\section{The Continuity Problem}
\label{sec:problem}

\subsection{An operational shared world}

We use \emph{shared work world} in a deliberately operational sense. It is the
recoverable set of facts, claims, artifacts, actions, responsibilities,
constraints, and open questions through which participants identify and
continue the same work. It is not a metaphysical claim that a system captures
all of reality. A shared work world is sufficient when relevant participants
can locate its authority boundaries, inspect what is known and unknown, and
connect later action to earlier consequence.

This world is distributed. Material state may live in repositories and
artifacts; causal state in runtime records and receipts; epistemic state in
claims, evidence, and gaps; responsibility state in permissions and
commitments. No participant directly observes the whole. Distributed
cognition has long treated thinking as organized across people, artifacts,
and environments rather than contained in one head
\cite{hutchins1995cognition}. Agents increase both the reach of that system
and the cost of leaving its coordination implicit.

The persistence requirement can be stated as follows. Given participants
$p_i$ and $p_j$ separated by time, tool, organization, or perspective, $p_j$
should be able to continue the work without requiring the private memory of
$p_i$ and without silently inventing a new authoritative world. Perfect
reconstruction is not required. Missing evidence, ambiguity, and disagreement
may remain, but they must remain visible as such.

\subsection{Three transformations}

Persistent cooperation repeatedly performs three transformations:

\begin{enumerate}[leftmargin=*]
  \item occurrences, observations, and state become retained facts;
  \item retained facts become warranted reliance on a bounded claim; and
  \item warranted reliance and visible value become coordinated action.
\end{enumerate}

Each transformation can fail independently. Records can change meaning while
keeping the same name. Evidence can exist without establishing the claim for
which it is cited. A correct claim can be used to obtain compliance through a
hidden constraint rather than cooperation. Treating the three transformations
as one generic notion of ``trustworthiness'' conceals these different failure
modes.

The transformations are also lossy. A fact cut selects from reality. A trust
assessment selects facts relevant to a purpose. A cooperation decision
selects one action from available choices. A durable system does not eliminate
that loss; it declares the cut, purpose, residual uncertainty, choice, and
responsibility through which the loss occurred.

\subsection{A running case: work after the session}

Consider a task performed through an agent session. The agent edits source,
runs checks, encounters one unresolved failure, and then the session ends.
Three weak continuations are common:

\begin{itemize}[leftmargin=*]
  \item the transcript is treated as the work, although authoritative files
        and external state may differ from its narrative;
  \item a summary says the task is complete, but does not expose the evidence
        cut, failed check, or residual responsibility; or
  \item a new agent is instructed to continue, but cannot inspect why the next
        action is valuable or which constraints govern it.
\end{itemize}

The resulting failure is not merely lost context. The shared world has become
dependent on private reconstruction. Kungfu's product thesis that the session
is not the work is one practical response to this continuity problem
\cite{kungfuWhitePaper2026}. The KFD question is more basic: what must remain
true for any response to work?

\subsection{Why a value list is insufficient}

Truthfulness, trust, and collaboration are widely desirable. Their desirability
does not establish architectural necessity. A foundation claim requires
counterfactual force: remove one role and identify a capability the remaining
system can no longer provide; reverse their dependency and identify the
unstable substitute that appears. The next sections therefore treat the triad
as a candidate minimal kernel and subject it to those tests.
