ValueFlows and Holochain Resource-Event-Agent (hREA)

Holochain Resource-Event-Agent (hREA) implements the ValueFlows vocabulary on Holochain. It is the strongest starting point for economic coordination records, but it should not absorb governance, legal authority, or document evidence.

Integration Rule

Use hREA for economic meaning. Use Solidarity Commons Protocol for civic authority, evidence, privacy boundaries, and external-system bridges.

The distinction matters because ValueFlows flows move from recipes and intents to commitments, economic events, claims, and settlements. That vocabulary is a good fit for offers, requests, planned work, fulfilled work, resource transfers, and reciprocal claims. A fiscal-host expense approval also needs roles, agreements, receipts, comments, policy review, and an external accounting or payment record.

Reference Pattern

The protocol should expose an EconomicRef, not copy the whole economic model.

Protocol record	hREA or ValueFlows relationship
Request or offer	May point to a ValueFlows intent.
Approved expense	May point to a commitment or claim.
Reimbursement paid externally	May point to an economic event once the payment is observed.
Procurement match	May connect intents, commitments, and events across organizations.
Stewardship contribution	May point to work, resource use, or transfer events.

What hREA Should Not Own

hREA should not decide who had authority to approve an expense, which fiscal sponsorship agreement applied, whether a receipt was adequate, whether a project stayed inside a restricted fund, or whether a title record is legally valid. Those are protocol, domain, or external-system questions.

Holochain application structure gives this split a practical shape: economic zomes can stay modular, while governance, documents, fiscal-host review, and stewardship records keep their own integrity rules.

First Use In The Prototype

In the fiscal-host expense wedge, hREA should enter after civic approval is legible:

1. The project records who requested the expense and which role approved it.
2. The fiscal host records review status and required evidence.
3. The protocol produces an export manifest for payment or accounting.
4. The economic reference points to the intent, commitment, event, or claim that best matches the approved flow.

This keeps the reviewer from treating an economic event as a substitute for authority.

Research Backlog

• Confirm the current hREA API surface and whether the docs at docs.hrea.io match the active code.
• Decide whether the first prototype stores EconomicRef as plain external references, typed hREA addresses, or adapter-owned references.
• Map the first fiscal-host expense states to ValueFlows intent, commitment, claim, and economic event terms.
• Test whether a mutual-credit scenario needs deeper hREA embedding than an expense workflow.