emergent-security/docs/operational-contracts.md

Operational seams

These are mappings to owner contracts, not replacement APIs. The knowledge CLI performs no live operation. Names below are request vocabulary, not authenticated facts; owners must bind security-relevant fields before a protected effect.

Need	Entry / owner	Required context and evidence	Result and failure route
Local edit/test	Repository instructions and task delegation	Explicit task, resolved non-tenant/tenant scope, relevant envelope, tests	Proceed inside actual delegation; uncertainty to delegator.
Find credential route	warden route find "<need>", ops-warden	Need, target, actor, tenant, purpose	Catalog/runbook pointer; absence to routing/construction owner. No credential retrieved.
Request authority	access-engine POST /v1/check	Its CheckRequest and verified claims; exact subject/action/resource/context	DecisionEnvelope; verify authentic source, binding and lifetime under PEP contract. Outage follows published PEP stance.
Approval fact	approval-engine claim and consume endpoints	Exact action/target/actor/purpose, validity and supersession	Authenticated claim; consume-before-effect where required; never infer from Statehub prose.
Human question	informed-decision	One unsigned memo, exact requested act, packet hashes, distinct drafting/submitter/reviewer identities	Authenticated human disposition and presentation evidence; intake rollout is unfinished (INFD-WP-0005). No answer is not approval.
Guided procedure	runbook-tutorials engine; pack in procedure owner repo	Pack digest, run ID, resolved scope, actual external approval/PDP prerequisites, check/effect evidence	Local progress and evidence; auto-confirm, waivers and seals do not authorize effects. Execution/index remain RBT-WP-0006.
Credential lifecycle	secrets-engine owner catalog	Current decision and approval contracts, stage/targets, evidence	Scoped lifecycle/delivery path over custody backend; missing prerequisite refuses effect.
Identity/user facts	key-cape / user-engine	Authenticated principal, actor, runtime identity; scoped membership	Claims, not authorization; unresolved binding to owner/delegator.
Tenant facts	tenant-engine owner APIs	Tenant identifier, lifecycle, role, plan, guardrail source and freshness	PIP facts; outside platform envelope to platform.
Zone membership	zone-engine offline conformance tools	Explicit declaration, manifest/profile and source lineage	Reference membership evidence only; no live zone authorization endpoint.
Construction	ops-mason approved construction plan	Exact covered effects, structure-only accepted exception, target/digest	Bounded build under owner gate; a new effect class needs a new disposition.
Deployment	Owning Railiance repo and current runbook	Exact environment, provenance, human production decision, rollback/evidence	Owner-mediated deployment; no built-in route in this package.
Root	Human root steward	Bounded recovery case, failed lower-scope paths, expiry and independent evidence	ROOT_AUTHORIZATION_REQUIRED; never agent activation.
Posture	kings-guard	Source events plus completeness limitations	Posture/proposal only; no automatic containment.
Adversarial finding	whitehat-security → risk-nexus → defect owner	Approved engagement for live probes, evidence scope and limitations	Finding/disclosure/repair records; fixtures do not prove production.

Field mapping

Emergent reference	Existing estate meaning / mapping limit
request_id	Correlation with an exact owner request; not proof of authorization or replay validity.
principal	Must distinguish gate-house authority-context principal, actor, and runtime identity; do not flatten them into the model/provider name.
scope.tenant, environment	Authoritative tenant/resource claims, not caller guesses or paths.
scope.level	L0–L4 decision scope; no automatic mapping to SecurityCanon authority modes.
temperature	Local change cost/guarantees; not a security-zone ID or runtime environment.
delegation / risk envelope	Reviewed owner policy and bounded facts; no generic runtime representation is declared here.
reference AUTONOMOUS	Reference test outcome only; not an estate DecisionEnvelope.
evidence / obligations	Owner-defined claim and effect requirements; free-form explanation cannot substitute for verification.
decision lifetime	Access Engine's lifetime.not_before / expires_at; exact source and replay verification remain PEP duties.
replay identity	Consumer uses binding.submitted_request_digest; enriched request_digest is an internal audit identity.
approvals	approval-engine's approval claim plus consume protocol, distinct from the PDP envelope. The composed ActionAuthorization draft is deferred.
negative memory	Reference escalation condition; any operational integration needs a reviewed owner claim/policy mapping. No prompt memory becomes policy.

Authoritative starting points: gate-house docs/contracts/authority-context.md, access-engine docs/decision-record-contract.md and docs/canonical-request-digest.md, approval-engine docs/approval-claim.md and docs/approval-consumption.md, secrets-engine docs/ops-warden-routing-contract.md. Revision-pinned references and digests are in knowledge/sources.yaml.

Known documentation contradictions remain findings. Access Engine's decision contract has old unsigned-channel prose alongside a newer signature field. Do not infer deployed signature enforcement from either paragraph; verify the owner's current decision/signature evidence before consuming live decisions.

Detailed decision/procedure flow, evidence links and current owner dependencies: Decision and runbook integration.