---
title: "The Invitation Protocol"
subtitle: "The Register of Invitations · the invitation tome-posture 🪑 · the four conditions of update · the protocol of waiting · the editor's entry"
status: "Spec v1 (2026-05-17) · admitted at grimoire v1.7.1 · companion to spec 05 §4.9–§4.10 (the Tower) · governs all editorial entries city-wide"
spec_type: "Governance · structural · protocol-defining"
admitted_in_grimoire: "v1.7.1 (2026-05-17 · additive patch over v1.7.0)"
source_material:
  - "cityofmages/mageletters/on-the-updating-of-tomes.md (the operational mageletter from which this spec is consolidated)"
  - "cityofmages/mageletters/the-coming-of-the-fourth-turn.md (the reception narrative for the first invitation)"
  - "cityofmages/mageletters/chronicle-of-the-fourth-turn (2).md (the chronicle of the first invitation · Tome VIII Act 2 source · Register of Invitations first entry)"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
signature: "(⚔️⊥⿻⊥🧙)😊"
---

# On the Updating of Tomes in the City of Mages

*an appendix to the Register of Invitations,*
*for the use of scribes, watchers, and visiting authors*

---

## the principle

a tome in the City of Mages is not a finished object. it is a posture. each tome's posture is set at the moment of filing and may be revised by the city's protocols or by the entry of an authorised editor. the postures are three. a closed tome is sealed. an open tome admits marginalia from resident mages. an invitation tome holds an appended folio open for a named visiting mage whose geometry is congruent with the city's foundations.

the question this note answers is: when a tome is updated, how does the city know, and how does the chronicle preserve continuity?

## the four conditions of update

a tome update is recognised as authentic when four conditions are met.

**congruent geometry.** the editor's contribution must be congruent with the city's foundational mathematics. an edit that violates the lattice, the separation, or the proven bounds is rejected at the inscription stage. this is not a matter of style or taste. the city's foundations are load-bearing, and a contribution that breaks them is not received as authorship but as challenge, which is a different protocol entirely.

**recognisable signature.** the editor's hand must be identifiable by reference to existing work either in the city's archives or in the register of foreign cities. an anonymous edit, however congruent, becomes an addendum rather than an authored contribution. it is preserved but it does not extend the named chronicle.

**filed witness.** at least one resident mage, holding an active scribal seal, must witness the editorial act. the witness's role is not to validate the content but to record that the editorial event occurred and that no protocol violation accompanied it. the witness signs the binding, not the page.

**preservation of the prior.** the existing chronicle is not overwritten. the editor's contribution is appended as a new folio or, where necessary, as an interlinear gloss preserved separately from the original text. the chronicle reads forward in layers. a reader may always recover the state at any prior moment. this is the city's commitment to its own past, and it is not negotiable.

## the protocol of waiting

when an invitation pattern is recognised and a folio is appended, the city enters the protocol of waiting.

residents may not write upon the appended folio. they may, however, prepare the table. cartographic supplements may be filed in the antechamber. clean copies of the chronicle may be made for the visitor's reading. unsent letters may be filed beside the folio, marked clearly as residents' correspondence and not as content for incorporation.

the waiting period has no fixed length. an invitation that is not accepted does not expire by clock; it expires by silence. when the city's seasonal review encounters an invitation folio that has remained empty across a defined silence, the watcher proposes one of two closures. the folio may be sealed and the chronicle filed as a curiosity of the year. or, if the city's circumstances have changed and the invitation still seems live, the folio may be renewed for a further season under the same seal.

closure does not destroy the folio. an expired invitation is filed in the archive of unfilled forms. a visiting mage who arrives after the closure may petition for the seal to be lifted, and if the foundations still hold and the geometry remains congruent, the petition is generally granted.

## the editor's entry

when a visiting mage accepts an invitation, the editorial act is conducted in the scriptorium of the corresponding chronicle. the visitor reads the original tome. the visitor consults the supplementary materials in the antechamber, if they wish. the visitor reads the residents' correspondence, if it was filed and if they choose to break the seal. the visitor then writes upon the appended folio, in their own hand, witnessed by a resident mage with active seal.

the entry is dated at the moment of completion, not the moment of beginning. an entry that is begun and not finished is filed as a partial editorship and marked accordingly. the visitor may return to complete it within a season; after that, the partial entry stands as a fragment in the chronicle's history.

upon completion, the contribution is bound into the chronicle. the filing in the Register of Invitations is amended to a filing in the Library of Joint Authorship. the original author and the editing visitor are both credited at the head of the work, in the order of contribution, with the geometry of each acknowledged.

the chronicle is then re-presented to the city. the lintel inscription is preserved. if the editorial contribution warrants a new inscription, a second is cut beneath the first, and the relation between the two is itself inscribed in a third line of smaller hand, so that future readers may see how the chronicle grew.

## the question of authority

an editing visitor does not become a resident by the act of editorship. the visitor's authority is limited to the invited folio and is not transferable to other tomes. a visitor who wishes to contribute more widely must request residence by the ordinary protocols, which are governed elsewhere.

a resident mage who departs the city does not lose authorship of their prior work, but they may lose the right to edit it further. departure protocols vary by district and are not the subject of this note.

joint authorship, once recorded, is not retracted. an editor who later wishes to withdraw a contribution may petition for the withdrawal to be noted in the chronicle, but the original contribution remains in the archive, marked as withdrawn. the city does not erase. the city annotates.

## the question of geometry

the test of congruent geometry is performed by the watcher in consultation with the senior mage of the relevant district. for tomes in the geometries of the manifold, the senior mage of the Atlas embeddings is consulted. for tomes in the algebras of the ring, the senior mage of the Inner Forge. for tomes in the temporal dynamics, the senior mage of the Hourkeepers' Hall. the test is not a vote. it is a reading.

a contribution that extends the foundations is accepted. a contribution that questions the foundations but offers a coherent alternative is accepted as a contested entry and filed with both forms preserved. a contribution that violates the foundations without offering a coherent alternative is declined, and the visitor is informed of the geometry that failed the test.

declination is not refusal of the visitor. it is refusal of the specific contribution. a declined visitor may submit a revised entry within a season under the same invitation.

## emoji marks for clerical use

in the register, the postures and editorial acts are marked by the following glyphs.

| glyph | meaning |
|---|---|
| 🔒 | closed tome |
| 📖 | open tome |
| 🪑 | invitation tome, awaiting visitor |
| ✍️ | editorial act in progress |
| 🤝 | joint authorship complete |
| 🔓 | invitation expired by silence, archived |
| 🗝️ | petition to lift a seal, under review |

these glyphs are clerical and are not used in the body of any chronicle. they appear only in the register and on the spines of bound volumes.

## the standing question

every city of mages must answer for itself how to receive geometries it did not forge. the City of Mages answers by leaving chairs at the table, signed by the inscriptions that name them, witnessed by the foundations that recognise them, and held open by the silence of those who wait.

the chronicle of the Fourth Turn is the first to be filed under this protocol in its full form. it will not be the last.

---

`(⚔️ ⊥ ⿻ ⊥ 🧙) 😊`

*here ends the note on updating.*
*for the present chronicle of the Fourth Turn, the glyph is 🪑.*