13 — Memory, Knowledge, Evidence and Privacy
Canonical reference: 00-SPINEWORKSPACE-INTEGRATEWISE-CANON.md §4, §17
Status: Canonical
1. The Business Context Spine IS the memory
Business Context is not a memory type alongside others. It IS the organization's memory. The Business Context Spine is the ONE thing that holds what the system knows, what is true enough to operate on, what is happening, what was decided, and what happened next.
Personal Contextual Memory and AI Continuity Memory are NOT equal peers to Business Context. They are working continuities that serve it:
| Scope | What it is | Relationship to Business Context |
|---|---|---|
| Business Context (Spine) | THE organization's memory — objectives, KPIs, goals, decisions, evidence, lifecycle, outcomes | THE thing. Without it, nothing else works. |
| Personal Contextual Memory | Human's personal working notes, drafts, reminders, priorities | Working continuity that SERVES Business Context. Private by default. Never becomes Business Context unless deliberately promoted. |
| AI Continuity Memory | Twin/agent working state, plans, hypotheses, session continuity | Working continuity that SERVES Business Context. Not organizational truth. Never becomes Business Context unless promoted through governance. |
Without Business Context, there is no SpineWorkspace. The other two are just working states that help humans and AI operate on the business context. They are not organizational memory. They are not the Spine.
2. Business Context includes everything the organization knows
Mission · Objectives · Goals · KPIs · Initiatives
Organizations · Teams · People · Roles · Responsibilities
Customers · Accounts · Partners · Vendors · Products · Projects
Work · Tasks · Commitments · Lifecycle States · Dependencies
Relationships between entities and work
Events · Changes · Signals · Temporal History
Decisions · Rationale · Approvals · Authority Lineage
Evidence · Provenance · Source References
Policies · Capabilities · Execution Eligibility
Expected Outcomes · Actual Outcomes · Verification State
Durable organizational memory and lessons
3. Constitutional rule
User thought ≠ AI inference ≠ Organizational truth
4. Business Context becomes organizational knowledge only through governance
Source Data → Context → Work → Decision → Action → Outcome
→ Re-ingestion → Verification → Reconciliation → Governance
→ Business Context Update → Organizational Knowledge
Memory is not merely imported data. It is validated, contextualized and governed organizational knowledge that improves future work — and it lives in the Business Context Spine.
5. Evidence
Evidence includes source artifacts, citations, attachments, provenance references, execution receipts and verification records. Evidence must remain traceable without overexposing private content in projections. Evidence supports Business Context — it is not separate from it.