KCAE.SOURCE:4.1 - Preserve the source and describe its provenance

Obtain an immutable source edition or make a permitted snapshot before extracting it. Preserve publisher/collection, document identity, edition, effective interval when relevant, access class and original format. Use a content digest to detect byte changes; retain semantic identity separately so that identical text in different documents is not accidentally merged. A corpus snapshot fixes a set of source editions, not merely the name of a branch that can move.

For a mutable collection, first capture a coherent set through a source-system snapshot or an approved freeze/copy procedure. A manifest computed while files are changing can describe an impossible combination. If the source system cannot provide a coherent snapshot, state the consistency limit and narrow the usable operation; do not label a best-effort crawl as an atomic edition. KCAE.CHANGE develops live and historical reading contracts.