The problem
Temporal Communication Fragmentation occurs when a messaging account’s history becomes irreconcilably split across two or more devices with no synchronization bridge. This isn’t just a sync bug—it’s a structural problem in systems where the ground truth of conversation state is distributed, and the devices can’t re-converge.
The framework
CARTA (Communication Account Reconstruction Triage and Attribution) formalizes what you can and cannot safely reconstruct in this scenario. Instead of guessing or silently dropping messages, CARTA defines a contract:
- Identify what is unambiguously recoverable
- Quarantine what has conflicting interpretations
- Report both to the user with transparency about what was lost and why
The CHAMP-Pipeline is a zero-dependency reference implementation of this contract.
Current status
The manuscript draft is currently in revision. We’re resolving an internal inconsistency in the formal model before submission—specifically around the ordering guarantees when messages arrive out-of-causal-order from the fragmented branches. This is not a minor point: the consistency model is the entire contribution, and it needs to be airtight.
What’s next
- Resolve the formal-model inconsistency
- Finalize manuscript
- Submit for review