Overview
Promise Theory, in the context of information science, is a model of voluntary cooperation between individual, autonomous actors or agents who publish their intentions to one another in the form of promises.
It is a form of labelled graph theory, describing discrete networks of agents joined by the unilateral promises they make.
You may have used Promise Theory concepts without even realizing it. CFEngine, the grandfather of configuration management was one of the first tools to implement these techniques.
Videos
If you prefer a shorter summary of the concepts, here are some videos from the creator of Promise Theory Mark Burgess .
- Promise Theory Part 1
- Promise Theory Part 2
- Promise Theory Part 3
- Promise Theory Part 4
Books
If you prefer to read, there are multiple books available on the subject.
Applications
There are a number of direct applications of Promise Theory in Computer Science. Examples include;
- CFEngine
- Kubernetes
There are some talks that go into more about how to apply Promise Theory directly to other computer science concepts.
- Promise Theory and DevSecOps