Publish GH-WP-0001-T06 conformance contracts

Assistant: codex
Assistant-Model: gpt-5.6-sol
Assistant-Session: 01a05e30-2884-71b0-98d7-7edd16ae737b

docs/contracts/posture-findings-return.md

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+# Posture and findings return-path contract
+
+**Doctrine owner:** gate-house
+**Posture publisher:** kings-guard
+**Decision point:** access-engine
+**Assurance executor:** whitehat-security
+**Finding triage:** risk-nexus
+**Status:** normative for GH-WP-0001-T06
+**Version:** posture-findings-return.v1
+**Date:** 2026-09-01
+**Agreement basis:** kings-guard `KG-DEC-2026-001` and `KG-WP-0003`
+
+## 1. Agreed boundary
+
+The existing agreement is:
+
+```text
+kings-guard publishes non-deterministic posture
+Gate House defines posture's authority meaning and restrictive asymmetry
+access-engine deterministically renders a decision
+the responsible Engine or ops-warden performs an authorized response
+```
+
+Posture may reduce authority, require stronger authorization, or request
+containment. It never creates or widens authority. A containment proposal is
+not an authorization and kings-guard never bypasses an Engine to act on
+Tooling.
+
+## 2. Posture envelope
+
+A posture input offered for authority use must make these facts expressible:
+
+```yaml
+posture_id: <stable id>
+subject:
+  kind: actor | runtime | resource | tenant | environment
+  id: <canonical id>
+assessment: HEALTHY | DEGRADED | SUSPICIOUS | CONTAIN | BLOCKED
+source: kings-guard
+observed_at: <RFC 3339 UTC>
+expires_at: <RFC 3339 UTC>
+evidence_refs: []
+stream_completeness:
+  status: complete | degraded | unknown
+  reason: <value-safe explanation>
+rationale: <value-safe explanation>
+```
+
+This is a logical contract, not a kings-guard wire schema. Confidence or record
+richness may accompany it, but cannot override unknown or degraded stream
+completeness and cannot grant authority.
+
+Access-engine records the posture identifier, freshness, and policy version
+that interpreted it. Unknown, missing, expired, or incomplete posture follows a
+declared restrictive stance; it does not fall back to extra authority.
+
+## 3. Observation and proposal linkage
+
+A kings-guard finding or containment proposal carries:
+
+- originating observation identifier;
+- emitted signal/posture identifier;
+- affected subject and target;
+- evidence-stream completeness state;
+- requested restrictive direction;
+- no credential, secret value, or direct actuation instruction.
+
+The eventual access-engine decision and authorized response retain those
+origin references. This makes a containment decision reconstructable without
+turning the proposal into authority.
+
+## 4. Findings return
+
+King's Guard returns these classes to Gate House:
+
+- an invariant does not match observed behavior;
+- an implementation supplies posture in a form that cannot be interpreted
+  without widening or ambiguity;
+- a load-bearing evidence stream is silent, divergent, stale, or incomplete;
+- a required live observation lane does not exist;
+- a doctrine claim is recomputable and therefore misclassified as posture;
+- a conformance result exposes a missing or untestable doctrine rule.
+
+The durable transport is a State Hub inbox message:
+
+```text
+Subject: [GH-POSTURE] <finding-class> <subject>@<revision-or-time>
+Body: posture/signal/observation ids, safe evidence references, completeness,
+      affected invariant, current restriction, and requested doctrine action
+```
+
+## 5. Gate House disposition
+
+Gate House classifies the returned item without regrading security severity:
+
+| Finding shape | Gate House action |
+| --- | --- |
+| Doctrine correct; implementation failed | Cross-reference risk-nexus/owner record; no foreign task is created here. |
+| Doctrine ambiguous or contradictory | Create or promote a Gate House intake, decision, contract revision, or workplan. |
+| Posture lane or observation mechanism missing | Return to kings-guard as its owning gap; mark affected conformance claim pending. |
+| Deterministic/recomputable property called posture | Move the criterion toward its owning Engine; do not create a second grader. |
+| Assurance specification incomplete | Revise the Gate House target and return the new version to whitehat-security. |
+
+Every disposition replies with the resulting Gate House record identifiers or
+`no_change` plus rationale. Silence is not a disposition.
+
+## 6. Loop closure
+
+The loop is considered staffed, not necessarily green, when:
+
+1. whitehat-security has an executable target and reports every outcome;
+2. kings-guard can observe at least one live lane and reports stream
+   completeness separately from record richness;
+3. access-engine can bind posture to the decision it influenced;
+4. Gate House records doctrine disposition and returns identifiers;
+5. implementation remediation remains with the owning repository via
+   risk-nexus.
+
+`KG-WP-0003-T06` and T07 are the kings-guard work that makes origin linkage and
+live observation real. Until those tasks report completion, the corresponding
+lanes are declared gaps rather than assumed capabilities.