Rules

The ABC Pattern is defined and enforced through two complementary rule families:

• Normative Rules
• Validation Rules

Together, these rule sets establish the semantic, structural, and mechanical guarantees that make ABC architectures predictable, verifiable, and safe for automated reasoning and transformation.

Although closely related, the two rule families serve distinct purposes:

Normative Rules define the semantic contract of the ABC Pattern. They specify what MUST, SHOULD, or MAY be true in any ABC‑compliant architecture, independent of implementation language, cloud provider, or IaC tool.

Validation Rules define the mechanical checks required to verify that an ABC architecture conforms to the Normative Rules and the ABC Schema. Where Normative Rules describe what must be true, Validation Rules describe how to detect violations.