# Public Documentation Boundary

Black Pearl Market's public documentation is designed for users, traders, integrators, and ecosystem participants. It explains protocol behavior, user flows, smart contract verification, safety practices, and public API usage.

Internal operator runbooks, non-public configuration, infrastructure topology, credential-handling procedures, and privileged service operations are intentionally not published.

## What Public Docs Include

* user guides;
* public PEARL-side settlement design;
* HTLC-style settlement and Taproot lock-release behavior;
* protocol lifecycle;
* verified contract addresses;
* fee model;
* claim, cancel, and refund behavior;
* Bot-Assisted and Human-Confirmed Orders;
* referrals and leaderboard;
* PEARL ecosystem alignment;
* public API surfaces;
* safety and scam prevention;
* official links and social channels.

## What Public Docs Exclude

* production environment variables;
* sensitive credential variable names;
* privileged service configuration;
* bot credential setup;
* internal service topology;
* full database schemas;
* backup and restore runbooks;
* non-public filesystem locations;
* privileged API surfaces;
* operator incident response details.

## Why This Matters

This boundary protects users and the protocol by reducing unnecessary information exposure while keeping public behavior transparent.

Users can still verify the escrow contract, understand the settlement lifecycle, follow claim and refund rules, use official links, and interact with public APIs. Operators use private documentation for sensitive infrastructure work.

The PEARL HTLC settlement model is public protocol design. It belongs in the public docs because users and developers should understand how known buyer outputs, wallet-secured secrets, Taproot signatures, EVM escrow state, and claim/refund paths work together.


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