What Is System Intent

Purpose

This page defines what M45 means by system intent and establishes the semantic contract used throughout the documentation.

Definition

System intent is a structured, versioned representation of the behaviors, structures, and conditions that engineering artifacts collectively imply a system is intended to exhibit.

In M45, system intent is not authored as a primary engineering artifact.

It is inferred from existing materials and made explicit so it can be reviewed, challenged, corrected, and tracked over time.

Core properties

System intent in M45 has four defining properties.

Inferred

Intent is derived by interpreting engineering artifacts such as requirements, design documents, analyses, and informal records.

Inference produces explicit hypotheses, not authoritative ground truth. See the worked example of inference for how this works in practice.

Structured

Intent is represented as discrete elements organized along semantic axes.

This allows intent to be inspected, compared, versioned, and discussed explicitly.

Versioned

Each intent state is associated with:

  • a specific set of source artifacts
  • a point in time
  • a recorded change history

Past intent states remain accessible. See the Intent Snapshot Schema for the formal structure.

Contestable

Intent is reviewable by engineers.

Elements may be accepted, modified, rejected, or deferred, with decisions explicitly recorded.

What system intent is not

System intent is not:

  • a requirement
  • a design or architecture
  • a certification claim
  • a guarantee of correctness
  • a replacement for engineering judgment

System intent in M45 reflects what existing artifacts collectively imply, which may differ from the system's actual behavior or the intent engineers ultimately want to assert.

Why intent is modeled explicitly

In most engineering environments, intent exists implicitly:

  • distributed across documents
  • embedded in discussions
  • lost as artifacts evolve

M45 makes inferred intent explicit so it can be: