Chronolexography

Chronolexography records each legal fact (an application, a decision, an objection) as a dated entry in the chronicle (kroniek) of the organization that establishes it. RFC-022 describes the model. This page lists what works today, one feature per section.

The running example is vakantieverlof: a parent asks the head of a school for leave outside the school holidays (Leerplichtwet 1969, art. 13a).

How the parts fit together

Recording the application (Cell::record_submission):

1. The parent supplies the fields: the child, the leave days, name and address.
2. The cell takes the fields from the law: the parameters of the AANVRAAG item and of the Awb hooks on it.
3. The engine runs art. 13a at stage AANVRAAG. Awb 4:2 says whether the application is complete, Awb 4:13 gives the decision period.
4. The cell appends one chronolexogram of kind AANVRAAG.

A submission may refer to a decision in the chronicle (refers_to, RFC-050). The cell then fills fields from that decision. A field of type decision gets the decision’s id. Every other field that the decision holds under the same name gets its value, which must fit the field. The submitter supplies neither.

Taking the decision (Cell::decide):

1. The cell finds the application through requests: leerplichtwet_1969#13a.
2. It answers the engine for the whole decision. When an article reads an open term that one of its reductions fills, the engine asks the cell. The cell runs that reduction on its own chronicle, with its own decisions as the rows of each source: {decisions: ...} input, and returns the value with its provenance.
3. It gathers each input of the decision by name: from the application, or from the head. The engine resolves what policy fills (implements), and asks the cell for what its reduction fills. The head supplies what a hook asks for. Its findings come separately (findings), keyed by the id of the open term the law leaves to it (decided_per_case_by). Here these are the two judgements under art. 11 onder f and whether leave was already granted this school year. In the cell, the reduction fills that last one. The engine also gets the findings separately from the parameters, so a finding applies to every article in the decision that leaves the term to the head.
4. The engine runs art. 13a at stages BESLUIT and BEKENDMAKING: the test, and Awb 3:46, 6:7 and 6:8.
5. The cell appends a chronolexogram of kind BESCHIKKING that refers to the application. The head’s findings are among its fields. The chronolexogram does not store which findings the decision used. Cell::findings replays the decision and reads that from the engine’s report; a finding that a policy or the cell’s answer set aside is not among them.

Cell::explain takes a recorded decision again with tracing, on its day and with the chronicle as it stood before it, and fails when the outcome differs. In its trace the cell’s answer within art. 13a is one node: the value, the reduction and its version, and how far the cell read its chronicle. Cell::explain_answer gives the cell’s own account of that answer: the reduction run again with tracing, with the decisions it counted and those its filter skipped. That trace is not stored.

decide returns a list of chronolexograms (Vec<Gram>). The decision comes first. After it comes each decision that the deciding article takes in turn: every output of type decision that is not null. They land in the chronicle together, or none do.

Recording without a submission (RFC-051): Cell::record_executogram records a fact of a stream the cell keeps, such as where the school is established. It refers to nothing, and records nothing when a value is missing or malformed.

Objecting: the same two steps under Awb 7:11, with record_submission and decide. The objection refers to the contested decision. The decision on it calls art. 13a anew. On revocation 7:11 gives the new decision, and the cell records that in the same append.

Law and policy say what is needed and how to compute it; they know no chronicle. A reduction is the only place that reads decisions, and it computes through law and policy again. Reduction takes place in the cell, as the position paper has it (“Reductie vindt altijd plaats ín de cel waar de betreffende chronolexogrammen zijn vastgelegd”). How the cell and the engine divide that work is in RFC-048 §3.

What works

The application, with the Awb on it

Article 13a says it establishes an application (AANVRAAG), what the application contains, and which decision it asks for. The Awb hooks onto every application, so submitting one also runs Awb 4:2 and 4:13. The fields of the application are the parameters its item lists plus those of the hooks. One exception: the parameter a hook names in produces.moment, here datum_ontvangst from Awb 4:13, is the moment of receipt and no field of the application.

• Awb 4:2 adds what every application contains: a signature, name and address, date, the decision asked for.
• Awb 4:13 adds the last day of the decision period when no law sets one: eight weeks after receipt.
• produces.moment on Awb 4:13 marks receipt as the moment that counts.
• established_by: <regulation>#<article> limits a hook to the application of one article.
• What the head needs to decide, such as the judgements under art. 11 onder f, is not part of the application. It belongs to the decision.

Try it: just bdd, which runs corpus/regulation/nl/wet/leerplichtwet_1969/scenarios/vakantieverlof_aanvraag.feature

The application in the chronicle

A cell, here a school, records the application as one chronolexogram in its chronicle. Chronolexography is an optional layer: it lives in packages/cel, and the law and the engine do not know it. The law names no fields for the record; the cell derives them from the keys above.

