flex-auth/workplans/FLEX-WP-0030-boundary-declaration-cleanup.md

---
id: FLEX-WP-0030
type: workplan
title: "The layer declaration pins a version it should not, and four security-relevant peers do not declare at all"
domain: infotech
repo: flex-auth
status: ready
flavor: review
owner: claude
topic_slug: netkingdom
planning_priority: P1
planning_order: 300
related_workplans:
  - FLEX-WP-0019
  - FLEX-WP-0029
created: "2026-09-21"
updated: "2026-09-21"
state_hub_workstream_id: "abe60f5f-79cc-5857-b9e8-a46bed704279"
---

# FLEX-WP-0030 — Boundary declaration cleanup and estate boundaries review

`INTENT.md` declares `standard_version: "0.7"` in the frontmatter that §11
requires. That conflates two things the standard itself separates. The standard's
own frontmatter says it outright:

> `assented_by` records assent to a **BOUNDARY**, given at the version named.
> It is not assent to the current text.

A layer is a boundary. flex-auth is Engine / PDP whether the standard is at v0.6,
v0.7, v0.8 or v1.0 — the role does not change when the text is amended. Pinning a
version in the boundary declaration makes every standard revision look like it
invalidates the declaration, and generates exactly the churn seen this month:
v0.8 lands, the file still says `0.7`, and a reader cannot tell whether that is
staleness or a deliberate position.

**It is also decorative.** `internal/layer/conformance.go:40` parses
`standard_version` into `Declaration.StandardVersion` and `ValidateDeclaration`
never reads it. The field is enforced by nothing, in a file whose entire purpose
is being mechanically checkable.

## 1. Make the declaration version-agnostic

```task
id: FLEX-WP-0030-T01
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "016ab184-e814-591b-938b-24ff9ace5ede"
```

Owner: `flex-auth`.

- Drop `standard_version` from the `INTENT.md` frontmatter. §11 requires a
  `layer:` key; it does not require a version, and flex-auth's own validator
  does not check one.
- Replace versioned prose references (`security-layer-model_v0.7.md`) with the
  unversioned standard path. `INTENT.md` is declared "aspirational and stable"
  in its own words; a stable file should not carry a number that moves quarterly.
- Move version-scoped conformance state out of `INTENT.md` into a conformance
  record that is *supposed* to move: which version was reviewed, the conformance
  state, and each declared gap with owner, blocker and review date (§11's
  four-state table).
- That split also satisfies §11's derived-artifact rule, which requires a
  derived artifact to name what it derives from **and the version it was derived
  at**. The boundary declaration is not derived; the conformance record is, and
  it is the artifact that should carry the version.
- Keep `internal/layer` green, and decide whether `StandardVersion` stays as a
  tolerated-but-unused field or is removed. Do not leave a parsed field that
  nothing validates without saying which it is.

Gate: `INTENT.md` names no standard version; conformance state is version-stamped
somewhere that is maintained; `go test ./internal/layer/...` passes.

2026-09-21: done. `standard_version` removed; `conformance_record` added. The
test that pinned `0.7` was **inverted rather than deleted** — `internal/layer`
now rejects a version pin in the declaration and requires `conformance_record` to
name a file that exists on disk. `StandardVersion` is kept on the struct
deliberately, documented as must-stay-empty, so a reintroduced pin fails loudly
instead of being silently ignored. Version-scoped state is in
`docs/conformance/security-layer-conformance.md`. Full suite green.

## 2. Update SCOPE.md and assess the gaps

```task
id: FLEX-WP-0030-T02
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "224cd214-7226-5286-9794-a8a6d36c25e5"
```

Owner: `flex-auth`.

`SCOPE.md`'s Current State is accurate but drifting: it says §13.1's register has
**two rows** (it has five — `FLEX-WP-0029` owns that), and it states conformance
as "conforming with one declared gap" without naming where the gap list is
maintained.

Assess and state, per gap: what it is, who owns it, what unblocks it, and when it
is next reviewed. Known candidates:

| Candidate gap | State |
| --- | --- |
| Registry-snapshot digest in decision provenance | declared, `FLEX-WP-0019`, §9.7.2 conformance prerequisite |
| Emission guarantee not declared (see T04 / B3) | **unassessed** — may be a second declared gap |
| Stance-register review stale at five rows | `FLEX-WP-0029` |

Gate: every gap in `SCOPE.md` has an owner and a route; no gap is described only
as a sentence.

