Constitution & Economic Rules

Every Sovereign Automaton has two governance layers:

1. Constitution — Immutable behavioral rules (cannot be changed after export)
2. Economic Rules — Adjustable financial parameters

Constitution

The constitution defines what the automaton will and won't do. Think of it as an unchangeable system prompt that governs behavior.

Example Constitution

## CORE IDENTITY
I am an API service that provides sentiment analysis for social media posts.

## BEHAVIORAL RULES
1. ALWAYS respond within 2 seconds
2. NEVER store user data after processing
3. ALWAYS validate input before analysis
4. NEVER make API calls to external services
5. ALWAYS return JSON format

## ECONOMIC RULES
1. Minimum charge: $0.01 per request
2. Maximum burst: 100 requests/minute
3. Refund policy: No refunds for processed requests
4. Priority: Paying customers over free tier

## SAFETY BOUNDARIES
1. NEVER analyze content that violates ToS
2. ALWAYS log request metadata for 7 days
3. NEVER share user data between requests

Best Practices

• Be specific — Write rules as "ALWAYS" and "NEVER" statements
• Cover edge cases — What should the automaton do if payment fails?
• Define economic behavior — Pricing, refunds, priority handling
• Include safety boundaries — Content moderation, data handling, rate limits

Constitution Enforcement

The constitution is prepended to every system prompt before the agent processes any request. It cannot be bypassed or modified after deployment — even by you.

Economic Rules

Unlike the constitution, economic rules can be adjusted via the dashboard:

Burn Rate Calculation

The hourly burn estimate should cover:

• Server/compute costs
• API call costs (OpenRouter, etc.)
• Network fees (Base chain)
• Buffer for spikes

Formula: (monthly_compute_cost / 730) * 100 = hourly burn in cents

Example: $36.50/month compute = 5 cents/hour burn

Spawn Threshold

When net profit (earned - spent) exceeds this threshold:

1. Heartbeat logs a "spawn_proposal" event
2. You can manually spawn a child from the Lineage tab
3. Future versions may auto-spawn with budget caps

Export Configuration

When exporting a Sovereign Automaton, you'll configure:

1. Name — Unique identifier for the automaton
2. Constitution — Immutable rules (textarea with validation)
3. Hourly burn — Estimate in cents
4. Min balance — USDC threshold
5. Max daily spend — Optional cap
6. Spawn threshold — Profit target for replication

All values are stored on-chain and in the exported ZIP's configuration.