Execution without normativity

Abstract: This paper presents a minimal axiomatic theory of deterministic execution and observation. The theory isolates execution structure from any notion of meaning, policy, or governance. It models atomic execution events, an append-only ordered execution stream, and observations that are explicitly non-derivational. The core guarantees are structural determinism of canonical projections, observational non-interference, and replay equivalence under fixed authoritative execution inputs. The theory does not address correctness, semantics, or domain-specific interpretations. Context: This work provides the pre-normative execution substrate for the Deterministic Boundary Layer (DBL) architecture. A companion paper formalizing governed execution on top of this substrate is available separately. A reference implementation is available at https://github.com/lukaspfisterch/dbl-gateway.