CLE-Net Cosmos SDK Architecture

Version: 1.0
Last Updated: 2026-02-10
Status: Design Document

Overview

CLE-Net is implemented as an application-specific blockchain using the Cosmos SDK. This architecture enables native cognitive state transitions and consensus over symbolic law evolution, without the constraints of generic blockchain platforms.

Why Cosmos SDK?

CLE-Net evaluated multiple blockchain platforms and selected Cosmos SDK for the following reasons:

✅ Advantages

Application-Specific State Machines: Cosmos treats blockchains as application-specific state machines, which is exactly what CLE-Net needs
Custom State Machine: Full control over cognitive state transitions, CCS encoding, and law lifecycle
Mature Consensus: Tendermint BFT provides proven Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus
Modular Design: Easy to design custom modules for cognitive, laws, and consensus
Research-Friendly: The ecosystem respects research-grade projects
IBC Interoperability: Future-proof with Inter-Blockchain Communication protocol
Not EVM-Centric: No gas metering or financial assumptions

❌ Rejected Alternatives

Ethereum L2: EVM is a terrible fit for cognitive state machines; everything is gas-metered
Lightweight P2P: No economic security; weak Sybil resistance
Custom Chain: Years of engineering; massive attack surface; only viable after CLE-Net proves itself
Substrate: Technically excellent but steep learning curve; Rust-heavy limits contributor pool

Architecture Diagram

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                     CLE-Net Application                      │
│                   (Cosmos SDK-based Chain)                   │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                               │
│  ┌──────────────┐  ┌──────────────┐  ┌──────────────┐      │
│  │   Cognitive  │  │     Laws     │  │   Consensus  │      │
│  │    Module    │  │    Module    │  │    Module    │      │
│  │              │  │              │  │              │      │
│  │ - Law Prop.  │  │ - Storage    │  │ - Validators │      │
│  │ - Validation │  │ - Indexing   │  │ - PoC        │      │
│  │ - Conflicts  │  │ - Querying   │  │ - Proposers  │      │
│  │ - CCS Track  │  │ - Evolution  │  │ - Slashing   │      │
│  └──────────────┘  └──────────────┘  └──────────────┘      │
│           │                 │                 │              │
│           └─────────────────┴─────────────────┘              │
│                             │                                │
│                    ┌────────▼────────┐                       │
│                    │   State Store   │                       │
│                    │  (KV Database)  │                       │
│                    └─────────────────┘                       │
│                             │                                │
│                    ┌────────▼────────┐                       │
│                    │   Tendermint    │                       │
│                    │      BFT        │                       │
│                    └─────────────────┘                       │
│                             │                                │
│                    ┌────────▼────────┐                       │
│                    │   P2P Network   │                       │
│                    │   (libp2p)      │                       │
│                    └─────────────────┘                       │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                              │
                              ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    Off-Chain Processing                      │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  ┌──────────────┐  ┌──────────────┐  ┌──────────────┐      │
│  │   Symbol     │  │  Knowledge   │  │   Multi-     │      │
│  │  Extraction  │  │    Graph     │  │    Modal     │      │
│  │              │  │              │  │              │      │
│  │ - Atomizer   │  │ - Graph RAG  │  │ - Voice      │      │
│  │ - Symbol     │  │ - Temporal   │  │ - Video      │      │
│  │   Mapper     │  │   Storage    │  │ - Documents  │      │
│  │ - Rule       │  │ - Contradict │  │ - Images     │      │
│  │   Engine     │  │   Detection  │  │ - Full-Duplex│      │
│  └──────────────┘  └──────────────┘  └──────────────┘      │
│           │                 │                 │              │
│           └─────────────────┴─────────────────┘              │
│                             │                                │
│                    ┌────────▼────────┐                       │
│                    │   LLM / AI      │                       │
│                    │   Inference     │                       │
│                    └─────────────────┘                       │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Module Structure

1. Cognitive Module (`core/cosmos/x/cognitive/`)

Purpose: Manages cognitive laws, their lifecycle, and validation.

