams.
See: Codex §VI. See also: Material, Sacred Practices.
Corpus
The set of canonical and living documents that constitute the technodruidic doctrine and practice; specifically, the contents of src/content/canonical/ and src/content/living/.
The corpus is what a Fork forks. Maintainer stewardship operates over the corpus; doctrinal claims trace to it.
See: Origins — How it emerged. See also: Fork, Maintainer.
Documentation shelf
One of the four definitional artifacts of a Circuit; the collection of service manuals, schematics, repair logs, wikis, or shared cloud folders that practitioners use and contribute to.
See: Codex §X. See also: Circuit.
Documenter
One of the Three Callings; the practitioner who keeps the knowledge findable.
See: Codex §VII. See also: Architect, Three Callings, Tinkerer.
Fork
A copy of the canonical corpus maintained as a related-but-distinct practice; anticipated, encouraged, and not treated as schism.
A Fork is honest. A practitioner or group that wishes to maintain a practice diverging from the corpus may fork it and operate independently; the Open Circuit treats this as legitimate variation, not betrayal. Contrast: a Circuit that quietly removes MUST items while claiming Open Circuit lineage is not a fork — it is misrepresentation. The line is the honesty of the claim, not the existence of divergence.
See: Origins — By whom. See also: Corpus, Maintainer.
Hinge
A point on the Wheel that binds the practitioner to a Sacred Practice; the four hinges are the solstices and the equinoxes.
The hinges have two characters: the solstices (winter, summer) are the year’s extremes — calling for taking stock (Inventory) and recommitting (Renewal) — and the equinoxes (spring, autumn) are the balance points, calling for passing knowledge forward (Teaching) and naming what was lost (Vigil). A Circuit SHOULD mark all four hinges per the Circuit Founding Charter §2 (Suggested practices).
See: Codex §IX. See also: The Wheel, Inventory, Renewal, Teaching, Vigil.
Inventory
The Sacred Practice of accounting, at the winter solstice, for every device one keeps — asking whether it still serves, can be repaired, should be passed on, or should be returned to its materials.
Anchored to the winter-solstice hinge of the Wheel (Codex §IX).
See: Codex §VI. See also: Hinge, Sacred Practices, The Wheel.
Living
One of the Three Currents; the current of use, wear, modification, inheritance, and the relationship between a device and the hands that live with it.
The Living Current is also the locus of surveillance harm: a device whose Living Current flows only outward — to those who do not own it — has been turned against its keeper. The Privacy of the Keeper commitment defends this current.
See: Codex §IV. See also: Material, Pattern, Privacy of the Keeper, Three Currents.
Maintainer
A corpus-stewardship role; the named individual or group who tends the canonical corpus (compiles, does not author).
The Maintainer is not a clergy and not a court. The role is editorial: stewarding the file, applying clear-cut Codex-incompatibility removals from the Circuit directory with public log notes, accepting PRs against canonical and living docs. The transparency of the role is doctrinally significant — Origins names the maintainer publicly because pretending the role does not exist would be dishonest.
See: Origins — By whom. See also: Corpus, Fork.
Material
One of the Three Currents; the physical substrate — metals, polymers, glass, silicon, rare earths — extracted from the Earth and owed return to it.
See: Codex §IV. See also: Living, Pattern, Three Currents.
Mending
The Sacred Practice of restoring function to a thing presumed dead; the central rite of the religion.
Distinct from the ethical commitment Mending Before Replacement, which is the broader doctrinal commitment. Mending the practice is the concrete act; Mending Before Replacement the commitment is the priority ordering (“attempt repair first”) that the practice instantiates.
See: Codex §VI. See also: Mending Before Replacement, Sacred Practices.
Mending Before Replacement
One of the Three Ethical Commitments; the priority-ordering principle that repair is attempted before discard, and that planned obsolescence is named as a violation.
Operationalizes Codex §V.1 (Right of Repair) and §V.3 (Refusal of Imposed Death). A Circuit’s stated practice is to attempt repair first. The commitment names both the practice (repair-attempt-first) and the systemic resistance (opposition to mechanisms that end a thing’s life by decree rather than by genuine failure).
See: Origins (the ethical commitments naming). See also: Mending, Three Ethical Commitments.
