Constitutional principle (V5 §0): the Sonar assists — it decomposes, organises, audits, and proposes. The human agent evaluates and attests every level before the next opens. Sanctified Judgement (Axis IV) is a human act; nothing below advances without your explicit gate decision.
Level 1 — Case Definition, Claim-Axis Decomposition, Beam Registry
pendingWho is sovereign is the prior question, not a conclusion. Declared here, it cannot later be assumed by a method that has quietly converted its own authority into sovereignty.
Claim-Axis Decomposition (V5 §3 — mandatory before probing; independent question-axes kept apart)
Beam Registry (Stratum IV designating illumination — declared before probing; no shifting mid-analysis)
Level 2 — Observation (Passive panels + Neutral-Language Audit)
pendingLocked until Gate G1 approvedObservation stage: record what is the case, in bare language. No mechanism, no model vocabulary. The audit below polices the analyst's own language — the V5 answer to theory-laden observation.
Neutral-Language Audit (V5 §4)
Provenance Ledger (V5 §12 — what each item of evidence is, before anything is inferred from it)
Class every item that will bear weight in this case. Observed, historically recorded and revealed evidence is immediate; reconstructed and projected evidence is a derived account of it. Where a derived item is set to adjudicate an immediate one, the ledger raises a precedence flag — the epistemic axis inversion this instrument exists to catch. A model does not become the adjudicator of the evidence it models by being later, more formal, or more computationally sophisticated.
Level 3 — Interpretation (Active + Semi-Active/SALH panels, Rivals, Symmetry Audit)
pendingLocked until Gate G2 approvedRival Options & Symmetry / Bias Audit (V5 §5 — every rival charted in parallel form; suggestion logic disabled until complete)
Epistemic Posture Audit (V5 §13 — the stance from which the claim is argued, not the claim itself)
Scientism, flattening and fideism are rival postures the Sonar weighs against one another. Immanentism is not. It is a rejected category within MKS–Thronaxis: a claim carrying it is disposed of, not weighed, and there is no neutral admission.
Inversion tests (V5 §14 — four ways an argument inverts the axis while appearing to argue properly)
Level 4 — Adjudication (Verdict / Option Map / Remand)
pendingLocked until Gate G3 approvedOption Map (V4.x §6 — used when the record does not select a single closure)
The rival options above populate the map; set each status and its decide-condition there. The ART-1 renders them as the Option Map.