A Formal Index of Transaction Protocol Standards

1. Introduction

A transaction, for the purposes of this series, is any atomic exchange of value, intent, or state between two or more parties governed by a deterministic protocol. The Transactology working community publishes open standards that describe the wire formats, semantics, and operational expectations of such protocols.

The remainder of this document is organized as follows. Section 2 establishes terminology. Section 3 presents the Standards Index. Section 4 defines the Specification Format used across the series. Section 5 describes lifecycle semantics. Sections 6–8 cover working groups, process, and the identifier registry.

2. Terminology

The key words MUST, SHOULD, MAY, and NOT RECOMMENDED in this document are to be interpreted as described in conventional standards terminology. The following definitions apply across the series.

Counterparty

An identifiable participant in a transaction with the authority to commit or reject state.

Ledger

An ordered, append‑only record of committed transactions accessible to authorized counterparties.

Envelope

The outermost protocol container carrying a payload, signatures, and routing metadata.

Finality

The condition under which a committed transaction is no longer subject to revocation.

3. Standards Index

The following table lists every standard currently tracked by the Transactology series, with its canonical identifier, short title, current lifecycle status, and the working group of record. Identifiers follow the form TXO‑NNN.

4. Specification Format

Each standard in the Standards Index is published as a self‑contained document conforming to the structure given in Table 4.1. The fields below are normative; additional informative fields MAY be supplied by a working group.

A canonical example of a specification header in machine‑readable form is shown below.

{
  "id":           "TXO-006",
  "title":        "Reversal and Compensation Semantics",
  "status":       "active",
  "edition":      "2026-02",
  "workingGroup": "WG-SEMANTICS",
  "references":   ["TXO-001", "TXO-003"]
}

5. Lifecycle & Status

Every Transactology standard occupies exactly one of three lifecycle states. Transitions between states are governed by the process described in §7 and recorded in the registry.

1. Draft

   An evolving specification under review by its working group. Implementations MAY exist for experimentation; they MUST NOT be relied upon for interoperability.

2. Active

   A ratified specification recommended for production use. Active documents are stable; only editorial errata are accepted without entering the revision process.

3. Deprecated

   A superseded specification retained for historical reference. New deployments MUST NOT adopt deprecated documents; existing deployments SHOULD migrate to the indicated successor.

6. Working Groups

The following working groups are recognized at the time of publication. Each group is responsible for the standards listed in column three of Table 3.1.

• WG‑CORE — envelope, routing, and cross‑domain transport.
• WG‑ID — counterparty identification and key material.
• WG‑SETTLE — multi‑party settlement and atomicity.
• WG‑LEDGER — ledger profiles and anchoring.
• WG‑SEC — cryptographic profiles and threat models.
• WG‑SEMANTICS — reversal, compensation, and intent semantics.
• WG‑FINAL — finality witnessing and federated quorum.
• WG‑AUDIT — audit trail serialization and inspection.

7. Process

The Transactology process follows a five‑step path from proposal to ratification. Each step is recorded against the candidate identifier in the registry.

1. Proposal. A working group accepts a problem statement and assigns a candidate TXO‑NNN identifier.
2. Drafting. The working group produces an editor's draft conforming to §4.
3. Public Review. The draft is published with status Draft for community review.
4. Ratification. The working group records consensus and the document advances to Active.
5. Maintenance. Errata are tracked; revisions or supersession may move a document to Deprecated.

8. Registry of Identifiers

The canonical registry of TXO identifiers is maintained by the Transactology editor. Allocation requests MUST cite the requesting working group and the intended scope. The registry assigns identifiers in monotonic order and never reuses a retired number.

9. References

1. [TXO‑INDEX] Transactology Council. Standards Index. 2026.
2. [TXO‑FMT] Transactology Council. Specification Format. 2026.
3. [TXO‑LIFE] Transactology Council. Lifecycle & Status. 2026.

A. Authors & Contributors

This document is edited by the Transactology Council with contributions from the listed working groups. Editorial responsibility rotates annually among ratified members.