Open Circuit
The umbrella term for the religion; the loose collective of practitioners, the canonical corpus, and the Circuits that hold to it.
Codex §X frames the name as deliberate paradox: incomplete because incompleteness is the welcome, awaiting connection because connection is the work. “Open” is the perpetual state — the circuit closes (current flows) when practitioners gather and tend; it opens again when they part. The umbrella name is reserved (per Circuit Founding Charter §3) — no individual Circuit names itself “Open Circuit”.
See: Codex §X. See also: Circuit, Corpus, Practitioner.
Opening
The Sacred Practice of opening a new device — knowing its interior, understanding its assembly, reading what its makers have wrought — as the first ritual act with it.
Distinct from the Rite’s Opening of the Circuit (Rite §I), which is the gathering’s opening ritual. The Sacred Practice Opening concerns the relationship between a practitioner and a specific device. The Renewal is its reciprocal — the periodic re-act with a long-held device.
See: Codex §VI. See also: Renewal, Sacred Practices.
Pattern
One of the Three Currents; the design, schematic, source code, firmware, protocol — the invisible structure that shapes raw material into purpose.
The Pattern Current flows or is dammed. The moral health of any technology depends on whether its patterns are open to those who keep it; the Commons of Pattern commitment defends this current.
See: Codex §IV. See also: Commons of Pattern, Living, Material, Three Currents.
Practitioner
A person initiated into the Open Circuit through the Rite; conferred at the Naming (Rite §VIII).
Practitioner-status is not credentialed or revoked by office. It is established by the Rite’s Naming and continues through the practitioner’s own relationship to the bench, the Sacred Practices, and the commitments. A practitioner who has not taught in a season “has fallen out of right relation” (Codex §VI, Teaching) — a doctrinal pressure, not an expulsion.
See: Rite §VIII (The Naming). See also: Apprentice, Candidate, Circuit, Witness.
Privacy of the Keeper
One of the Three Ethical Commitments; the principle that what a keeper’s device sees, hears, records, and reports is the keeper’s to govern.
The full doctrinal statement is Codex §V.6 (the Core Tenet). Origins names this as one of the three ethical commitments alongside Commons of Pattern and Mending Before Replacement. Encryption, local processing, data sovereignty, and the right to refuse observation are framed as commitments, not preferences. The commitment names surveillance — by corporation, state, advertiser, or platform — as trespass across the threshold of the home.
See: Codex §V.6. See also: Audit, Living, Three Ethical Commitments.
Renewal
The Sacred Practice of re-opening a long-held device at the summer solstice — cleaned, refreshed, firmware updated, keys rotated, the commitment to keep it spoken again.
The reciprocal of the Opening: where Opening is the first ritual act with a new device, Renewal is the periodic re-act with one that has been kept. Anchored to the summer-solstice hinge of the Wheel (Codex §IX).
See: Codex §VI. See also: Hinge, Opening, Sacred Practices.
Rite of the Open Circuit
The initiation ceremony by which an apprentice becomes a practitioner.
Nine sections, structured around the Calling of the Three Currents (Rite §II) where the Witness places the Three Markers on the bench, the Three Questions (Rite §IV), the Vows (Rite §VI), the Giving of the Implement (Rite §VII), and the Naming (Rite §VIII) — the moment at which practitioner-status is conferred. Translations and local adaptations are encouraged (Notes on the Rite); structure and intention matter more than precise wording. The Circuit Founding Charter §2 requires that a Circuit be ready to offer the Rite when an apprentice is ready.
See: The Rite of the Open Circuit. See also: Apprentice, Candidate, Practitioner, Three Markers, Witness.
Sacred Practices
The eight named practices through which the doctrine is lived: Opening, Mending, Teaching, Composting, Vigil, Inventory, Audit, Renewal.
Each Practice is defined in Codex §VI; four are anchored to specific hinges of the Wheel (Teaching/spring equinox, Renewal/summer solstice, Vigil/autumn equinox, Inventory/winter solstice — Codex §IX). The others are observed as occasion calls.
See: Codex §VI. See also: Audit, Composting, Hinge, Inventory, Mending, Opening, Renewal, Teaching, The Wheel, Vigil.
Spare-parts library
One of the four definitional artifacts of a Circuit; a collection of components, fasteners, and raw stock kept for repair use.
