An Assmus–Mattson theorem for codes over commutative association schemes

We prove an Assmus–Mattson-type theorem for block codes where the alphabet is the vertex set of a commutative association scheme (say, with s classes). This in particular generalizes the Assmus–Mattson-type theorems for Z₄-linear codes due to Tanabe (Des Codes Cryptogr 30:169–185, 2003) and Shin et al. (Des Codes Cryptogr 31:75–92, 2004), as well as the original theorem by Assmus and Mattson (J Comb Theory 6:122–151, 1969). The weights of a code are s-tuples of non-negative integers in this case, and the conditions in our theorem for obtaining t-designs from the code involve concepts from polynomial interpolation in s variables. The Terwilliger algebra is the main tool to establish our results.