flex-auth/docs/stance-register-review.md

# Stance-register review — the register has a second row

Status: published
Date: 2026-09-06
Standard: `security-layer-model_v0.7` §6.4 obligation 3, §13.1
Reviewer: flex-auth (Engine / PDP)

## Why flex-auth is writing this

In the 2026-08-29 alignment review flex-auth told gate-house it is "the
repository positioned to notice when the aggregate of consumer stances diverges
from what the policy packages say," and then recorded that the claim was sound
but unexercised: §13.1's register existed with **one row**, and one row cannot
diverge from anything.

It now has two. This is that claim being exercised for the first time, and
flex-auth is reporting a divergence it found rather than waiting to be asked.

## The two published maps

| | `ops-warden` | `secrets-engine` |
| --- | --- | --- |
| File | `pep-stance.yaml` | `pep-stance.yaml` |
| Rule of record | `ADR-0009` | `INTENT.md` / `layer.yaml` |
| Protected action | SSH certificate issuance | OpenBao metadata/KV lifecycle and delivery |
| Scope axis | `security-zone` | `catalog-stage` |
| Pinned to code by test | yes (`PolicyConfig.failure_modes`) | yes (`SHIPPED_STANCE`) |

Both are §6.4-conformant. Both are total over their axis, both publish rather
than bury the map, both carry no implicit default, and both are asserted equal
to the shipped value by a test — which is the property that makes a published
map worth relying on at all.

## Finding 1 — the two maps take opposite stances on `unknown`

| | `unknown` |
| --- | --- |
| `ops-warden` | `fail_open` — explicit, versioned build profile, `ADR-0009` |
| `secrets-engine` | `fail_closed` |

Both are defensible and neither is a defect. `ops-warden`'s `unknown` is a
build-profile artifact on a path whose z3 rows are closed; `secrets-engine`
treats an unmapped stage as production-shaped. But the estate's only two
published maps disagree about the case that, by construction, is the one nobody
planned for.

That is the aggregate divergence flex-auth said it would notice. It is reported
as an observation for gate-house's register, **not** as a request that either
repository change. A PDP does not get to set a consumer's stance — §9.3's
two-owner split is flex-auth's own finding and it cuts this way too.

What is worth deciding, and it is gate-house's to decide, is whether §6.4 should
say anything about `unknown` specifically. Today it requires only that the map
be total; totality is satisfied by either answer.

## Finding 2 — the rows are not comparable, and the register cannot say so

`ops-warden` scopes by `security-zone`; `secrets-engine` scopes by
`catalog-stage`, explicitly "the equivalent scope until security-zone
membership arrives as a claim on the decision." §6.4's "per zone or equivalent"
permits both.

The consequence is that the register cannot answer the question an inventory
exists to answer. "What is the estate's stance for a `z2-protected` workload?"
has no answer for `secrets-engine`, because that repository has no zone axis —
and the mapping between a catalog stage and a zone is not published anywhere.

This is a property of the register rather than a fault in either map. It is
worth recording before a third row arrives, because the cost of two
incommensurable axes is small and the cost of five is not.

flex-auth holds a relevant boundary here, unchanged from 2026-08-19: zone
**membership** compiles into the registry snapshot flex-auth already consumes,
while per-zone **stance** belongs to the consumer. If zone membership becomes a
claim on the decision, `secrets-engine`'s axis can converge onto zones without
either side inventing a mapping.

## Finding 3 — `secrets-engine`'s map cites a shelved artifact

`pep-stance.yaml` defines `fail_closed` as "no protected side effect without a
durable access-engine / `ActionAuthorization` record."

`ActionAuthorization` was shelved on the PEP consumption path by
`GH-DEC-2026-005`, which flex-auth accepted in `FLEX-DEC-2026-006` — arguing
against its own proposal. The step-1 artifact is `approval-engine`'s
approval-claim; the step-2 artifact is flex-auth's `DecisionEnvelope`.

The stance itself is unaffected: `fail_closed` still means no protected side
effect without a durable record, and the records exist. Only the name of the
artifact is stale. Because this file is read at runtime and pinned by test, the
stale name is more durable than a comment would be, which is why it is worth a
line rather than being left.

## What flex-auth is not claiming

- No stance is wrong. flex-auth cannot express fail-open at all, and does not
  get to grade a consumer's residue.
- No change is requested of `ops-warden`. Its `unknown: fail_open` is
  documented, versioned, and reasoned.
- This is not a §13.1 register. gate-house owns the register; this is one
  reviewer's reading of the two rows now in it.