What an Active Topology Area Is
An Active Topology Area is a curated region of Civic Topology that organizes developed Issues, Causal Links, Causal Chains, including Feedback Loops, Walkthroughs, and related material around a recurring structural problem or diagnostic question.
Active Topology Areas are curated views through shared topology. They do not own the underlying Issues, Causal Links, Causal Chains including Feedback Loops, Walkthroughs, and the same underlying structure may appear in more than one Area when civic systems overlap.
When an Area Qualifies as Active
A topology area may be considered for Active status when its developed Civic Topology artifacts have enough internal coherence to support a distinct diagnostic question and can be read as a connected structure rather than as a loose collection of candidate material.
Promotion should be based on structural coherence, not a fixed number of Issues, Links, or other artifacts.
Material should ordinarily remain within an existing Active Topology Area when it primarily elaborates that Area’s existing causal structure rather than establishing a distinct diagnostic region.
Active status does not mean the Area is complete. It means the topology is developed enough to function as a stable curated view.
Relationship to Future Topology Areas
Future Topology Areas accumulate provisional material during routine research, Artifact Harvest, Civic Topology Update, and other NS work.
Addition of material to a Future Topology Area does not initiate promotion review.
Promotion is considered only after a Future Area has undergone a separately initiated development pass that clarifies its Issues, Links, Causal Chains including any Feedback Loops, boundaries, overlaps, and diagnostic question.
Completion of that development pass does not require promotion. A Future Area may remain Future, split, merge or reroute into existing topology, retire, or proceed to an Active-status assessment.