Skip to main contentThis page summarizes the design principles stated in the RFC. For normative wording, see: /MRS-Specification-RFC#2-design-principles.
Explicit over implicit
- Musical position is stated, not inferred (beat positions are explicit).
- Voice assignment is declared, not guessed.
Rationale: implicit state can cascade into large misalignments; explicit positions are independently verifiable.
Stable identity over positional reference
- Measures and events carry stable UUIDv7 identifiers.
- Measure numbers are display properties for human navigation, not structural identity.
- All internal references use UUIDs, not measure numbers.
Rationale: positional references break when content is inserted or deleted. UUID references survive structural changes, enabling fluid compositional workflows.
Semantic over visual
- Encode meaning (e.g., crescendo as start/end + type), not visual coordinates.
Rationale: rendering is context-dependent; semantics remain stable across rendering contexts.
Predictable over clever
- Prefer regular patterns to reduce generation and editing errors.
Rationale: consistent syntax improves reliability (especially for machine generation).
Context over isolation
- Working Sets include graduated context rings—surrounding material at reduced detail.
- Agents have synopsis access for global structural awareness.
Rationale: musical decisions are contextual. A countermelody responds to what precedes and follows. Phrase boundaries, harmonic rhythm, and thematic relationships inform compositional choices.
- MRS uses a single syntax (MRS-S) for all operations.
- Working Set Envelopes extract bounded fragments with scope metadata and context.
- Agents receive MRS-S and return MRS-S—no format conversion.
Rationale: maintaining two syntaxes creates parsing complexity, abbreviation ambiguity, and merge conflicts. A single syntax means extraction and replacement are trivial operations.