2026-09-21: done. Three gaps, each with owner and route. G2 (emission guarantee)
is newly assessed and recorded as a gap rather than as conformance, because the
flattering reading has been asserted by nobody but flex-auth. Register corrected
from two rows to five. All `v0.7` references removed from `SCOPE.md`.

## 3. Publish the boundaries review

```task
id: FLEX-WP-0030-T03
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "7d45a3d6-d4a7-556a-8607-58086f74a998"
```

Owner: `flex-auth`.

Review flex-auth's boundary against every security-relevant repository it names
or is named by, and publish findings as a derived artifact marked with the
version it was derived at. Five findings are already identified in T04; the
review is the durable form of them.

Cover at minimum: `gate-house` (doctrine), `key-cape` (identity claims in),
`ops-warden`, `secrets-engine`, `user-engine`, `tenant-engine`, `zone-engine`,
`approval-engine`, `audit-core`, `maturity-engine`, `kings-guard`, `ops-mason`.

Gate: the review states, for each counterpart, whether the boundary is agreed,
contested, or unstated — and does not record "unstated" as if it were "agreed".

2026-09-21: published at `docs/conformance/boundaries-review.md`, marked derived
and version-stamped. Twelve counterparts. Seven agreed, one agreed-in-substance
but undeclared (`gate-house`), one asserted from one side only (`key-cape`), one
held unilaterally and unconfirmed (`zone-engine`), two unclear (`tenant-engine`
on `CheckRequest.tenant`, `audit-core` on evidence source), one undeclared twice
over (`ops-mason`).

## 4. Raise the conflicting and unclear boundaries for resolution

```task
id: FLEX-WP-0030-T04
status: progress
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "70786e6d-02f2-5a90-8640-247ba377d9a4"
```

Owner: `flex-auth` to raise; the named owner resolves each.

### B1 — nine of nine repositories disagree with themselves across the two §11 forms

**Corrected 2026-09-21.** The first version of this finding said the estate
spelled `layer:` three ways across repositories and named eight as non-conformant
on casing. That was wrong, from an ad-hoc shell survey that took the first
`^layer:` match per repository without recording which file it came from.

Re-run mechanically (`tools/survey_layer_declarations.go`, receipt at
`docs/evidence/2026-09-21-layer-declaration-survey.json`):

| Repositories carrying both §11 forms | 9 |
| --- | --- |
| Of those, forms that disagree | **9 of 9** |
| Shape | `INTENT.md`: `Engine` / `Staff`. `layer.yaml`: `engine` / `staff` |
| Only one form | `flex-auth` — no `layer.yaml`, which is why it cannot exhibit this |

The disagreement is **within** each repository, not across the estate, and it is
universal rather than careless: two generators, two conventions, no repository
mixing them. Nobody is inconsistent with anybody else.

§11 accepts *"a `layer:` key in the `INTENT.md` frontmatter, **or** an equivalent
declaration file"* and does not say which governs when both exist and disagree. A
conformance run reading `INTENT.md` and one reading `layer.yaml` reach different
answers for nine repositories, and both follow §11. That is the finding: not
casing, but an unruled precedence between two permitted forms.

Owner: `gate-house`. Two things would resolve it — which form governs, and
whether the §3 vocabulary is case-sensitive. If it is case-insensitive, the
casing half evaporates and flex-auth's validator is what changes; the precedence
half does not.

### B2 — four security-relevant repositories carry no layer declaration

`gate-house`, `key-cape`, `ops-mason`, and `net-kingdom` have no `layer:` key in
`INTENT.md` and no equivalent declaration file. §11 requires one of every
estate-authored repository in §4, and is explicit that a layer stated *about* a
repository by another repository is not a declaration.

Two matter directly to flex-auth:

- **`key-cape`** is the identity source whose verified claims flex-auth consumes
  as normative input and never redefines. That boundary is load-bearing for
  every decision flex-auth renders, and it is asserted only from flex-auth's
  side.
- **`gate-house`** authors the obligation. A doctrine owner that has not
  discharged its own §11 obligation is the standard's §9.1 defect pointed at
  itself.

`ops-mason` is already marked non-conformant in §13.1 for publishing no stance
map; a missing layer declaration is the same gap one level up.

Owner: each named repository. flex-auth raises, does not grade.