Components:

CognitiveKeeper: Manages state of cognitive laws, CCS, and conflict resolutions
CognitiveModule: Handles law proposal, validation, conflict detection, and resolution
Message Types:
- ProposeLawMessage: Propose a new cognitive law
- ValidateLawMessage: Validate a proposed law
- ReportConflictMessage: Report a conflict between laws
- ResolveConflictMessage: Resolve a conflict between laws
- UpdateCCSMessage: Update a participant’s CCS

State:

laws: Map of law ID to CognitiveLaw
ccs_scores: Map of participant ID to CognitiveContributionScore
conflicts: Map of resolution ID to ConflictResolution
context_boundaries: Map of context to list of law IDs

2. Laws Module (`core/cosmos/x/laws/`)

Purpose: Provides law storage, indexing, and retrieval.

Components:

LawsKeeper: Manages law storage, indexing, and retrieval
LawsModule: Handles law lifecycle, evolution, decay, and querying

Indexes:

By status: PROPOSED, VALIDATING, ACTIVE, CONFLICTED, DEPRECATED, REVOKED
By type: SYMBOLIC_RULE, CONTEXT_BOUNDARY, DECISION_PATTERN, CAUSAL_RELATION
By context: Laws grouped by context
By proposer: Laws grouped by proposer

Queries:

Get law by ID
Get laws by status
Get laws by type
Get laws by context
Get laws by proposer
Search laws by expression
Get similar laws
Get conflicting laws
Get top laws by confidence
Get recent laws

3. Consensus Module (`core/cosmos/x/consensus/`)

Purpose: Manages validators and Proof of Cognition (PoC) consensus.

Components:

ConsensusKeeper: Manages validators, their roles, and consensus state
ConsensusModule: Handles validator registration, block proposal, and validation
ProofOfCognition: Implements PoC consensus mechanism

Validator Roles:

COGNITIVE_MINER: Discovers new cognitive laws
STATE_VALIDATOR: Validates proposed laws
CONFLICT_RESOLVER: Resolves conflicts between laws
WATCHDOG: Monitors network health

State:

validators: Map of validator address to ValidatorInfo
active_validators: Set of active validator addresses
proposer_queue: Ordered list of proposers
block_height: Current block height
last_block_hash: Hash of the last committed block

On-Chain State

Cognitive State Block (CSB)

The fundamental unit of CLE-Net. A CSB contains:

class CognitiveStateBlock:
    block_height: int
    block_hash: str
    proposer_id: str
    timestamp: datetime
    new_laws: List[CognitiveLaw]
    updated_laws: List[CognitiveLaw]
    ccs_updates: List[CognitiveContributionScore]
    conflict_resolutions: List[Dict]
    prev_block_hash: str

Cognitive Law

A symbolic representation of a decision pattern:

class CognitiveLaw:
    law_id: str
    law_type: LawType
    symbolic_expression: str
    context: str
    status: LawStatus
    proposer_id: str
    confidence: float
    support_count: int
    contradiction_count: int
    evidence: List[str]
    created_at: datetime
    updated_at: datetime
    decay_factor: float

Cognitive Contribution Score (CCS)

Measures the quality and impact of cognitive contributions:

class CognitiveContributionScore:
    participant_id: str
    score: float
    contributions_count: int
    laws_discovered: int
    conflicts_resolved: int
    last_updated: datetime

Validator Information

Tracks validators and their roles:

class ValidatorInfo:
    validator_address: str
    role: ValidatorRole
    stake: float
    uptime: float
    laws_validated: int
    conflicts_resolved: int
    last_active: datetime

Consensus Mechanism

Proof of Cognition (PoC)

PoC is CLE-Net’s consensus mechanism that rewards independent discovery of cognitive laws.

