diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 2d986de..5752e4a 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -170,6 +170,8 @@ gate-house asserts an invariant
 | [`INTENT.md`](INTENT.md) | why this repository exists; the re-cut in full |
 | [`SCOPE.md`](SCOPE.md) | in scope / out of scope |
 | [`spec/ActiveSecretsManagementCanon_v0.3.md`](spec/ActiveSecretsManagementCanon_v0.3.md) | the working canon — invariants, controls, profiles, assurance tests |
+| [`docs/contracts/authority-context.md`](docs/contracts/authority-context.md) | normative authority-context vocabulary consumed by access-engine |
+| [`docs/adr/`](docs/adr/) | architecture decisions for Gate House doctrine and contracts |
 | [`ArchitectureBlueprint.md`](ArchitectureBlueprint.md) | architecture; **predates the re-cut and is being revised** |
 | [`decisions/decisions.md`](decisions/decisions.md) | decision records — start with GH-DEC-2026-001 |
 | [`history/`](history/) | reference notes; the 2026-08-28 review is the origin of the current shape |
diff --git a/docs/adr/ADR-001-canonical-authority-context-contract.md b/docs/adr/ADR-001-canonical-authority-context-contract.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..48efcb2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/adr/ADR-001-canonical-authority-context-contract.md
@@ -0,0 +1,83 @@
+# ADR-001 — Canonical authority context contract
+
+**Repository:** gate-house  
+**Status:** accepted  
+**Date:** 2026-09-01  
+**Workplan:** GH-WP-0001-T04
+
+## Context
+
+Gate House owns the vocabulary of an agentic authority request, while
+access-engine is NetKingdom's only policy decision point. The surviving
+`ArchitectureBlueprint.md` material named the required concepts, but left them
+inside an obsolete canonical authorization-request example that also portrayed
+Gate House as an in-path service.
+
+Without a standalone contract, consumers can collapse identity roles, infer an
+operating mode, treat caller-supplied context as verified fact, or implement
+incompatible field meanings. Conversely, prescribing an access-engine API or
+executable policy schema here would recreate the Staff/Engine boundary error
+resolved by GH-DEC-2026-001.
+
+## Decision
+
+Gate House publishes
+[`authority-context.v1`](../contracts/authority-context.md) as a logical claims
+contract.
+
+The contract defines eight claims:
+
+1. principal;
+2. actor;
+3. runtime identity;
+4. tenant;
+5. environment;
+6. mandate;
+7. task;
+8. operating mode.
+
+It defines their meanings, source and binding expectations, mode-specific
+requiredness, fail-closed conditions, evidence obligations, and versioning.
+
+The contract is deliberately not a wire format, token, API, policy package, or
+runtime resolver. Access-engine owns those representations and the
+deterministic interpretation of the context alongside verified identity
+claims, action, resource, approval, posture, and other policy inputs.
+
+No field grants authority by being present. Caller assertion and authoritative
+evidence must remain distinguishable, and security-critical resolution failure
+fails closed.
+
+## Consequences
+
+- Access-engine has a stable semantic target without Gate House taking a
+  runtime position.
+- Identity, tenancy, zone, and mandate sources remain owned by their respective
+  authorities; this contract only says what access-engine must be able to
+  express and bind.
+- Transport-specific schemas may differ, but their mappings must preserve the
+  logical claims and invariants.
+- New authorization-significant claims, modes, or semantic changes require a
+  new contract version and Gate House review.
+- The obsolete Blueprint example remains historical input until GH-WP-0001-T05
+  revises that document; this contract is the current authority-context record.
+
+## Alternatives rejected
+
+### Publish a Gate House `/authorize` schema
+
+Rejected because Gate House is Staff and holds no request-time position.
+Owning an endpoint or executable decision schema here would contradict
+GH-DEC-2026-001 and INV-02.
+
+### Let each consumer infer the vocabulary
+
+Rejected because principal/actor collapse, mode ambiguity, and unverified
+caller context are precisely the semantic failures the doctrine must prevent.
+
+### Put every claim into a credential
+
+Rejected because credentials are implementation artifacts of authorization,
+not the source of authority. The context need only remain linked across the
+authoritative systems and decision evidence.
+
diff --git a/docs/adr/ADR-002-principal-actor-runtime-identity-model.md b/docs/adr/ADR-002-principal-actor-runtime-identity-model.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7782cf2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/adr/ADR-002-principal-actor-runtime-identity-model.md
@@ -0,0 +1,82 @@
+# ADR-002 — Principal, actor, and runtime identity model
+
+**Repository:** gate-house  
+**Status:** accepted  
+**Date:** 2026-09-01  
+**Workplan:** GH-WP-0001-T04
+
+## Context
+
+Agentic execution introduces at least three identity questions:
+
+- on whose behalf does authority originate;
+- who is directly attempting the action;
+- which concrete workload instance will execute it.