### B3 — flex-auth declares no emission guarantee, and may owe one

§11 requires every repository catalogued in §4 **as a source of evidence** to
declare its emission guarantee — class, cadence, and detection surface — in its
machine-readable layer declaration, and says a source that declares none is not
conforming.

flex-auth produces the decision record, which §17 moved to flex-auth as its own
contract and calls "the one thing in the estate only `access-engine` produces".
flex-auth's frontmatter declares no emission guarantee.

The unclear boundary is whether flex-auth is a §4 *source of evidence* or merely
the producer of an artifact that `audit-core` is the source of. The answer
decides whether this is a second declared gap or nothing at all. flex-auth should
not answer it alone, and should not assume the flattering reading.

Owner: `gate-house` to rule; `audit-core` to confirm which side of the line it
holds.

### B4 — the declaration pins a version the standard says is not part of the boundary

Raised here as the general form of T01, because if flex-auth is right that a
layer declaration should not carry a standard version, the fix belongs in §11 and
not only in flex-auth's file. If §11 wants a version, it should say so and say
what it means when the standard moves.

Owner: `gate-house`.

### B5 — canon names a repository that does not resolve

v0.8 refers to the PDP as `access-engine` throughout (§4 catalog row, §13.1,
§17), while the repository, runtime, namespace, images, and API vocabulary all
remain `flex-auth` per `FLEX-DEC-2026-013`, and the rename has not landed —
`access-engine` raw returns 404, verified 2026-09-20 under `FLEX-WP-0020`.

Neither side is wrong: the rename is ruled and sequenced, and canon named the
end state. But a reader of v0.8 cannot resolve the repository it keeps naming,
and `reuse-surface` already probed the 404 independently. Worth one line in the
standard recording that the coordinate is pending rather than broken.

Owner: `gate-house` to note; `flex-auth` to ping when `FLEX-WP-0020` lands.

Gate: every finding above is sent to its named owner with what would resolve it.
An unanswered finding stays open and is not closed by silence.

2026-09-21: eleven messages sent. `gate-house` (all five findings), `key-cape`
(B2, one-sided identity boundary), `audit-core` (B3, evidence source),
`ops-mason` (B2), `net-kingdom` (B5 plus the vendored-vs-authored question),
`zone-engine` (membership/stance confirmation), `tenant-engine` (the live unclear
boundary, restated with its standing), and B1 as a heads-up to the five affected
engine repos — sent as an estate property, not as a finding against any of them,
since no repository could have discovered it from inside its own checker.

Task stays `progress`: every finding is open until its owner answers. None is
closed by silence.

2026-09-21 (later): **B1 was sent wrong and corrected the same day.** See T05.
Corrections went to `gate-house` and the five engine repositories that received
the original, plus `ops-warden`, `kings-guard` and `audit-core`, who are affected
by the corrected finding and had not been told of the first.

## Out of scope

- Bumping flex-auth to declare v0.8. v0.8 is `status: proposed`; T01 removes the
  version from the declaration entirely, which makes the question moot rather
  than answering it.
- Grading any peer repository's conformance. flex-auth reports what it can
  observe and names the owner; §9.3's two-owner split cuts here too.
- `FLEX-WP-0029`'s stance-register second edition. Adjacent, separately owned.

## 5. Make the survey reproducible

```task
id: FLEX-WP-0030-T05
status: done
priority: high
```

Owner: `flex-auth`.

B1 was found with a shell pipeline and published as a finding. The review it
appeared in had already argued that a mechanical check nobody can re-run is an
assertion — and §11's whole claim is mechanical checkability. Asserting B1
unmechanically was that defect committed by the repository reporting it.

`tools/survey_layer_declarations.go` reads **both** §11 forms for every
security-relevant counterpart, reports intra-repository disagreement, and writes
a JSON receipt. `internal/layer` carries four tests covering the disagreement
case, the refusal to fold case, a missing declaration, and the single-form shape
that must not be reported as disagreeing with itself.

It checks exactly one property — the `layer:` value against the §3 vocabulary as
written — and deliberately does **not** apply flex-auth's own declaration rules
(`pep_stance`, `tooling_contacts`, `conformance_record`) to any other repository.
Grading peers by the surveyor's house rules would be §11's own defect wearing a
tool for a hat.

Running it immediately falsified the finding it was built to reproduce, which is
the argument for building it.

Gate: B1 is reproducible by command, with a receipt, and the correction is
recorded rather than edited away.

2026-09-21: done. Receipt at
`docs/evidence/2026-09-21-layer-declaration-survey.json`.