Constraint-Bearing Composability

Constraint-Bearing Composability presents a diagnostic ontology for analyzing how components form valid, reusable, and governable wholes. Rather than treating composability as a binary property, the framework distinguishes aggregation, proposal, formation, compatibility, realization, retention, invariant preservation, component standing, recursive closure, and architectural admissibility. The paper introduces constraint carriage as the allocation of responsibility for realizing and preserving designated invariants across observers, environments, component-intrinsic structures, interfaces, mediators, internal organization, architectures, and constitutional rules. Compositional claims are evaluated relative to a declared disturbance envelope, residual assumptions, evidence, failure conditions, and lifecycle state. The framework separates four judgment layers that are often conflated: a relation may be proposed, a composite may form, the formed composite may or may not be valid, and a governing regime may or may not admit reliance upon it. Standing—the justified eligibility of an object to be treated as a bounded component for a declared purpose—is modeled as a distinct, evidence-dependent status. A configuration-level account explains why individually valid components and locally compatible relations may still produce a globally inadmissible architecture through dependency cycles, authority amplification, privacy leakage, semantic contradiction, resource exhaustion, correlated failure, or hidden environmental assumptions. Worked profiles involving interlocking bricks, evidence modules, and linked datasets demonstrate both successful and failing compositions. The framework complements hierarchy theory, modularity, interface theory, contract-based design, architectural mismatch analysis, and compositional reasoning. It is intended as a cross-domain vocabulary and diagnostic instrument for physical, computational, epistemic, institutional, and economic systems, while leaving domain-specific proof, testing, measurement, certification, and governance to appropriate specialized methods.