ASA-EMulatR Reference Guide > Introduction > Architecture Overview > Chapter 22 – Testing, Validation, and Architectural Compliance > 22.11 Architectural Invariants (Normative)

The following invariants govern the testing, validation, and compliance framework. Violation of any invariant invalidates compliance claims.

Testability: All architectural claims must be testable. An invariant without a corresponding test is aspirational, not proven. Every invariant declared in Chapter 11 must have at least one validation test.

Determinism Required: All compliance testing requires deterministic execution mode. Non-deterministic test results do not constitute compliance evidence.

Exception Precision: Exceptions must be precise. Validation must verify that the faulting instruction is identified exactly, no younger instruction commits, and all prior instructions have completed.

Memory Ordering Provability: Memory ordering guarantees must be provable through targeted tests. Store visibility, barrier semantics, and cross-CPU ordering must be verified by specific test sequences with known expected outcomes.

SMP Repeatability: SMP behavior must be repeatable under deterministic scheduling. A test that produces different results across runs is a failing test, not a probabilistic success.

Privilege Enforcement: Privilege boundary violations must be detected and faulted. No privileged operation may succeed outside PAL mode.

No Regressions: Regressions are unacceptable. Every validated behavior is locked by a regression test. Behavioral changes require explicit justification and test updates.

Deviation Documentation: All deviations from the Alpha AXP specification must be documented with rationale. Undocumented deviations are bugs, not features.

See Also: Chapter 11 - Architectural Invariants (invariant definitions that testing validates).