A Minimal Metric for Dynamic Conversational Coherence

This record contains the preprint and reference software associated with the paper “A Minimal Metric for Dynamic Conversational Coherence”. The work introduces a minimal, model-agnostic metric for conversational coherence, defined as a dynamic, turn-by-turn signal C(t) that tracks alignment between conversational turns and an evolving contextual representation. The proposed metric is designed to be temporally sensitive, interpretable, and computable online. Rather than treating coherence as a static or aggregate property, it models coherence as a structured temporal process, allowing the identification of stable alignment, breakdowns, and gradual repair phases. The accompanying software provides a fully reproducible reference implementation of the metric, together with example data and figures. The work is intended as methodological and infrastructural, offering a minimal operational definition of dynamic conversational coherence without modeling speaker intention, pragmatic reasoning, or cognitive state.