WebMEM™

The Protocol for Structuring, Delivering, and Conditioning Trust-Scored AI Memory on the Open Web

EligibilityFragment

Part of the WebMEM® Protocol
Fragment Class: EligibilityFragment
Location: /protocol/fragments/eligibilityfragment/
Status: Current Draft
Last Updated: 2026-08-24

Overview

An EligibilityFragment is a WebMEM fragment class for publishing structured eligibility requirements, qualification criteria, and conditional access rules associated with a defined program, benefit, service, product, or other opportunity.

Each EligibilityFragment establishes the subject to which eligibility applies, the criteria that determine eligibility, and the logic or relationships necessary to interpret those criteria within a defined context.

Unlike a DataFragment, which represents source-observed facts, or a PolicyFragment, which represents authoritative policies or rules, an EligibilityFragment represents the conditions under which an entity or person qualifies for, has access to, or is eligible for something.

The fragment makes those conditions explicit so that eligibility knowledge can be interpreted, traced to its source, related to other WebMEM knowledge objects, and incorporated into machine resolution without requiring the eligibility logic to be reconstructed from prose.

Semantic Purpose

The semantic purpose of an EligibilityFragment is to state:

These are the conditions that determine eligibility for this program, benefit, service, product, or other defined subject.

An EligibilityFragment may establish:

  • the program, benefit, service, product, or opportunity to which eligibility applies;
  • the entity or context governing eligibility;
  • required qualification criteria;
  • thresholds or qualifying values;
  • geographic requirements;
  • age, income, status, condition, membership, or other applicable requirements;
  • conditional relationships among criteria;
  • exceptions or alternative qualification paths;
  • defined terms required to interpret eligibility criteria;
  • policies or rules governing eligibility;
  • and provenance supporting the eligibility requirements.

The EligibilityFragment preserves these requirements as one coherent eligibility knowledge object.

EligibilityFragment Within an SDT

An EligibilityFragment exists as one modular knowledge object within a Semantic Data Template (SDT).

The relationship is:

Web Resource → SDT → EligibilityFragment → Eligibility Criteria

An SDT may contain one EligibilityFragment or multiple EligibilityFragments when different programs, products, services, populations, jurisdictions, or qualification paths require independent representation.

An EligibilityFragment may also reference other fragments within the SDT when eligibility depends on facts, policies, definitions, directories, procedures, or other structured knowledge.

This allows eligibility rules to remain independently identifiable while participating in the larger machine representation of the resource.

EligibilityFragment Requirements

A conforming EligibilityFragment should establish enough information to identify what eligibility applies to and how the applicable criteria are evaluated.

Element Purpose
Fragment Class Identifies the knowledge object as an EligibilityFragment.
Fragment ID Provides a stable identifier for the EligibilityFragment within the published knowledge structure.
Eligibility Subject Identifies the program, benefit, service, product, or other subject for which eligibility is being defined.
Criteria Identifies the conditions, requirements, thresholds, or qualifications governing eligibility.
Logic Model Expresses the conditional relationships required to determine how the eligibility criteria apply.
Context Establishes geographic, temporal, jurisdictional, programmatic, or other scope required to interpret the eligibility requirements.
Provenance Identifies or references the source and lineage supporting the eligibility criteria and logic.

Additional information may be included when required by the program, domain, policy model, entity model, relationship model, or applicable conformance profile.

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility criteria identify the conditions that must be evaluated when determining whether the eligibility requirements are satisfied.

Criteria may include:

  • income thresholds;
  • age requirements;
  • residency requirements;
  • geographic service areas;
  • program enrollment status;
  • disability status;
  • diagnosed conditions;
  • household characteristics;
  • citizenship or other legally defined status;
  • provider or network relationships;
  • membership requirements;
  • dates or enrollment periods;
  • or other qualifying conditions appropriate to the subject.

Criteria should be represented explicitly enough that their meaning and relationship to the eligibility determination can be understood without reconstructing the rule from surrounding prose.

Logic Model

An EligibilityFragment requires a logic model when multiple criteria must be evaluated together to determine eligibility.

The logic model expresses the known relationship among those criteria.

It may include:

  • required conditions;
  • logical conjunctions such as AND;
  • logical alternatives such as OR;
  • threshold comparisons;
  • conditional branches;
  • exceptions;
  • alternative qualification paths;
  • and fallback outcomes.

