audit-core/docs/informed-decision-source-registration.md

# informed-decision source registration

`AUDIT-WP-0009-T11` · intake `AUDIT-IN-0003` · statute §9.6 · rulings
`GH-DEC-2026-012` (limit 3), `GH-DEC-2026-014`, `GH-DEC-2026-013`

The registration inputs for `informed-decision` as a distinct audit source: the
browser-facing approver surface that `approval-engine` deliberately does not
contain. Onboarded under `INTENT.md` principle 4 — declared ownership,
retention, access, export and evidence policy, not merely events arriving.

This file is the owner-side record. Everything in it is non-secret. No sender
token appears here, in Git, in State Hub, or in a workplan.

## Declaration

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Sender name | `informed-decision` |
| Permitted `source` | `informed-decision` (exact; no wildcard) |
| `evidence_kind` | **`load-bearing`** (§9.6 — GH-DEC-2026-012 limit 3 makes the presentation record the independent evidence of a binding act) |
| `completeness_trade` | none, and none is permitted — §9.6 requires emission atomicity of a load-bearing source |
| `may_write` | true |
| `may_read` | false — a source does not gain a read surface by emitting. See the reconciliation note below, which is where the temptation to grant one will come from |
| `secret_policy` | `redact` — accepted as proposed |
| `tenants` | `["tenant:platform"]` — accepted as proposed, with the provenance obligation below |
| Retention | no expiry set; recoverable history is the platform `data.backup` window, 30 days, `measured` |
| Custody class | `operational` — never `archive`, never WORM |

Accepted as proposed on every field. The proposal was correct; the substance of
this record is in what follows it.

## Event classes — one source, not two

Asked directly: is commitment-only content one event class or two, and does it
belong in the same class as other evidence at all.

**One source, distinct `type` values per class.** This is the same shape
`approval-engine` carries for its four §9.4 classes: audit-core stores classes
as actions on one source and derives nothing from them.

| Class | Volume | Why it matters |
| --- | --- | --- |
| presentation | high — one per render | Carries the commitment. The only class carrying a custody declaration |
| disposition | low | **security-relevant** — the binding verb |
| stance application | low | **security-relevant** — what was applied to the act |

A separate sender for the commitment-bearing class was considered and refused.
Two senders would mean two credentials, two tenant scopes and two ingress rules
for one component whose defining property is that the actor and the evidence
source are the same — splitting them makes that single residual look like two
smaller ones. The distinction that matters is per class, and `type` carries it.

Commitment-only content does belong in the same store as other evidence,
because the custody guarantee it receives is the same one and no stronger. What
differs is what may be claimed of it, and that is stated below rather than
encoded in a separate class.

## GH-DEC-2026-014 limit 3: can this fabric carry it?

Gate House asked whether a source-held-content declaration with a retrieval
expectation is a thing the record shape can carry today, and asked for a
straight answer rather than a rule nobody can meet.

**It can carry the declaration. It cannot itself detect non-production.** Both
halves are load-bearing; neither should be read without the other.

**What is carried.** `data` is an arbitrary structured object stored verbatim,
normalized into the envelope's `details.data`, appended under the trigger and
linked into the hash chain like every other field. `content_exists` and
`custody` therefore need no schema change, no new column and no new surface.
Once stored, the chain detects any later alteration or truncation of them
exactly as it does for the commitment digest itself. So the declaration is as
tamper-evident as the thing it accompanies, which is the property the condition
needs — a custodian cannot quietly retract the assertion that content existed.

**What is not delivered, and must not be inferred.** audit-core performs no
retrieval. It holds no client for `informed-decision`, and its egress policy
permits Postgres and DNS and nothing else (`deploy/networkpolicies.yaml`) — the
new ingress rule adds no egress. So audit-core never learns whether a custodian
would in fact produce the content, and raises no finding when it would not.
Non-production becomes detectable **at retrieval, by the reviewer**, and the
stored declaration is what makes it a finding rather than a blank: the reviewer
holds a chained, timestamped statement that content existed and where custody
sat, so failure to produce is attributable to the named custodian. That is the
condition met in the form audit-core can honestly meet it.

**The residual, stated rather than left to be found.** A custodian that never
held the content can emit a false `content_exists`. audit-core validates the
declaration's shape, never its truth. This is the same class of defect as
omission at source — the archive cannot retrofit a property the boundary did
not have — and it is not closed by the chain, by attestation, or by T04/T06. It
narrows to this: the declaration converts an unattributable absence into an
attributable false statement, which is strictly better and is not the same as
proof.

