Structural Persistence Principle (Principle S): Pre-registered Methodology and Empirical Test of a Critical Threshold in Open-Source Systems

Description (Project Overview) This OSF project documents a fully pre-registered research program investigating the existence of a critical threshold of structural coherence in complex open-source software systems. The project follows the Registered Report model and is explicitly divided into two stages: Stage 1 – Protocol: a strictly pre-registered methodological framework defining hypotheses, variables, instrumentation, exclusion rules, and statistical decision criteria prior to any data collection. Stage 2 – Results: the empirical execution of the protocol, reporting results transparently regardless of outcome. The empirical test reported here (Test E) examines whether the relationship between structural coherence and system collapse exhibits a non-linear threshold (phase transition) or remains monotone and continuous. The reported result is a negative but informative null result, obtained under strict no-imputation and traceability constraints. This project aims to reduce publication bias, enforce falsifiability, and provide a reusable methodological template for testing phase-transition hypotheses in socio-technical systems.