The purpose of the logic model is to expose the publisher’s known eligibility structure explicitly. It does not require a consuming system to execute the logic or make an eligibility determination.

Example EligibilityFragment

The following simplified example represents eligibility requirements for a public benefit using the current WebMEM HTML serialization.

<template
  data-webmem-fragment
  data-fragment-class="EligibilityFragment"
  data-fragment-id="eligibility-example-benefit">

  <section
    data-entity-type="PublicBenefit"
    data-entity-id="program:example-benefit"
    data-provenance-ref="#provenance-example-program">

    <h3 data-role="program">
      Example Benefit Program
    </h3>

    <div data-role="criteria">

      <div
        data-criterion="monthly_income"
        data-operator="less-than"
        data-value="2000"
        data-unit="USD">
        Monthly income must be less than $2,000.
      </div>

      <div
        data-criterion="residency"
        data-operator="equals"
        data-value="true">
        Applicant must satisfy the program's residency requirement.
      </div>

    </div>

    <div data-role="logic-model">

      <div data-role="if" data-operator="and">

        <meta
          data-requires="monthly_income"
          content="true">

        <meta
          data-requires="residency"
          content="true">

        <span data-role="then">
          Eligible
        </span>

      </div>

      <div data-role="else">
        Not eligible
      </div>

    </div>

  </section>

</template>

The fragment establishes that:

  • the knowledge object is an EligibilityFragment;
  • the fragment has a stable identity;
  • the program to which eligibility applies is explicitly identified;
  • the individual eligibility criteria are explicitly represented;
  • the relationship among those criteria is represented by a logic model;
  • the resulting eligibility outcomes are distinguished from the criteria themselves;
  • and provenance supporting the requirements can be resolved through the referenced provenance object.

Multiple Qualification Paths

Eligibility does not always depend on a single set of conditions.

An EligibilityFragment may represent multiple qualification paths when a program allows different combinations of criteria to establish eligibility.

For example:

<div data-role="logic-model">

  <div data-role="qualification-path" data-path="1">
    <meta data-requires="service_area" content="true">
    <meta data-requires="qualifying_condition" content="diabetes">
  </div>

  <div data-role="qualification-path" data-path="2">
    <meta data-requires="service_area" content="true">
    <meta data-requires="dual_eligibility" content="true">
  </div>

</div>

Each path should preserve the conditions that apply to that path without implying that requirements from one path automatically apply to another.

EligibilityFragment and PolicyFragment

EligibilityFragment and PolicyFragment are closely related but serve different semantic purposes.

PolicyFragment EligibilityFragment
Represents an authoritative policy, rule, requirement, or restriction. Represents the conditions that determine whether eligibility requirements are satisfied.
Answers: What rule or policy applies? Answers: Under what conditions is this entity or person eligible?
May establish the authority underlying an eligibility requirement. May reference the policy from which its eligibility criteria originate.
Primarily represents the governing rule. Primarily represents qualification logic.

An EligibilityFragment should reference the applicable PolicyFragment when eligibility criteria originate from a policy represented elsewhere within the SDT.

EligibilityFragment and DirectoryFragment

A DirectoryFragment may identify programs, products, providers, services, or other entries for which eligibility rules apply.

An EligibilityFragment can represent the qualification criteria associated with one or more of those directory entries.

For example:

Directory Entry → EligibilityFragment → Qualification Criteria

This allows the directory to remain focused on the entities available within a context while the EligibilityFragment preserves the rules determining whether a particular entry applies.

EligibilityFragment and DataFragment

Eligibility logic may depend on factual values represented elsewhere in an SDT.

For example, an eligibility rule may depend on:

  • a geographic identifier;
  • an age;
  • an income value;
  • a program status;
  • a service-area designation;
  • or another source-observed fact.

Those factual values may be represented by Machine Fact Objects within a DataFragment, while the EligibilityFragment represents the logic governing how those facts affect qualification.

This preserves the distinction between the facts being evaluated and the eligibility rules that evaluate them.

EligibilityFragment and Defined Terms

Eligibility criteria often depend on terminology whose meaning is established by law, regulation, policy, program guidance, or another domain-specific authority.

An EligibilityFragment may therefore reference DefinedTermFragment objects for terms whose precise meaning is necessary to interpret the eligibility rules.

