Firma is building an integrated order through which people, technology, capital, formation, infrastructure, and place work together toward human flourishing. The Firma Order is how that system is arranged — and this is the guide to it.
What Firma is and how authority moves through it — the five Domains, the four structural words the system uses (Domain, Sphere, Pod, Role), and how work actually moves: Project → Swarm. Everything else depends on this one.
ORD-001 ✴ ALWAYS FIRST
What one Domain actually stewards — its purpose, accountabilities, boundaries, and how it should be judged. Each Domain gets a document like this as its structure firms up.
ORD-004 ✴ ONE PER DOMAIN, OVER TIME
The same structure standing up in a real place — Swarms drawn across Pods, ATX's three identities, and NOMOS walked end to end. Where the abstractions become checkable.
ORD-002 ✴ THE WORKED EXAMPLE
Why parts of the Order are sealed, how the Foundation carries two hats, and what safety and trust mean here. Read it when the structural questions turn into questions of intent.
ORD-003 ✴ DOCTRINE
Who is doing this right now, and how the week works — the interim stewards, the weekly rhythm, and the rollout. Read it if you are stepping in.
INTERIM ✴ CURRENT SEASON
Full definitions live in ORD-001. This is here so you do not have to go hunting mid-read.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Domain | A major, enduring field of the Firma Order. Five of them: Foundation, Capital, Labs, Theosis, Frontier. |
| Sphere | A durable institution, place, venture, fund, or mission body within a Domain — CIK, FIT, ATX Settlemint, Firma Terra Fund. Not created for every project. |
| Pod | A continuing team or capability home — Engineering, Design, Legal, Story. Preserves capability over time and contributes across many Spheres. |
| Role | What one person or agent owns: its purpose, authority, accountabilities, and the Pod or Sphere it is held in. A person may hold several. |
| Swarm | A temporary cross-functional team drawn from different Pods to complete one Project, then dissolved. A Pod persists; a Swarm completes. |
| Project | A bounded body of work with a clear outcome and a completion condition. Worked by a Swarm. |
| Authority | What a unit may decide and steward — a bounded territory of recognized decision-making, not merely a topic someone works on. |
| Steward | A leader of a Domain, Sphere, Pod, Swarm, or place. Real authority, bounded rather than absolute. |
| Order Steward | The seat that keeps the whole Order coherent between meetings. |
| Frontier Campus | A place for research, R&D, experiment, learning and showcase. Never a branch office. |
| Frontier Colony | A place for living — families, a local economy, and the land they keep. |
| Living Lab | The method, not the place: building, testing, and living with systems under real conditions. A Living Lab sits within a Campus, a Colony, or a Settlemint. |
| Settlemint | A living community, its place, and its own local governance. Distinct from the Campus or Colony it sits on. |
Domains organize Firma’s major fields. Spheres hold enduring missions. Pods preserve continuing capabilities. Roles define what each person or agent owns.
THE WHOLE SYSTEM IN ONE LINEMost of this manual is proposed language under active development. Every structure carries a status that says exactly how real it is.
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| PROPOSED | Visible direction; not yet operationally established. Most of this manual. |
| FORMING | Actively taking shape but not mature. |
| ACTIVE | Presently operating. |
| SEALED | Intentionally present but not publicly disclosed — shown as a container only, never inferred or filled in. |
The organizational map describes authority that actually exists, not every future ambition. MAP DISCIPLINE