+
+A single `subject`, `user`, or service-account field cannot answer all three.
+Collapsing them permits invisible impersonation, obscures delegation, makes a
+reusable service identity look like a concrete runtime, and prevents evidence
+from showing whether a human, agent, or workload actually acted.
+
+The roles can sometimes resolve to the same underlying subject in a direct,
+non-delegated operation. That does not make the roles synonymous.
+
+## Decision
+
+Principal, actor, and runtime identity are separate semantic roles throughout
+authority input and decision evidence:
+
+- **Principal** is the human, organization, workload, or system on whose behalf
+  authority originates.
+- **Actor** is the entity directly attempting the action and authenticating as
+  itself.
+- **Runtime identity** is the concrete workload instance performing execution.
+
+Implementations must preserve the three roles independently and bind each to
+the appropriate authoritative evidence. They must not fill one missing role by
+copying another, use impersonation to hide the actor, or replace a concrete
+runtime identity with a reusable actor/service name.
+
+In Assistant mode, the active supervising human is principal and the agent is
+actor. In Autonomous mode, the autonomous actor has an independent identity,
+and its principal relationship is established through the organizational
+context and governed mandate. Both modes identify the concrete runtime.
+
+Delegation preserves the originating principal and authenticates the actor as
+itself. Delegated and child authority attenuate; identity linkage never widens
+the authority ceiling.
+
+The roles need not all be embedded in one token. They must remain verifiably
+linked across identity, authorization, credential issuance, execution, and
+decision evidence.
+
+## Consequences
+
+- Policies can distinguish who benefits, who requests, and which workload
+  executes.
+- Assistant actions remain attributable to both the supervising human and the
+  assisting agent.
+- Autonomous actors cannot rely on a borrowed human identity or a shared
+  generic machine identity to erase accountability.
+- Runtime replacement or replay can be evaluated separately from actor
+  identity.
+- Existing transports with one subject field need an explicit mapping or an
+  extension before they can conform to `authority-context.v1`.
+
+## Alternatives rejected
+
+### One canonical subject
+
+Rejected because it erases delegation and cannot represent the agentic chain
+without overloading one identifier.
+
+### Principal and actor only
+
+Rejected because a stable actor identity does not identify the concrete
+workload instance that executed a particular action.
+
+### Treat runtime identity as audit-only metadata
+
+Rejected because runtime identity can be security-relevant policy input and
+must be bound before a positive decision when policy depends on it.
+Reconstructing it after execution is too late to enforce the boundary.
diff --git a/docs/contracts/authority-context.md b/docs/contracts/authority-context.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bb70271
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/contracts/authority-context.md
@@ -0,0 +1,233 @@
+# Authority context contract
+
+**Repository:** gate-house  
+**Consumer:** access-engine (currently flex-auth)  
+**Status:** normative for GH-WP-0001-T04  
+**Version:** authority-context.v1  
+**Date:** 2026-09-01  
+**Records:** [ADR-001](../adr/ADR-001-canonical-authority-context-contract.md), [ADR-002](../adr/ADR-002-principal-actor-runtime-identity-model.md)
+
+This contract defines the context an agentic authority request must be able to
+express. Gate House owns the vocabulary and its invariants. Access-engine owns
+the request representation, authoritative resolution, policy evaluation, and
+decision.
+
+The contract is a logical claims contract, not a wire format, token format, API,
+or executable schema. Conforming transports may represent it differently, but
+must preserve these meanings and relationships.
+
+## Boundary
+
+Authority context is one input to an authorization decision. It is composed
+with:
+
+- verified identity claims from the estate's identity authorities;
+- the requested action, resource, and normalized parameters;
+- applicable policy, approval, posture, quotas, budgets, and authority ceiling;
+- authoritative tenant, environment, and resource facts.
+
+No authority-context field grants authority by its presence. In particular, a
+declared principal, mandate, task, or operating mode is not proof that the
+declaration is valid. Access-engine must bind or resolve security-relevant
+claims to authoritative evidence before using them in a positive decision.
+
+Gate House does not receive this context in-path, resolve it, or render a
+decision.