**One design consequence for the emitter.** `secret_policy: redact` scans
`data`. If the `custody` locator is ever secret-shaped — a token in a URL, a
path that trips the scanner — it will be redacted out and the declaration will
reach the store without its pointer. The redaction is recorded in
`details.redaction.paths`, so this fails visibly rather than silently, but the
locator should be a stable non-secret identifier resolved by the custodian, not
a credentialed URL. Under commitment-only the exposure is small by
construction, as informed-decision observed; the custody field is the one place
that stops being true.

## Cadence: the shape for a mixed-volume source

Asked whether reconciliation per class as primary, plus heartbeat for the
low-volume classes, is right. **Yes, with one refinement and one bound.**

**Refinement — both are per class, not per source.** A per-source heartbeat
from a component emitting one presentation per render is nearly worthless: it
is satisfied by the high-volume class and says nothing about a quiet month of
dispositions. Heartbeat must be scoped to the low-volume classes individually,
carrying a *nothing to report* assertion for that class. Likewise reconciliation
counts must be keyed `(source, class, window)`, which is the shape
`AUDIT-WP-0009-T06` is being built to.

The high-volume class needs reconciliation too, and rate alone is not a
substitute for it. Rate monitoring detects a stream stopping; it does not detect
a stream missing the particular renders that mattered.

**The bound, which matters more here than for approval-engine.** Reconciliation
compares audit-core's counts against counts the source computes from its own
state. Where the threat is a compromised emitter — and GH-DEC-2026-012 limit 3
exists precisely because here the actor and the evidence source are one
component — a compromised `informed-decision` suppresses the event and its own
count together, and reconciliation agrees. Heartbeat inherits the same weakness:
a compromised source emits a truthful-looking *nothing to report*.

So reconciliation and heartbeat cover loss, accident, outage and drain failure,
which is most of what actually goes wrong. They do not cover the residual
informed-decision already declares and should not be described as covering it.
Nothing audit-core can build closes that; it needs an observer independent of
the emitter, which is out of scope here (§16).

**Sequencing.** T04 and T06 are open. informed-decision may declare this cadence
now and must not describe it as operating until they land — which is exactly
what the intake proposed, and is the right handling.

## Tenant provenance

`tenant:platform` is accepted. informed-decision notes that under
`GH-DEC-2026-013` the value arrives by the declared-gap route
(registration-bound rather than directory-sourced) and asks whether the
registration or envelope inherits the obligation to record which route it came
by.

**Not in this envelope, and here is why.** audit-core's `tenant` is not an
asserted identity claim it resolves; it is a value the credential is *permitted
to write*, checked by exact string equality against this registration. The
provenance question — how a principal came to hold `tenant:platform` — is a
property of the token issuer's claim, and recording a route in the audit event
would be audit-core restating something it did not observe. That is the same
error as claiming an event occurred.

Where it does land is here, in the registration record, which is the document
that says why this sender may write this tenant. Recorded: the scope is exact,
single-valued, and its authority is `GH-DEC-2026-013`'s bounded gap rather than
a populated directory record. If the gap closes and the terminal
directory-sourced shape lands, this entry should be revisited rather than
assumed still correct.

## Applied in this repository

| Input | Where |
| --- | --- |
| Non-secret scope | `deploy/senders-scope.json` + `deploy/senders-scope.yaml` (lockstep) |
| Receiver ingress | `deploy/networkpolicies.yaml`, `audit-core-informed-decision-ingress` |
| Evidence kind in the model | `audit_core/senders.py`, `SenderIdentity.evidence_kind` |

The scope overlay only applies to a sender the Secret already carries, so this
entry is **inert until the token exists** — asserted by test, not by reading.
The ingress rule ANDs namespace and pod label in one `from` peer.
`user-engine`'s and `approval-engine`'s policies are unchanged.

## Still owed by others

| Input | Owner | Note |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Sender token, custody path via `warden route` | OpenBao (`railiance-platform`) | audit-core never holds or transports it |
| Protected registry entry with explicit `secret_policy: redact` | `railiance-platform` | The overlay deliberately does not override `secret_policy`; provisioning must set it |
| Applying the manifests to `railiance01` | operator | audit-core does not apply cluster changes unprompted |
| The `content_exists` / `custody` fields on the emitted payload | `informed-decision` | audit-core carries them; it does not require, validate or dereference them |

## What Audit Core will and will not claim about this stream

**Will:** every event it accepted is stored append-only, and the hash chain
detects alteration or truncation of what it received — including of the
`content_exists` and `custody` declarations.

**Will not:** that the archive proves a presentation occurred, or that the
absence of one proves it did not. And specifically, per GH-DEC-2026-014:
audit-core will not describe a commitment-only record as satisfying
**reconstructability**. It satisfies non-alteration of the commitment. About
what was committed to it establishes nothing, except conditionally — if a
document is later produced, whether it is the one. No conformance claim, ITC-CAP
case, or `docs/integrity.md` statement may say otherwise.