flex-auth/docs/conformance/security-layer-conformance.md

# Security Layer Model — flex-auth conformance record

> **Derived artifact** (§11). Derives from
> `net-kingdom/canon/standards/security-layer-model_v0.8.md`
> (`status: proposed`, `source_revision: gate-house@516ed4e`).
> Derived at: **2026-09-21**. Maintained by `flex-auth`.

This file exists because `INTENT.md` deliberately does not carry one. The layer
declaration states a **boundary** — flex-auth is Engine / PDP — and a boundary
does not change when the standard text is amended. Conformance state does change,
every revision, and belongs in an artifact that is expected to move and that
carries the version it was derived at.

The split is the standard's own. Its frontmatter: *"`assented_by` records assent
to a BOUNDARY, given at the version named. It is not assent to the current text."*

## Declaration

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Layer | `Engine` |
| Role | `PDP` — the estate's only policy decision point (§6) |
| Declared at | 2026-08-29 |
| Declared by | `FLEX-DEC-2026-001`, `FLEX-DEC-2026-002`, `FLEX-DEC-2026-003` |
| PEP stance | `null` — not PEP-shaped; flex-auth renders decisions and causes no protected side effect |
| Tooling contacts | none — §5 binds Staff; flex-auth holds no Tooling client |

## Assent history

Assent is to the boundary, recorded at the version where it was given.

| Version | Record | Outcome |
| --- | --- | --- |
| v0.4 | `FLEX-DEC-2026-002` | §9.3 contested and upheld |
| v0.6 | `FLEX-DEC-2026-003` | review; §6.4.2, §9.7.2, §17 adopted into v0.7 |
| v0.7 | — | four flex-auth findings adopted |
| v0.8 (`proposed`) | `FLEX-DEC-2026-011` | assent with four findings, all adopted |

## Conformance state at v0.8

**Scope of this record:** one repository, `flex-auth`, which is the §4 row
`access-engine`. §11 binds §4 and flex-auth is in it, so this is an in-scope
record. Stated because a run MUST state its scope (A11, `GH-DEC-2026-017` §4).

**Not conforming on §11, held as a declared gap.** `GH-DEC-2026-018` ruled that
flex-auth is a §4 source of evidence for the decision record and owes an
emission guarantee it did not declare. Recorded in those words, as gate-house
wrote them: flex-auth asked for the unflattering reading, and softening it here
would make the register useless for whoever is next.

§11's four states: conforming, blocked-clean, declared gap, undeclared
violation. flex-auth claims no blocked-clean capability and holds no undeclared
violation it is aware of. Everything below is a declared gap: owner, blocker,
review date.

| # | Gap | Owner | Blocked on | Review |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| G1 | Registry-snapshot digest absent from decision provenance. §9.7.2 promotes it to a conformance prerequisite: a decision that turned on registry content must be replayable from its own record. | `flex-auth` | implementation | `FLEX-WP-0019` |
| G2 | **Emission guarantee declared, not delivered.** Ruled 2026-09-21 (`GH-DEC-2026-018`): flex-auth is the source; custody is never source; `audit-core` confirmed its half and declined the role (`AUDIT-IN-0005`). The per-event-class inventory and classification are **published** in [`cadence.yaml`](../../cadence.yaml) and named from `INTENT.md` (`source_of_evidence: true`, `emission_guarantee`). Five decision classes are load-bearing; `deny`, `redact`, `not_applicable`, `audit_only` are **rare** — heartbeat **and** reconciliation, rate monitoring forbidden; `allow` is **volume** — expected-rate **and** reconciliation. Nothing emits yet: no sender is registered with `audit-core`, no outbox, no heartbeat. | `flex-auth` | outbox + heartbeat implementation, and an `audit-core` sender registration (intake + token lane, per `AUDIT-IN-0002`/`0003`) — `FLEX-WP-0031` | **2026-10-19** |
| G3 | Published stance-register review is stale: written at two register rows, §13.1 now carries five, and its Finding 1 was ruled by v0.8 §6.4 obligation 3. | `flex-auth` | second edition | `FLEX-WP-0029` |

**G2 fails closed.** A stream with no delivered cadence produces no silence
finding, so the failure on its distinguishing case is a **missed detection**,
never a manufactured permission (A-17, §9.6's §8-asymmetry). That is why it can
be held as a gap rather than being a permission. It is still non-conformance,
tracked, and it is not closed by the classification being published: a
declaration of a guarantee nobody delivers is the §9.1 defect this standard
keeps correcting.

**What the classification is.** flex-auth's, published as §11 requires the
source to publish it. `GH-DEC-2026-018` §4 declined to classify on flex-auth's
behalf because §11 forbids inferring class from event name, payload or observed
rate, and that binds a ruling as hard as a runner. A conformance run is supplied
this inventory and must not derive it.

**Atomicity is pending, not waived.** Whether decision-record emission must be
atomic with the decision (§9.4) was expressly left open by `GH-DEC-2026-018`
pending this inventory. It now exists; the question goes to `FLEX-WP-0031`.

## Not gaps

- **No standard version in `INTENT.md`.** Deliberate, enforced by test
  (`internal/layer`), and raised to `gate-house` as `FLEX-WP-0030` B4 in case §11
  should say so generally.
- **Canon says `access-engine`, the repository answers to `flex-auth`.** The
  rename is ruled (`FLEX-DEC-2026-013`) and sequenced (`FLEX-WP-0020`); the
  coordinate is pending, not broken. Raised as B5.

## How this file is kept true

`internal/layer` asserts that `INTENT.md` carries no `standard_version`, names
a `conformance_record` that exists on disk, states `source_of_evidence`, and —
because it is `true` — names an `emission_guarantee` that exists on disk and
classifies every event class, with every rare load-bearing class carrying
heartbeat and reconciliation and forbidding rate monitoring. That is the same property flex-auth
praised in `ops-warden`'s stance map: the published artifact is asserted equal to
the shipped one by test, rather than merely written down. It does **not** assert
the contents below the declaration — a reviewer still has to read this file.