• The fields are the parameters the item of art. 13a lists and those of its Awb hooks, minus the moment. The cell refuses an unknown field and a value of the wrong type.
• A field left out is null when it can be absent. Otherwise it goes under missing, and the application is still recorded (Awb 4:5).
• moment holds the day of receipt. The cell fills it with the day of recording; that the two are the same day is the cell’s assumption.
• Recording runs the stage AANVRAAG of art. 13a: the Awb hooks on the application run, and their outputs go in outputs. The outputs of art. 13a belong to the decision.
• The chronolexogram does not repeat the law. Which article asks a field follows from the law version in force on recorded_on.
• A number the engine computes is stored without loss: an integer as a JSON integer, a decimal as {"__decimal": "0.3333333333333333333333333333"} with every digit, so it reads back as the same decimal and not as a float or an integer. The cell takes this encoding from the law model (regelrecht_law_model::stored, see law-model), so every store keeps and compares a value the same way. A supplied value may not hold that key; a supplied number is stored as the JSON it came in, and read back as the engine reads JSON: a whole number such as 5.0 as the integer 5. When the cell compares two stored values, for example a decision taken in turn against the decision value it came from, it uses the rule of the engine’s EQUALS on records. That rule lives in the same module. 5.0 and 5.00 are one value; an integer against a decimal of the same value is an error.

The chronicle refuses a chronolexogram dated before the last one.

Try it: cargo test --manifest-path packages/cel/Cargo.toml

The decision on the application

The head of the school decides on the application. Art. 13a is also that decision, a BESCHIKKING, and follows the Awb procedure. produces lists the application and the decision, each its own item. The application asks for this decision with requests, and the decision names its outputs:

The cell records the decision as a second chronolexogram that refers to the application.

• Each produced thing has its own stage: the application with Awb 4:2 and 4:13 at AANVRAAG, the decision with Awb 3:46 and 6:7 at BESLUIT, Awb 6:8 at BEKENDMAKING.
• What the decision needs comes from the application first, then from the school’s policy (implements), then from the head when deciding (decided_per_case_by). findings lists the fields that hold a finding of the head. The chronolexogram repeats neither the basis nor the source of a field or output: both follow from the law on recorded_on and from refers_to.
• The test: at most ten school days (Monday to Friday), not in the first two lesweken, and the two facts of art. 11 onder f: a parent’s profession of a specific nature, and leave outside the school holidays. The head judges both. A refusal is verlof_verleend: false.
• The cell refuses a second decision on one application, and a decision dated before it. It makes the decision known on the day it takes it, so Awb 6:8 counts the objection period from there; that is the cell’s assumption.
• Not modeled yet: the proportional share for a young person who is kwalificatieplichtig (lid 2, second sentence).

Try it: just bdd, which runs vakantieverlof_besluit.feature, or cargo test --manifest-path packages/cel/Cargo.toml

Once per school year

The head grants leave “slechts eenmaal … per schooljaar” (art. 13a lid 2). Art. 13a declares the open term verlof_al_verleend_in_schooljaar, which is no field of the application. The head decides it per case (decided_per_case_by), and it has no default. How the head reads its own decisions back, the law does not say.

In a cell, a reduction fills the term with implements: rulework of the kind REDUCTIE, kept with the cell at corpus/cells/obs_de_klimop/reducties/. It finds the decisions taken under art. 13a and asks the school’s fictitious policy in which school year the asked leave falls.

• Each decision is a row with its fields and outputs, such as bsn_jongere, eerste_verlofdag and verlof_verleend, and its id. A refusal does not count, nor a decision revoked on objection (see the objection).
• The policy says only that a school year runs from 1 August to 31 July. It reads no decisions.
• The engine asks the cell for the term, and the cell runs its reduction with the parameters it declares, taken from art. 13a by name. The answer wins over a finding of the head, as an implementation would. The engine never runs a reduction by itself. Outside a cell nothing fills the term, so a scenario gives the head’s finding; without one the execution fails.
• A cell opens with its directory (Cell::open, Cell::in_memory) and loads its reductions from reducties/ there, so it cannot be without them. A term that a reduction in that directory implements is the cell’s. On a day on which no reduction in force fills it, the cell refuses the decision. A school without reductions opens with a directory that has none.
• Cell::answers lists what the cell can answer: per version of each reduction, the open term it fills, the reduction’s $id and its valid_from. This list is a RegelRecht addition. In the Chronolexografie position paper a cell reduces its chronicle on request into a lexostatus, the answer that the cell’s facts give. The paper does not have a cell declare which lexostatussen it can answer; that idea comes from RFC-022 §4.1.
• Only a reduction reads decisions. Since schema v0.8.5 it may fill an open term (implements); it still has no hooks, overrides, execution.produces or open_terms. The corpus loaders leave it out; just validate checks it.
• The decision records the answer in fields. It is not a finding of the head, so a decision value leaves it out.

