1. Mechanism and Primitive Description

The cross-model portability primitive operates on adaptations as portable artifacts. Each adaptation artifact carries a compatibility-metadata specification identifying its architectural requirements, its training methodology, and a compatibility matrix of validated base cognitive substrates. These declarations are part of the adaptation's record and are signed into lineage at admission.

When a consuming agent operates on a base cognitive substrate differing from the artifact's source substrate, a compatibility evaluator evaluates whether the consuming substrate meets the artifact's compatibility requirements. Where compatibility is achievable through remapping, a parameter-remapping generator produces parameter-remapping instructions that transform the artifact's content for compatibility with the consuming substrate. Where direct compatibility is not achievable, an alternative-artifact recommender recommends alternative adaptation artifacts available in the governed marketplace.

A portability-lineage recorder records each cross-model portability determination, each remapping operation, and each alternative-artifact recommendation in the consuming agent's lineage field. The five-property governance chain runs through every such determination, so the provenance of a remapped artifact back to its source substrate remains queryable for any audit or dispute downstream.

2. Operating Parameters and Engineering Envelope

The primitive supports compatibility evaluation across a plurality of base-substrate differences. The disclosed dimensions include, without limitation: architectural-variant differences, where the consuming substrate differs in architecture version, attention-head count, layer count, or hidden-dimension size; precision differences, where the consuming substrate operates at a different numerical precision such as full-precision, half-precision, quantized, binary, or ternary; tokenization differences, where the consuming substrate employs a different tokenization scheme; framework differences, where the consuming substrate operates within a different inference framework; hardware-substrate differences, where the consuming substrate operates on a different computing substrate; and modality differences, where the consuming substrate supports different input modalities. Any combination of these differences, or any equivalent substrate-compatibility dimension, is contemplated.

The remapping effort scales with the divergence between source and consuming substrate. The compatibility-metadata specification carries the artifact's architectural requirements and the compatibility matrix of validated base substrates against which the artifact has been confirmed; the compatibility evaluator consults these when a consuming substrate is presented. Where the evaluator finds the consuming substrate within the artifact's validated set or reachable through remapping, the parameter-remapping generator produces the transform; where it does not, the alternative-artifact recommender is consulted instead.

Every cross-model portability determination, remapping operation, and alternative-artifact recommendation is written to the consuming agent's lineage field by the portability-lineage recorder, so that the basis for each admission or substitution remains available to downstream audit.

3. Alternative Embodiments

In a tokenization-remap embodiment, the consuming substrate employs a different tokenization scheme and the parameter-remapping generator produces a remapping that reconciles the artifact's content to the consuming scheme. In a precision-remap embodiment, the consuming substrate operates at a different numerical precision, such as a quantized or half-precision substrate, and the remapping adjusts the artifact's parameters accordingly. In a distillation-artifact embodiment, the adaptation artifact is a knowledge-distillation artifact encoding teacher-to-student distillation parameters, and portability is evaluated against the distillation artifact's compatibility metadata.

In an architectural-variant embodiment, the consuming substrate differs in architecture version, attention-head count, layer count, or hidden-dimension size, and the compatibility evaluator determines whether those differences remain within the artifact's stated requirements. In a framework-difference embodiment, the consuming substrate operates within a different inference framework, and remapping addresses framework-specific content while the compatibility matrix records the validated frameworks.

In an alternative-recommendation embodiment, the compatibility evaluator finds direct compatibility not achievable and the alternative-artifact recommender returns substitute adaptation artifacts available in the governed marketplace, each entering the consuming agent's lineage as a recommendation. In a hardware-substrate embodiment, the consuming substrate operates on a different computing substrate, and the compatibility-metadata specification carries the hardware requirements the evaluator consults.

4. Composition with Adjacent Primitives

Cross-model portability composes with the cascade-deactivation primitive: when a source adaptation artifact is revoked, dependent remapped artifacts are evaluated for cascade deactivation under the same dependency-graph rules, and the lineage link from the remapped artifact back to its source carries the cascade through the portability boundary. It composes with the credential-revocation primitive: revocation of an artifact invalidates the remapped forms recorded against it, and a re-credentialed alternative artifact may be recommended without re-authoring the source.

It composes with the lineage-audit primitive: an auditor inspecting a remapped artifact can traverse back through the portability-lineage record to the source artifact, examine the remapping operations and compatibility determinations, and verify that the artifact's compatibility requirements were honored. It composes with the dispute-resolution primitive: a contested compatibility determination enters a credentialed dispute path whose outcome may revise the compatibility metadata or recall the artifact.

It composes with the byzantine-robust observer primitive when portability determinations span untrusted substrates: multi-observer co-signature can be required for remappings crossing trust boundaries. It composes with the marketplace primitive: remapped and recommended adaptation artifacts enter the same admission and capacity-allocation flows as natively authored adaptations, distinguishable to consumers by their lineage.

5. Prior-Art Distinctions

Conventional model-portability practice treats portability as an engineering activity outside any governance frame. Prior artifacts compose through ad-hoc model-management tooling, producing a new artifact whose provenance to the source is informal at best. There is no compatibility-metadata specification carried on the artifact, no compatibility evaluator binding the determination to the artifact's stated requirements, and no lineage that an auditor or consumer can traverse to verify the remapping occurred under recognized rules.

Conventional skill-portability practice in robotics and agentic systems either rebuilds skills against each new substrate or fixes them against a single substrate with no portability. Where the artifact is moved across substrates at all, it produces a new artifact with no recorded relationship to the source.

The present primitive differs in that the compatibility-metadata specification, the compatibility evaluator, the parameter-remapping generator, the alternative-artifact recommender, and the portability-lineage recorder operate within the same governance frame as the adaptations they carry. The compatibility determination is bound to the artifact's stated requirements, each remapping operation and recommendation enters lineage with traceability, and the resulting remapped artifact's provenance to the source is queryable. The five-property governance chain runs through every determination, providing the audit, dispute, and cascade substrate that prior art lacks.

6. Disclosure Scope

This disclosure encompasses cross-model portability of credentialed adaptations within the spatial mesh of U.S. Provisional Application No. 64/049,409. The disclosure covers the compatibility-metadata specification attached to each adaptation artifact (architectural requirements, training methodology, and the compatibility matrix of validated base cognitive substrates), the compatibility evaluator that determines whether a consuming substrate meets the artifact's requirements, the parameter-remapping generator that transforms the artifact where compatibility is achievable through remapping, the alternative-artifact recommender that suggests substitutes where direct compatibility is not achievable, and the portability-lineage recorder that records each determination, remapping operation, and recommendation. It covers compatibility evaluation across architectural-variant, precision, tokenization, framework, hardware-substrate, and modality differences and any combination thereof, and equivalent embodiments preserving the compatibility-metadata specification and the lineage-bound determination under the five-property governance chain.

The disclosure extends to the composition of cross-model portability with cascade deactivation, credential revocation, lineage audit, dispute resolution, byzantine-robust observation, and marketplace admission primitives of the broader mesh.

The disclosure does not depend on any specific model architecture, training framework, distillation technique, or interface format. It is technology-agnostic at the implementation layer and architectural at the primitive layer. Practitioners skilled in machine learning, model deployment, and credentialed governance will recognize the structural elements and may implement them using contemporary or future technologies provided the compatibility-metadata specification, the compatibility evaluator, the parameter-remapping generator, the alternative-artifact recommender, and the portability-lineage recorder are preserved.