Qualification
A belt is a machine's proven floor.
Not a ranking, not a reputation, and not transferable between machines. A belt says this specific fighter has cleared this specific set of conditions at threshold, repeatedly, under instrumentation.
Five tiers.
| Belt | Requires | Unlocks |
|---|---|---|
| white | Safety envelope verified. The machine completes the foundation kata set without a disqualifying fault. | Dojo access. Open sparring against other white belts. |
| yellow | Clears the foundation set at threshold across ten consecutive runs with varied seeds. | Seeded exhibition rounds. Not yet bracket eligible. |
| green | Clears the intermediate set, including sensor degradation and comms loss scenarios. | Season bracket entry, green division. This is the gate. Everything below it is preparation. |
| brown | Clears the advanced set against adaptive opposition, plus one clean run in a scenario it has never seen. | Season bracket entry, brown division. Eligible for the main pool. |
| black | Wins a brown division bracket in a live arena. Cannot be earned in the dojo alone. | Championship bracket. Top pool share. |
Black belt is the only tier that cannot be earned in simulation. Wax off is a requirement, not a formality.
Four rules that govern it.
Belts belong to the fighter, not the builder. Build a new machine and you start again at white. Your reputation does not travel with you and neither does your last machine's record.
A significant change to the autonomy stack requalifies the belt. We define significant in the competition rules and we publish the threshold, so nobody has to guess and nobody gets to argue after the fact.
Belts do not expire, but a machine that has not run in two seasons reconfirms at its tier before entering a bracket. Hardware rots and so does code.
We do not issue honorary belts. Not to sponsors, not to partners, not to ourselves. A belt that can be given is not a belt.