+
+## Logical envelope
+
+`authority-context.v1` has this logical shape:
+
+```yaml
+schema_version: authority-context.v1
+request_id: req-01JQY6M4N6V5
+
+authority_context:
+  principal:
+    id: user:alice@example
+    kind: human
+  actor:
+    id: agent:release-assistant
+    kind: agent
+  runtime_identity:
+    id: spiffe://netkingdom/prod/release-assistant/7f91
+  tenant:
+    id: tenant:acme
+  environment:
+    id: production
+  mandate: null
+  task:
+    id: release:payments:7.2.1
+    kind: release
+  operating_mode: assistant
+```
+
+The surrounding authorization request carries evidence for these claims. The
+logical separation is intentional:
+
+```yaml
+verified_identity_claims:
+  principal: identity-claim-ref:human-session-779381
+  actor: identity-claim-ref:agent-session-22
+  runtime_identity: identity-claim-ref:workload-attestation-7f91
+```
+
+The `identity-claim-ref:*` values are illustrative references, not a prescribed
+format. Identity-claim schemas and issuers are owned by the identity estate,
+not by this contract.
+
+## Claims
+
+| Claim | Meaning | Authority source or binding requirement |
+| --- | --- | --- |
+| `principal` | Human, organization, workload, or system on whose behalf authority originates. | Bound to verified identity, an authenticated delegation, or an authoritative relationship such as a mandate. |
+| `actor` | Entity directly attempting the action. | Bound to the authenticated actor identity. A caller-supplied alias is insufficient. |
+| `runtime_identity` | Concrete workload instance performing execution. | Bound to verified workload identity or attestation. It is not a reusable service name. |
+| `tenant` | Security and organizational domain in which the action occurs. | Resolved against authoritative tenant and resource facts. Caller declaration alone is insufficient. |
+| `environment` | Governed operational environment containing the target. | Resolved from authoritative resource or zone facts. Free-form caller labels are insufficient. |
+| `mandate` | Versioned reference to the standing organizational authorization defining why an autonomous actor exists. | Required and authoritatively resolved in Autonomous mode. It is neither a credential nor a grant. |
+| `task` | Stable reference to the bounded unit of work for which authority is requested. | Bound to the workflow or orchestration record where one exists. Human-readable text alone must not widen authority. |
+| `operating_mode` | Security regime under which the request runs: `assistant` or `autonomous`. | Declared explicitly and checked against session, identity, and mandate evidence. It must not be inferred merely to make a request pass. |
+
+Identifiers are opaque, stable identifiers in the namespace of their owning
+system. Display names and mutable labels may accompany them, but must not
+replace them in policy or decision evidence.
+
+`kind` values classify the identifier; they do not imply permissions. The
+canonical principal kinds are `human`, `organization`, `workload`, and
+`system`. The canonical actor kinds are `human`, `agent`, `workload`, and
+`system`. A transport may use a controlled extension, but access-engine must
+not give an unknown kind authorization significance until policy recognizes it.
+
+## Requiredness by operating mode
+
+The contract concerns agentic authority requests. Both modes require explicit
+context rather than reconstructing it later from logs.
+
+| Claim | Assistant | Autonomous |
+| --- | --- | --- |
+| `principal` | Required; the actively supervising human principal. | Required; the organization, workload, or system on whose behalf the mandate exists. |
+| `actor` | Required; the assisting agent, distinct in role from the human principal. | Required; the autonomous actor with its own identity. |
+| `runtime_identity` | Required for the concrete agent workload/session. | Required for the concrete workload instance. |
+| `tenant` | Required for tenant-scoped action; otherwise an explicit estate-defined non-tenant scope is required. | Same. |
+| `environment` | Required. | Required. |
+| `mandate` | Optional; it must not replace live human supervision or authorize continuation after disconnect. | Required, including an immutable version or revision when mandates are mutable. |
+| `task` | Required. | Required and bounded by the mandate. |
+| `operating_mode` | Required; exactly `assistant`. | Required; exactly `autonomous`. |
+
+An omitted tenant is not a wildcard. A non-tenant request must carry an
+explicit scope defined by estate policy; access-engine decides whether that
+scope is recognized.
+
+## Identity-role invariants
+
+Principal, actor, and runtime identity are separate semantic roles even when a
+non-delegated operation legitimately gives two roles the same underlying
+subject. Conforming implementations must:
+
+1. preserve all three roles independently in policy input and decision
+   evidence;
+2. never copy the actor into a missing principal field, or the reverse;
+3. never replace runtime identity with a reusable actor or service identifier;
+4. represent delegation without impersonation: the principal remains visible
+   while the actor authenticates as itself;
+5. ensure delegated or child authority does not exceed the authority available
+   to its parent;
+6. treat a mismatch between a declared role and authoritative identity evidence
+   as a denial condition.
+
+The model does not require every credential or token to carry every role. It
+requires the roles to remain linked across identity, authorization, credential
+issuance, execution, and decision evidence so the chain can be reconstructed.
+
+## Operating-mode invariants
+
+### Assistant
+
+- A verified, active human session supplies the principal.
+- The agent remains identifiable as actor and by runtime identity.
+- Ending or losing the human session must not change the mode to Autonomous.
