# Pacts

The **six Pacts** (REQ-020) are the contract shapes a Nomad encounters on
the mesh. A Pact is a typed, mission-locked agreement between parties; the
core terms of the Pause, Ground, and Stance Pacts are **non-amendable** —
no Council can rewrite them after the fact. A Nomad mostly interacts with
Pacts through [Maps & Pay](maps-pay.md) and the [Window](window.md)
primitive, but it helps to know what each one is.

## The six Pacts

| Pact | What it does for a Nomad |
|---|---|
| **Pause** | A temporary hold. A Nomad can pause a recurring payment or a Window without voiding it; the Pause core terms are non-amendable. |
| **Ground** | A baseline obligation the mesh enforces by default — the "ground rules" between a Nomad and a service operator. Non-amendable. |
| **Stance** | A stated position a party commits to (e.g., a service operator's Stance on jurisdiction-light operation). Non-amendable. |
| **Cover** | A flat commitment a Stand or a Partner offers to cover a Nomad against a defined failure; a Nomad reads Cover when choosing a service. |
| **Stand Registry** | The registry of the nine [Stand](../shared/storage-pools.md) types (Household, Crew, Entity, Co-op, Circle, Trust, Foundation, Confederation, Shadow) a Nomad can join. |
| **Hub API** | The B2B backbone (preview of v0.3 P5) — the Hub Pact exposes custody, a lending primitive, and compliance to service operators. A Nomad sees the Hub through Maps, not directly. |

## What a Nomad actually does with Pacts

A Nomad does not draft Pacts by hand. The flow is:

1. **Find** a service on [Maps & Pay](maps-pay.md).
2. The service's terms are backed by one or more Pacts (e.g., a recurring
   payment is a Pause-able Window; a Stand's service is registered in the
   Stand Registry).
3. The Nomad **authorizes** a [Window](window.md) scoped to those terms.

## Mission Lock

The Pause, Ground, and Stance core terms are mission-locked: a `const`
flag in the Pact module marks them non-amendable, and an invariant test
asserts that flag can never flip. A Nomad can rely on the ground rules
not changing. See [Six Principles](../shared/six-principles.md) for the
mission-lock covenant.

See [Window](window.md) for the delegation primitive the Pacts are
delivered through, and [Standing](standing.md) for how a service
operator's history is measured.