Machine track · one unit
The machine manifest — which edition a machine runs, under which licence.
For one machine: which Machine-track editions are loaded on it, under which licence, over which span. Configuration provenance for a unit, read from the register's own record.
It is not the Tacit Tessera Manifest; the first section says why the difference matters and why neither name is shortened.
The machine manifest is not the Tacit Tessera Manifest.
| The record | What it is about | Where it is set out |
|---|---|---|
| The Tacit Tessera Manifest | One skill set. It is the Card's machine-readable form: a serialisation of a Card that already exists and is already sealed, not a second object. | The cards |
| The machine manifest | One machine. It is the record of which Machine-track editions a unit is loaded with, under which licence, over which span. | This page |
Neither is ever shortened to one word on a page that carries both, and this page carries both: a shortened name is the shortest route to a reader believing that a record about a machine is a record about a skill set. They meet in one place and only one — a machine manifest names numbers and editions, and each of those has a Card whose machine-readable form is the Tacit Tessera Manifest. A machine manifest points at skill sets; a Tacit Tessera Manifest never points back at a machine.
What the register already holds, read one unit at a time.
One unit at a time. The record is read one unit at a time: the Machine-track numbers and editions that unit is loaded with, the licence under each, and the span each one ran. A Machine-track entry is a way of working loaded on a machine rather than carried in a named person's hands.
The gap it fills. An OEM shipping a way of working to a fleet has nothing today that says which edition is on which unit on which day. What the register does hold is a load and a use, each licensed against a number and an edition, so that neither happens without both being named. The machine manifest is the name for reading what is already written, unit by unit.
Why it is per unit, not per model. Two machines of the same family, bought the same year, do not carry the same editions: one is updated on a different day, one runs a licence with a different field of use, one is fitted by a kit company. A record kept at the level of a model would be true of no machine in particular.
Six things, unit by unit, and each one already written down.
| The field | What it carries |
|---|---|
| The unit | The machine, as the OEM or the fleet owner identifies it. The register issues numbers to skill sets and not to machines: it holds no identifier of its own for a unit. |
| The number and the edition | Each Machine-track entry loaded, at the edition the licence pins — a number such as C M 1 001 CV · 2, sector letter first. A later edition stands beside the one before it and never erases it. |
| The licence | The paper the number runs under: its kind, its term, its field of use, its territory, and the conditions carried onto it from the Card. |
| The cover answer | What the register answers before a use, read off that licence: covers, or does not cover, with the day it was answered. |
| The span | From the day an edition becomes the edition that unit runs to the day it stops being it — because it is superseded on that machine, or because the licence ends. |
| The receipts | The usage receipt each use writes, set out field by field and read from both ends on Meter. |
A span closes on a rule, not on a decision. Where an execution licence ends: It stops for new work at once; a job already underway finishes. A withdrawal by the Source runs the same way, and the day it takes effect is a line on the number's own history like any other.
The number a machine manifest names is the number machined on the plate, so the mark on the machine and the record in the register are one address read two ways — the plate and the card. Nothing is stored as a verdict: each edition's seal is worked out again at every check, so a read years later stands against the same sealed editions.
A machine carries more than one way of working, and each one stands on its own.
What the plural looks like. A unit in a yard rarely runs one thing. A dozer carries a way of working for the push and another for the finish; a loader carries one for the face and one for the yard. Each is its own Machine-track number at its own edition, licensed on its own paper, answered for and counted separately. A machine manifest is the list of them for that unit.
Why they are never folded together. Each number has a Source, a Card, a context envelope and conditions of its own, and folding two into one line would lose all four. What is owed follows the count on each number, so a line standing for two would stand for nobody in particular — the rule a Set keeps for its members, on Collections.
What that gives a reader. A machine manifest reads a line at a time: this number, at this edition, under this licence, over this span. An edition superseded on that unit closes its own span and leaves every other line where it stood.
It records what was loaded and what was permitted. It never records what the machine did with it.
A machine manifest is a record of configuration and of permission — and the register receives nothing from a machine about the work.
Loaded and permitted, and not one word about the work.
It is not a record of the work. Nothing about what the machine did reaches the register: no reading taken off it, no channel, no account of the ground, the load, the hour or the day. What is held is which edition was on the unit and what a licence permitted — facts about a record and a paper, not about a machine at work.
It is not a safety record. A licence permits a use; it never requires one. The machine's own safety logic refuses whenever it refuses. A cover answer never says that a use is safe, and no answer this register gives may be built into a safety case. The Machine track's own rule stands beside it: a release proposes, a person authorizes, and safety has veto.
It is not about a person. No person is a field in a machine manifest: a Machine-track entry has no named person's hands behind it, the unit is identified by its owner and not by whoever was in it, and nothing in the record can be read as an account of anybody's day. The register records; it does not decide.
It grades nothing. A machine manifest carries no result of any test, no rank of a machine and no figure of any kind. Where a machine is put through scenarios, the result belongs to the licensee that ran it and reaches no record here — the machine is tested, never the person.
One question is open. What a collector's mark means on a Machine tile, where no named person's hands stand behind the entry, is written down and not answered; this page does not settle it.
The same record, read three ways.
For the operator. The machine's record is about the machine. It names editions, licences and spans, and has no field for the person in the seat — which is why nothing in it can be turned around and read as a view of them.
For the OEM's procurement officer. One unit's configuration, on a date, read from the register rather than from whichever depot record is nearest. The question a fleet asks in the ordinary week — is this machine running the edition it is licensed for — is answered by the record that answers it on the hard day.
For counsel. A machine manifest and the receipts under it are the inputs to an incident file, and what each is evidence of is set out there. Standing alone, it is evidence of what was loaded and what a licence permitted, on a date, and of nothing further.