Try it: just bdd, which runs vakantieverlof_besluit.feature with the head’s finding and schooljaargrenzen.feature next to the policy, or cargo test --manifest-path packages/cel/Cargo.toml

The objection

The parent objects to the decision. Awb 7:11 establishes the objection and decides on it, as art. 13a does for the application. The objection names the contested decision. The decision on it reconsiders that decision by calling its article again:

In a procedure, the article that decides gets the earlier steps as context: the objection and the decision it refers to, with their fields and findings. When 7:11 calls that decision anew (article: $bestreden_besluit), the call uses the decision’s own fields and findings. New findings come in from the top, and an article in the call must ask for them.

The cell records the objection with record_submission, referring to the contested decision. It fills bestreden_besluit from that reference and keeps it by its id:

• The fields are the contested decision and those of Awb 6:5, plus the end of the objection period, which the cell takes from the contested decision. An objection does not change the application: Awb 7:11 lid 1 reconsiders the decision “op grondslag van het bezwaar”, and 6:5 asks only for the grounds. A smaller request is a new application.
• Awb 6:9 makes the receipt the moment that counts and says whether it came in on time. A late objection is recorded. 7:11 then declares it not admissible, and does not read the heroverweging (lid 1). An objection against a decision taken on objection is not admissible either (Awb 7:1 lid 1 onder a). That covers the decision on the objection and the new decision it took. The decision value names the article of the submission a decision was taken on (taken_on). For both, that is 7:11.
• The head decides with decide. The engine gets the contested decision as a decision value. For an admissible objection, 7:11 calls the decision anew: art. 13a runs with that decision’s fields and findings, under the law and policy of that day. decide passes what the head finds anew to the engine, separately from the parameters. A new finding wins over the decision’s own. A finding that no article asks for, such as one on a late objection, is an error. The engine asks the cell in that call, and the cell answers from the chronicle of that day without the contested decision. When an outcome of the decision item of art. 13a comes out different, the heroverweging gives cause, and 7:11 revokes the decision.
• On revocation, nieuw_besluit holds the decision that art. 13a gave. The cell records it as a chronolexogram of its own under art. 13a, with its own period (Awb 6:7 and 6:8; for a decision on objection that is the period for appeal). The decision on the objection holds it by id. A second objection against the revoked decision is reconsidered, but the cell refuses to replace a decision twice. The revoked decision stays in the chronicle. The school’s reduction reads the decisions under 7:11 as a second input, and leaves out a grant that one of them revoked.

The cell contains no Awb article. RFC-050 describes the design and what is still open.

Try it: just bdd, which runs corpus/regulation/nl/wet/algemene_wet_bestuursrecht/scenarios/bezwaar.feature, or cargo test --manifest-path packages/cel/Cargo.toml

A second case: the parking card

The college of a municipality grants a gehandicaptenparkeerkaart on application (Besluit administratieve bepalingen inzake het wegverkeer, BABW, art. 49). The case runs on a cell of its own, built from the same packages/cel, without a change to the engine or the cell code. Only rulework and tests change.

What is the same:

• The application gets Awb 4:2 and 4:13, the decision Awb 3:46, 6:7 and 6:8, and the objection Awb 6:5, 6:9, 7:10 and 7:11. No hook names the BABW.
• The college judges the criteria after the medical examination, as the head judges Leerplichtwet 1969 art. 11 onder f. These are four open terms with decided_per_case_by on art. 49.
• A reduction of the municipality, reductie_geldige_gehandicaptenparkeerkaart, reads the college’s own decisions and fills an open term with implements. A refusal does not count, and neither does a decision that a decision on objection revoked.
• On objection, 7:11 calls art. 49 anew. A new medical judgement revokes a refusal and grants the card, with a validity of its own.