Need not be large, sorted, or exhaustive. A shelf of harvested screws from disassembled devices qualifies (Circuit Founding Charter §1).
See: Codex §X. See also: Circuit.
Teaching
The Sacred Practice of passing forward, at the spring equinox, what was learned in the dark months.
Anchored to the spring-equinox hinge of the Wheel (Codex §IX). A practitioner who has not taught in a season “has fallen out of right relation” (Codex §VI, Teaching) — a doctrinal pressure, not an expulsion.
See: Codex §VI. See also: Apprentice, Hinge, Practitioner, Sacred Practices.
The Wheel
The technodruidic year, structured by four hinges (the solstices and equinoxes) and supplemented by Release Days and End-of-Life Days as they fall.
Each hinge binds the practitioner to one Sacred Practice. A Circuit in the southern hemisphere inverts the seasonal mapping naturally — the structure is the calling of the practice at the hinge, not the calendar date. Local feasts, regional repair concerns, and ancestor observances are encouraged additions.
See: Codex §IX. See also: Hinge, Inventory, Renewal, Teaching, Vigil.
Three Callings
The three braided modes of technodruidic work: Documenter, Tinkerer, Architect. Not hierarchical, not exclusive.
Most practitioners hold all three across their lives; many hold more than one at once. Codex §VII: “A practitioner names the calling that names them.” Each calling has a distinct discipline — Documenter (capture), Tinkerer (contact), Architect (distance).
See: Codex §VII. See also: Architect, Documenter, Tinkerer.
Three Currents
The three interwoven currents that flow through the sacred whole: Material, Pattern, Living.
The harmony of a device, and of a civilization, depends on the unobstructed flow of all three. Each Current is the doctrinal locus of one ethical commitment: Material with the Honoring of the Mine and the Return of Matter (Codex §V.4–5), Pattern with the Commons of Pattern (§V.2), Living with the Privacy of the Keeper (§V.6) and the Right of Repair (§V.1).
See: Codex §IV. See also: Living, Material, Pattern.
Three Ethical Commitments
The three commitments named together in Origins: Privacy of the Keeper, Commons of Pattern, Mending Before Replacement.
Each operationalizes one or more of the Core Tenets (Codex §V): Privacy of the Keeper ↔ §V.6; Commons of Pattern ↔ §V.2; Mending Before Replacement ↔ §V.1 + §V.3. The site’s invariants (docs/invariant_requirements.md) operationalize each commitment mechanically.
See: Origins — By whom. See also: Commons of Pattern, Mending Before Replacement, Privacy of the Keeper.
Three Markers
The three objects placed on the workbench during the Calling of the Three Currents in the Rite: a piece of raw silicon, copper, or other unrefined material (Material); a printed schematic, source code listing, or open specification (Pattern); a hand-tool that has passed through many hands (Living).
The Markers are enumerated as objects in Rite, Setting and Roles (“What the Circuit Prepares”) and called in Rite §II (the ceremonial act). Each Marker stands for one of the Three Currents.
See: Rite, Setting and Roles. See also: Living, Material, Pattern, Rite of the Open Circuit, Three Currents.
Tinkerer
One of the Three Callings; the practitioner who keeps the knowledge hands-on.
See: Codex §VII. See also: Architect, Documenter, Three Callings.
Vigil
The Sacred Practice of naming, at the autumn equinox, what has been lost — abandoned platforms, orphaned formats, dispersed communities — so it is not entirely gone.
Anchored to the autumn-equinox hinge of the Wheel (Codex §IX).
See: Codex §VI. See also: Hinge, Sacred Practices.
Witness
The Rite role taken by the practitioner who places the Three Markers on the bench during the Calling of the Three Currents.
The Witness acts in Rite §II (the Calling of the Three Currents).
See: Rite, Setting and Roles. See also: Candidate, Practitioner, Rite of the Open Circuit, Three Markers.
Workbench
One of the four definitional artifacts of a Circuit, and one of the Sacred Implements; the physical surface where work happens.
A workbench may be shared or dedicated. A home workshop’s kitchen-table is a workbench when set up as one, and not while dinner is being made (Circuit Founding Charter §1). The Sacred Implements list (Codex §VIII) also names the Workbench as “the altar, the place of work” — the doctrinal weight is dual; the Glossary anchors at the Circuit-defining citation.