Phase-Relational Reflective Coordination (PRC): A Bounded Framework for Recoverability-Oriented Coordination in Metastable and Hybrid Adaptive Systems

This work introduces Phase-Relational Reflective Coordination (PRC), a bounded coordination framework designed for adaptive, distributed, and hybrid dynamical systems. The framework emerged from a series of metastable simulations in which improvements in coordination quality, coherence retention, and attunement frequently appeared before measurable improvements in coarse recovery-time metrics. These observations motivated a shift from direct state estimation toward recoverability-oriented coordination. PRC does not attempt to reconstruct hidden system states and does not require direct phase measurement. Instead, it operates through observable indicators such as coherence stress, relational drift, instability pressure, fragmentation, and recovery-tail formation. The objective is not to determine the exact state of a system, but to estimate conditions under which recoverable dynamics may be preserved or restored. The framework is intentionally conservative. It is not presented as a theory of consciousness, a hidden-variable model, a universal controller, or a replacement for error correction and optimal control methods. Rather, it is proposed as a bounded architectural layer whose usefulness can be evaluated through measurable quantities including metastable residence time, recovery probability, coherence retention, recovery-tail dynamics, and coordination cost. The work provides: • an operational definition of Phase-Relational Reflective Coordination (PRC); • a simulation-ready dynamical framework; • explicit assumptions and dissipativity conditions; • a bounded-stability theorem; • falsifiable predictions; • a protocol for comparative evaluation against baseline systems. The framework is intended for exploration in adaptive networks, AI meta-layer architectures, distributed coordination systems, and other environments where recoverability may be more accessible than complete state reconstruction.