What differs:

• The criteria sit in another regulation, the Regeling gehandicaptenparkeerkaart (art. 1). Art. 49 reads them through a cross-law source and passes the college’s judgements as parameters.
• Art. 49 says the college “kan” grant the card, and nothing about an applicant who already holds one. Art. 53 lid 1 onder b even counts on a new card replacing the old. The rule “no card next to a valid one” is the municipality’s fictitious policy. The policy fills the open term of art. 49 on how the college uses its power. It also declares an open term of its own, aanvrager_heeft_geldige_gehandicaptenparkeerkaart. The college decides it per case, and it has no default. The reduction implements that term, so the engine asks the cell inside the policy. Because the term belongs to the policy and not to art. 49, the cell’s answer is no field of the decision. A replay reports it (Cell::explain), and Cell::explain_answer shows which card the reduction counted.
• The validity comes from the law: five years from the day of issue (BABW art. 51 lid 1). The reduction compares that date in each decision with the day of the new decision, so unlike the school year for vakantieverlof, no policy has to set the period.
• The last day of validity is derived data (derived, RFC-050). A heroverweging falls on a later day and would give a card that runs longer. That alone gives no cause, so an objection without merit against a grant leaves the grant and its date as they were.

An applicant who fails the criteria is refused before art. 49 reads the college’s power, so the engine does not ask the cell. Asked to explain its answer for such a decision (Cell::explain_answer), the cell says it was not asked.

Not modeled: competence by place of residence (lid 1) and the CBR (lid 3), the institution (lid 2), the shorter validity of art. 51 lid 2 and 3, and the medical examination itself (Regeling art. 2). The judgements rest on that examination, but no rule checks that it took place or when it may be left out (Regeling art. 2 lid 2).

What the cell cannot do yet:

• The medical judgements belong with the criteria in the Regeling (art. 1, after the examination of art. 2 and 3). The engine applies a finding to every article in the decision. The cell, however, derives the inputs of a decision only from the deciding article, and a decision value carries only that article’s findings. At a heroverweging the college would have to give judgements on the Regeling anew. So they sit on art. 49 and go to the Regeling as parameters.
• The cell does not pass its own identity to the law. Competence by place of residence cannot be checked, and a policy scoped by gemeente_code is not found, so the municipality’s policy is unscoped.

Try it: just bdd, which runs the scenarios next to the BABW and the Regeling, or cargo test --manifest-path packages/cel/Cargo.toml --test parkeerkaart, or play it in the PoC app, where the visitor picks this case or vakantieverlof at the start (PoC portal)

Outside the school holidays

Art. 11, onder f, exempts a child whose parent, by the specific nature of their profession, can go on holiday with the child “slechts buiten de schoolvakanties”. Art. 13a reads that as the open term verlof_valt_buiten_schoolvakanties, which the head decides per case. In the school’s cell no one has to: a reduction answers it from the law and from what the school recorded.

• The Regeling vaststelling schoolvakanties 2025–2030 fixes the Christmas and May holidays of every school (art. 5) and the summer holiday per region (art. 6). The region follows from the place of establishment (art. 2), divided by province and municipality (art. 3). The regeling does not say where a school is, so art. 2 declares that as open terms.
• The school has been established in Utrecht since 1 August 2020. That is an executogram in its chronicle, of the stream vestiging in corpus/cells/obs_de_klimop/executogrammen/vestiging.yaml. A move is a new executogram, and the region changes from its day.
• The autumn and spring holidays are a rule of the school, set out per school year in its fictitious policy, much as a school guide would. Each school year gets a version from 1 August; the one in the corpus holds 2026–2027.

reductie_plaats_van_vestiging reads that stream (source: {executograms: vestiging}) and fills the open terms of art. 2 with the establishment in force on the leave days. It picks that one with combine: ONLY, which refuses two, so leave during which the school moves fails the decision. Art. 2 names no day; the cell passes on the leave days of art. 13a. reductie_verlof_valt_buiten_schoolvakanties asks the regeling for the region and the periods, asks the school’s policy for its own holidays (source: {regulation: ...}), and answers whether a leave day falls in any of the six holidays. When the regeling calls for the place of establishment inside that reduction, the cell answers there too.

• Leave from 21 to 23 December 2026 is refused. The trace of the decision shows the term as one node, answered by obs_de_klimop, and Cell::explain_answer shows the Christmas holiday the reduction read.
• From 12 to 16 July 2027 a school in regio Noord is on summer holiday and one in regio Zuid is not.
• When the cell does not know a holiday, because the regeling fixes none for the year or the school’s policy in force does not hold that school year, it is silent, and the head judges as before.

Not modeled: art. 7 and 8 of the regeling (the school’s extension of the summer by up to two days, the Wadden islands, the exemption by the minister) and a school with establishments in several regions.

Try it: just bdd, which runs regio_en_vakanties.feature next to the regeling and vakantierooster.feature next to the policy, or cargo test --manifest-path packages/cel/Cargo.toml --test schoolvakanties