Key Principles:

Independent Discovery: Laws must be discovered by multiple independent parties
Cognitive Contribution: Contributors earn CCS based on quality and impact
Consensus Validation: 2/3 supermajority required for law activation
Fork Tolerance: Temporary divergence is acceptable for research

Validation Process:

Law is proposed by a Cognitive Miner
State Validators vote on the law
If 2/3 supermajority approves, law becomes ACTIVE
If 2/3 supermajority rejects, law becomes DEPRECATED
If no supermajority, law remains in VALIDATING state

Reward Distribution:

Base reward: 100 CCS per law
Distributed among independent discoverers
Bonus for conflict resolution: +200 CCS

Tendermint BFT Integration

CLE-Net uses Tendermint BFT for block-level consensus:

Block Proposal: Current proposer creates a CSB
Pre-vote: Validators vote on the block
Pre-commit: Validators commit to the block
Commit: Block is committed to the chain

Mapping CLE-Consensus to Tendermint:

CLE-Net Concept	Tendermint Concept
Cognitive State Block	Block
Law Proposal	Transaction
Law Validation	Transaction Execution
CCS Update	State Transition
Conflict Resolution	State Transition
Validator	Validator
Proposer	Proposer

Off-Chain Processing

CLE-Net separates on-chain and off-chain processing:

On-Chain (Consensus)

Cognitive State Blocks (CSBs)
Law lifecycle state machine
CCS tracking
Validator voting

Off-Chain (Computation)

Symbol extraction from human interaction
Knowledge graph construction
LLM inference and reasoning
OCR and multi-modal input processing

This separation ensures:

No gas abuse for cognitive workloads
Efficient use of blockchain resources
Flexibility in AI model choice
Privacy for sensitive data

Migration Path

Phase 1: Cosmos SDK v1 (Current)

Application-specific blockchain
Native cognitive state machine
Tendermint BFT consensus
Basic PoC mechanism

Phase 2: Custom Chain (Future)

Optimized consensus for cognitive workloads
Custom state transition logic
Enhanced PoC mechanism
Improved performance

Phase 3: IBC Integration (Future)

Interoperability with other Cosmos chains
Cross-chain cognitive state sharing
Distributed cognition across networks

Security Considerations

Validator Security

Minimum stake requirement: 1000 tokens
Slashing for uptime below 50%
Role-based access control
Regular validator rotation

Law Security

Hash-based integrity verification
Status transition validation
Conflict detection and resolution
Decay mechanism for stale laws

Network Security

Tendermint BFT provides Byzantine fault tolerance
2/3 supermajority required for consensus
Fork tolerance for research flexibility
Watchdog mechanisms for anomaly detection

Performance Considerations

Throughput

Low throughput, high semantic density
Target: 1-10 blocks per second
Block size: Limited by cognitive state complexity

Latency

Block time: 1-10 seconds
Finality: ~2 block times (Tendermint)
Law activation: ~3-5 blocks

Storage

Law storage: Indexed by multiple attributes
State pruning: Deprecated laws can be pruned
Snapshot support: For state recovery

References

Next Steps

Implement Cosmos SDK module scaffolding
Define state machine and message handlers
Implement PoC consensus mechanism
Integrate with existing CLE-Net codebase
Test on local testnet
Deploy to public testnet
Security audit
Mainnet launch

CLE-Net Cosmos SDK Architecture

Overview

Why Cosmos SDK?

✅ Advantages

❌ Rejected Alternatives

Architecture Diagram

Module Structure

1. Cognitive Module (core/cosmos/x/cognitive/)

2. Laws Module (core/cosmos/x/laws/)

3. Consensus Module (core/cosmos/x/consensus/)

On-Chain State

Cognitive State Block (CSB)

Cognitive Law

Cognitive Contribution Score (CCS)

Validator Information

Consensus Mechanism

Proof of Cognition (PoC)

Tendermint BFT Integration

Off-Chain Processing

On-Chain (Consensus)

Off-Chain (Computation)

Migration Path

Phase 1: Cosmos SDK v1 (Current)

Phase 2: Custom Chain (Future)

Phase 3: IBC Integration (Future)

Security Considerations

Validator Security

Law Security

Network Security

Performance Considerations

Throughput

Latency

Storage

References

Next Steps

1. Cognitive Module (`core/cosmos/x/cognitive/`)

2. Laws Module (`core/cosmos/x/laws/`)

3. Consensus Module (`core/cosmos/x/consensus/`)