Safety Perimeter
Protocol-Driven Development
Defines machine-enforceable protocols that admit generated software and autonomous outputs only when they satisfy semantic and operational invariants.
Canonical acronymPost-deterministic.dev
PDDS
Post-Deterministic Distributed Systems
A distributed systems paradigm for reasoning about systems whose participants exhibit bounded, governable, or irreducible non-determinism.
What is PDDS?
A model for distributed systems after deterministic participants stop being the only case.
Classical distributed systems assumed deterministic participants and focused on networks, timing, and failures. That foundation remains essential, but it does not fully describe systems where participants interpret goals, synthesize plans, adapt workflows, or ask humans to approve consequential actions.
Post-Deterministic Distributed Systems (PDDS) extends the model to include non-deterministic participants such as AI agents, autonomous services, adaptive workflows, and human-in-the-loop components. PDDS treats deterministic services as the zero-ambiguity limit case inside a broader governable participant model.
Five pillars
Five Pillars of PDDS
The pillar names follow the terminology defined in the PDDS paper and manifesto.
Identity Boundary
Verifiable Agentic Infrastructure
Replaces static credentials with intent-based authorization, ephemeral delegation, and evidence-backed execution identity.
Orchestration Plane
Autonomous State Control Planes
Separates high-variance reasoning from direct state mutation while preserving intent across asynchronous execution.
Certification Core
Semantic Quorum Assurance
Certifies meaning, intent, policy, and evidence across diverse participants instead of relying only on bitwise agreement.
Persistence Layer
Epistemic State Replication
Replicates knowledge states and belief lineage while preserving cognitive diversity and enabling semantic rollback.
Citation
Cite the PDDS paper
The canonical research artifact is the arXiv paper, with the OpenKedge paper page serving as the HTML reading and sharing surface.
Canonical term
PDDS is the primary discoverable acronym.
Use Post-Deterministic Distributed Systems (PDDS) on first mention, then PDDS thereafter. This keeps citations, discussions, and technical references converged on one short term.
FAQ
PDDS FAQ
What is PDDS?
PDDS is a distributed systems paradigm for reasoning about systems whose participants exhibit bounded, governable, or irreducible non-determinism.
What does PDDS stand for?
PDDS stands for Post-Deterministic Distributed Systems.
How does PDDS differ from classical distributed systems?
Classical distributed systems primarily model deterministic participants under network, timing, and failure constraints. PDDS extends that model to include non-deterministic participants such as AI agents, autonomous services, adaptive workflows, and human-in-the-loop components.
PDDS is the commonly used acronym for Post-Deterministic Distributed Systems.