Abstract: We present an operational and falsifiable methodology for testing whether an open system exhibits coordination dynamics consistent with a low-dimensional metastable organization. The method is deliberately conservative: it treats phase coordination as a reduced description extracted from measured time-series and it does not infer semantic meaning from synchroniza- tion alone. Paper I motivates metastable information persistence via an effective energetic stability scale κ and open-system constraints; Paper II provides the coordination-dynamics template via noisy coupled-oscillator models with explicit guardrails and falsifiers. Here we provide (i) an explicit assumption ledger, (ii) a measurement-to-phase pipeline with admissi- bility gates, (iii) falsifiable prediction sets (coupling thresholds, noise-assisted non-monotonic response, dephasing suppression, and bounded effective complexity), (iv) a minimal reporting checklist, and (v) a proof-of-protocol demonstration template with mandatory surrogate baselines. The framework is substrate-agnostic and designed to be rejected at multiple stages if operational conditions fail. This preprint provides a conservative, falsifiable measurement-to-model pipeline for detecting metastable coordination in open systems, including mandatory surrogate controls and decision criteria. It standardizes phase extraction, null ensembles, and minimal model identification to make coordination claims auditable and reproducible.
André Kappe (Mon,) studied this question.