An engine for modelling and managing decisions.
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tegwick 6d0dfc8010 State pdp_digest explicitly; decline to publish a vocabulary mapping
flex-auth asked whether this engine should publish an action/target
mapping between the claim binding's vocabulary (secrets.kv.destroy,
{"id": "lane-openbao-root"}) and a policy package's (destroy, lane:...),
since their package makes no cross-check that a claim was approved for
the action being decided.

Answered no. A PIP asserting that one vocabulary's action means
another's would author policy semantics it does not own, over
vocabularies it does not own, and the failure mode is asymmetric: a wrong
mapping silently accepts a claim approved for a different action, which
is worse than no mapping. binding.pdp_digest is the correspondence and
sidesteps vocabulary entirely -- it compares the PDP's own digest to the
PDP's own digest, with no translation by anyone.

Implemented the part that was ours. pdp_digest was emitted only when
recorded, so a consumer could not distinguish "not issued against a
decision" from "we forgot to look". It is now always present and null in
that case, required-but-nullable in the schema, and documented as
something a PEP on a privileged lane must refuse. This engine states the
fact; enforcing the lane's policy stays with the consumer.

Both published examples were already contradicting the updated schema by
omitting the field -- the same fixture-versus-contract defect flex-auth
hit twice this week and that secrets-engine implemented. Fixed both, made
them cover the PDP-bound and unbound shapes so neither is inferred from
the other, and added tests/test_examples.py to validate every example
against the schema so the class cannot recur here. jsonschema added as a
dev dependency.

94 tests pass (6 new).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01TvyJPAaVCGsVheVhcCwNND

Assistant: claude-code
Assistant-Model: opus
Assistant-Process: 411227@bnt-lap001
Assistant-Session: d566f6d3-bcaf-43c3-bc5e-3ddd0f64b535
2026-09-06 09:32:11 +02:00
approval_engine State pdp_digest explicitly; decline to publish a vocabulary mapping 2026-09-06 09:32:11 +02:00
deploy Implement approval engine production readiness 2026-09-02 00:52:04 +02:00
docs State pdp_digest explicitly; decline to publish a vocabulary mapping 2026-09-06 09:32:11 +02:00
examples State pdp_digest explicitly; decline to publish a vocabulary mapping 2026-09-06 09:32:11 +02:00
history Align to security layer model v0.7 and open the engine spine 2026-08-29 11:58:28 +02:00
intakes Record GH-DEC-2026-005; strike the spent G3 revisit trigger 2026-09-06 01:36:03 +02:00
schemas State pdp_digest explicitly; decline to publish a vocabulary mapping 2026-09-06 09:32:11 +02:00
tests State pdp_digest explicitly; decline to publish a vocabulary mapping 2026-09-06 09:32:11 +02:00
workplans State pdp_digest explicitly; decline to publish a vocabulary mapping 2026-09-06 09:32:11 +02:00
.custodian-brief.md chore(consistency): sync task status from DB [auto] 2026-09-06 01:09:55 +02:00
.gitignore Implement the engine spine: claim, outbox, machine, API 2026-08-29 12:52:49 +02:00
.repo-classification.yaml Add repo classification to close C-24/C-35 2026-08-29 14:43:52 +02:00
AGENTS.md Finish approval engine spine 2026-09-01 23:45:48 +02:00
cadence.yaml Finish approval engine spine 2026-09-01 23:45:48 +02:00
Containerfile Implement approval engine production readiness 2026-09-02 00:52:04 +02:00
INTENT.md Finish approval engine spine 2026-09-01 23:45:48 +02:00
layer.yaml Implement the engine spine: claim, outbox, machine, API 2026-08-29 12:52:49 +02:00
Makefile Implement approval engine production readiness 2026-09-02 00:52:04 +02:00
pyproject.toml State pdp_digest explicitly; decline to publish a vocabulary mapping 2026-09-06 09:32:11 +02:00
README.md Harden the PEP harness and KeyCape registration request 2026-09-02 15:46:06 +02:00
SCOPE.md Harden the PEP harness and KeyCape registration request 2026-09-02 15:46:06 +02:00
WORK-RECORDS.md chore(consistency): record decision id for GH-DEC-2026-005 2026-09-06 08:05:00 +02:00

approval-engine

The approval as a durable, authenticated, consumable object — issued before an action, verified at the moment of use, and provably not replayable.

An Engine, role PIP, in the NetKingdom security layer model (statute v0.7, accepted; operative form net-kingdom/SECURITY-COMPANION.md). It answers one question, totally and decidably:

Is this approval valid right now — for this exact action, target, actor, and purpose — and has it already been used?

It does not decide whether the action is permitted. That is access-engine, which stays NetKingdom's only policy decision point. An approval is one input to that decision.

Deliberately small, boring, and strict: atomic supersession and single consumption are what make Canon test T-06 — Approval Replay passable. Flexibility here would be a defect. Graded, evidence-based progression belongs to maturity-engine; the two engines are deliberate opposites.

See INTENT.md and SCOPE.md. Declaration: layer.yaml. Claim: docs/approval-claim.md. Consume: docs/approval-consumption.md. Caller auth: docs/caller-authentication.md. PEP sequence: docs/pep-integration.md. Origin: flex-auth FLEX-DEC-2026-001, raised while assenting to the security layer model.

make test
approval-engine migrate --db approvals.sqlite
approval-engine verify --db approvals.sqlite
approval-engine serve --db approvals.sqlite \
  --jwt-issuer https://auth.netkingdom.local \
  --jwt-audience approval-engine \
  --jwks-url http://key-cape.sso.svc.cluster.local:8080/jwks

POST /v1/approvals/{id}/consume implements GH-DEC-2026-003: the PEP atomically spends the approval before the protected side effect. Same-digest retries are idempotent; a different digest conflicts.

Production operations, caller scopes, audit delivery, and PEP sequencing are documented in docs/storage-operations.md, docs/caller-authentication.md, docs/outbox-contract.md, and docs/pep-integration.md. The checked-in StatefulSet deliberately refuses production startup without a migrated persistent store, KeyCape JWT verification, and authenticated audit delivery.