Examples may include:

  • household income;
  • service area;
  • dual eligibility;
  • qualifying disability;
  • institutional status;
  • or other domain-specific eligibility concepts.

Explicit term relationships help preserve the intended meaning of eligibility criteria without requiring definitions to be duplicated inside every EligibilityFragment.

EligibilityFragment and Relationships

An EligibilityFragment may participate in explicit relationships with other WebMEM knowledge objects.

For example, an EligibilityFragment may relate to:

  • a PolicyFragment establishing the governing rule;
  • a DataFragment containing facts evaluated by the eligibility criteria;
  • a DefinedTermFragment defining terminology used in the criteria;
  • a DirectoryFragment containing the program, service, or product to which eligibility applies;
  • a ProcedureFragment describing how to apply or enroll;
  • an ExplainerFragment explaining the eligibility requirements;
  • or another EligibilityFragment representing a related or alternative qualification path.

These relationships allow eligibility logic to remain a focused knowledge object while connecting it to the broader knowledge necessary to interpret and apply it.

Read the Relationships specification →

EligibilityFragment and Resolution

EligibilityFragments can participate in machine resolution when qualification criteria help narrow a broader set of possibilities toward the programs, products, services, or resources applicable within a particular context.

A resolution path may take the form:

Program → EligibilityFragment → Criteria → Applicable Outcome

or:

Directory Entry → EligibilityFragment → Qualification Path → Applicable Resource

or:

Known Facts → EligibilityFragment → Matching Eligibility Conditions → Program

The EligibilityFragment publishes the qualification knowledge. It does not require the consuming system to execute the rules, determine a person’s eligibility, or take an action.

Where eligibility participates in a broader resolver surface, the resolver may use or reference the EligibilityFragment as one component of the resolution path.

Read the WebMEM Resolution Model →

Provenance

An EligibilityFragment should preserve the evidentiary and authoritative basis for the eligibility requirements it publishes.

Provenance may identify:

  • the statute, regulation, policy, program documentation, dataset, or other source establishing the eligibility requirements;
  • the organization or authority responsible for the requirements;
  • the canonical source location;
  • publication, effective, or revision dates;
  • retrieval or access dates;
  • version information;
  • jurisdiction or program scope;
  • guidelines or interpretive documentation;
  • and other lineage information necessary to establish the origin and applicability of the eligibility rules.

When different criteria originate from different authorities or sources, the provenance model should preserve those distinctions rather than implying a single source for the entire eligibility structure.

Read the Provenance specification →

Conformance

A conforming EligibilityFragment must:

  • identify itself as an EligibilityFragment;
  • have an identifiable fragment scope;
  • identify the program, benefit, service, product, or other subject to which eligibility applies;
  • identify the criteria governing eligibility;
  • represent the logical relationships among criteria when those relationships are required to interpret the eligibility requirements;
  • preserve applicable geographic, temporal, jurisdictional, or other contextual scope;
  • identify or reference provenance supporting the eligibility requirements;
  • preserve relationships to governing policies or defined terms when those relationships are necessary to interpret the criteria;
  • and conform to the applicable WebMEM serialization requirements.

An EligibilityFragment represents published eligibility knowledge. Conformance does not imply that a consuming system is capable of making an authoritative eligibility determination.

Relationship to WebMEM 1.x

The EligibilityFragment class originated in the WebMEM 1.x Semantic Data Template specification and remains a defined fragment class in the current WebMEM Protocol.

Earlier specifications described EligibilityFragment as a structured mechanism for agentic eligibility evaluation and associated it with retrieval hints, memory cues, glossary alignment, semantic digests, and AI-driven eligibility outcomes.

The current protocol preserves the semantic purpose of the class while separating that purpose from retired WebMEM 1.x memory, retrieval, digest, and agent-execution mechanisms.

The required logic model remains central to the class where eligibility depends on conditional evaluation. The current protocol clarifies that the logic model represents the publisher’s explicit eligibility rules; it does not prescribe how a consuming system must execute those rules or imply that the system can make an authoritative eligibility determination.

The current protocol also makes explicit how EligibilityFragment participates in machine resolution by connecting programs, services, products, policies, known facts, and qualification criteria to applicable outcomes or resources.

EligibilityFragment continues to represent the structured conditions and logic that determine eligibility for a defined program, benefit, service, product, or other opportunity.

Related Protocol Documents