Paton Compass — Frontier Viability Gate with Tier-8 Compression (Memory-Extended Form) (PC-FVG-T8-M) Mathematical LiDAR with Working Memory for Distance-to-Failure Certification

This record formally defines a new category of method: a non-interfering, tolerance-based viability certificate that (i) measures distance-to-admissibility boundaries relative to a datum, (ii) localises where viability is being exhausted first (frontier detection), and (iii) compresses layered information into a clear admissible path for alignment (Tier-8 compression), optionally augmented by working memory to represent accumulated near-breaches (viability debt). The aim is definition and priority of the framework; empirical benchmarking and domain-specific instantiations are reserved for later versions.