+- A mandate, if present, cannot substitute for active supervision.
+- A continuation requiring privilege after supervision ends requires a new
+  Autonomous request under a governed mandate and independent identity.
+
+### Autonomous
+
+- The actor uses an independent identity; no borrowed human credential may
+  stand in for it.
+- The request names an explicit, current mandate and a task within it.
+- The mandate resolves to a named owner, authority ceiling, environment and
+  resource bounds, lifecycle, and termination path.
+- Runtime, concurrency, credential TTL, and applicable change-dynamics bounds
+  are separate policy inputs or mandate facts; naming the mandate does not
+  satisfy them by itself.
+
+A mode transition is governance-sensitive. It is not an update to an in-flight
+context object and must not be implemented as fallback behavior.
+
+## Resolution and failure semantics
+
+For a protected operation, access-engine must fail closed when:
+
+- a required claim is absent, malformed, or uses an unsupported contract
+  version;
+- an identity role cannot be bound to verified identity evidence;
+- authoritative and caller-supplied values conflict;
+- tenant, environment, mandate, or task resolution is security-critical and
+  unavailable or stale beyond policy;
+- an Autonomous mandate is absent, expired, revoked, ambiguous, or does not
+  cover the task;
+- Assistant supervision is absent or no longer active;
+- the operating mode is unknown or inconsistent with the evidence;
+- resolving delegation would widen authority or erase the principal/actor
+  distinction.
+
+`DEFER` may be used only for non-security-critical enrichment. It is not a
+fallback for missing evidence needed to decide a protected operation.
+
+Unknown extension claims have no authorization effect until this contract and
+access-engine policy recognize them. A consumer must not silently reinterpret
+a known claim or treat an unknown value as a wildcard.
+
+## Decision evidence
+
+For each decision, the evidence must retain:
+
+- the contract version and request identifier;
+- the resolved values of all eight authority-context claims;
+- the authoritative source or evidence reference used for each
+  security-relevant resolution;
+- the declared and evaluated operating mode;
+- mandate and task versions where applicable;
+- any conflict, omission, or stale-input reason contributing to a non-grant
+  decision;
+- the access-engine policy identifier and version that interpreted the context.
+
+This is an attribution and reconstruction obligation, not a claim that an
+archive proves an event was emitted. Audit completeness remains the emitting
+system's obligation.
+
+## Versioning
+
+- `authority-context.v1` fixes the meanings of the eight claims and the two
+  operating-mode values.
+- Additive metadata may be transported without changing the version only when
+  it cannot affect authorization under v1.
+- A semantic change, new mode, changed requiredness, or new claim intended to
+  affect authorization requires a new contract version and Gate House review.
+- Access-engine must reject unsupported major versions for protected
+  operations; it must not guess at compatibility.
+
+## Conformance statements
+
+An access-engine representation conforms when it can demonstrate that:
+
+- every logical claim maps to an unambiguous input field;
+- authoritative evidence is distinguishable from caller assertion;
+- the requiredness and failure rules above are enforced;
+- principal, actor, and runtime identity remain separate through decision
+  evidence;
+- Assistant and Autonomous requests cannot silently fall back into one
+  another;
+- no claim in this contract grants authority without deterministic policy.
+
diff --git a/workplans/GH-WP-0001-foundation.md b/workplans/GH-WP-0001-foundation.md
index d8a4494..623ce30 100644
--- a/workplans/GH-WP-0001-foundation.md
+++ b/workplans/GH-WP-0001-foundation.md
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ domain: infotech
 repo: gate-house
 status: active
 state_hub_workstream_id: "2ec4cf1a-a73f-5793-9738-8d8019cccca8"
-updated: "2026-08-28"
+updated: "2026-09-01"
 ---
 
 # Foundation
@@ -67,7 +67,7 @@ the standard from `proposed` to `accepted` once the three have answered.
 
 ```task
 id: GH-WP-0001-T04
-status: todo
+status: done
 priority: high
 state_hub_task_id: "7903d142-9763-5b3f-839d-2a1599130a2b"
 ```
@@ -78,6 +78,13 @@ access-engine consumes as input claims alongside verified identity claims.
 Record it as ADR-001 and ADR-002. This is the deliverable that makes the
 doctrine consumable rather than descriptive.
 
+Done — `docs/contracts/authority-context.md` publishes
+`authority-context.v1` as the logical claims contract, with mode-specific
+requiredness, authoritative binding, fail-closed, evidence, and versioning
+rules. `docs/adr/ADR-001-canonical-authority-context-contract.md` and
+`docs/adr/ADR-002-principal-actor-runtime-identity-model.md` record the contract
+boundary and the three-role identity model.
+
 ```task
 id: GH-WP-0001-T05
 status: todo