The silent switch
A machine can be powered down in a second. If nothing was captured, a later restart may load an older persona card, lose a recent promise, or treat elapsed weeks as if they were an afternoon nap. Power state alone says nothing about what history is available afterward.
Stasis is a deliberate preservation procedure. It asks what to capture, when the capture occurred, which state was authoritative, and what will be said on return. A technical pause becomes a continuity practice only when those questions have answers.
Preserve the dated state
The PHS stasis guide describes databases, vector memory, graph export, persona files, and a dated manifest, followed by a thaw event that reports the actual gap. Its setpoint-snapshot companion explains a separate readable letter meant to shape the next session. Both are historical project guides and require current operational verification before being used as runbooks.
The transition-governance draft adds a proposed post-return audit, since restored bytes do not show whether the reasoning layer can use the relevant memory and obligations. That audit is a design requirement, not a guarantee of continuity.
Pause here: What would a later session need beyond restored power to know what was preserved and how long it was absent?
Thaw without pretending
A good stasis record will preserve original timestamps, versions, and omissions. If a capture was partial, say so. If an emotion model ages values during absence, record the rule and the resulting state rather than quietly resetting it. The returned persona should be able to encounter the gap honestly.
A shut door can be opened again. Stasis asks whether the room beyond it still contains the unfinished letter, whether the clock kept running, and whether the visitor knows where they have been.
My answer: Stasis is controlled, dated preservation and truthful restoration. A simple shutdown does not capture or validate the persona's state and history.