gate-house/docs/contracts/approval-consumption.md

# Approval consumption ordering

**Owner:** gate-house
**PIP:** approval-engine
**PDP:** access-engine (currently flex-auth)
**Status:** normative for GH-WP-0002-T06; recorded as `GH-DEC-2026-003`,
amended by `GH-DEC-2026-005` (step-1 artifact and split validation) and
`GH-DEC-2026-008` (the PDP digest is the binding correspondence)
**Date:** 2026-09-06
**Statute:** `net-kingdom/canon/standards/security-layer-model_v0.7.md` §9.4, §9.7.3–4, §16
**Blocks:** `APPROVAL-WP-0001-T05`, `FLEX-WP-0017-T05`

This contract settles who marks an approval consumed, at what point relative
to the decision, and who owns each of the three named failure modes. Nothing
in `approval-engine` may implement a public consume by guessing this.

## Sequence

```text
1. PIP  GET  /v1/approvals/{id}/claim     → valid_now (a fact, not permission)
2. PDP  Check / decide                     → ALLOW | DENY | …
3. PEP  POST /v1/approvals/{id}/consume    → CAS valid → consumed
4. PEP  protected side effect              → only after consume succeeds
```

The PDP **never mutates**. Staff **never** calls consume. `audit-core` **never**
calls consume. The signaler is the PEP-shaped consumer that is about to cause
the protected side effect named in the binding — today `secrets-engine` for
OpenBao writes, `ops-warden` for the SSH signing lane, and any other consumer
companion §5 already treats as PEP-shaped.

Holding a claim with `valid_now: true`, or an ALLOW against that claim, is not
authority to act. The consume is.

## What each step's artifact is

Amended by `GH-DEC-2026-005`.

**Step 1 serves the approval-claim** (`approval-engine/docs/approval-claim.md`).
That is the artifact `valid_now` belongs to, and it is the only object the claim
endpoint serves. flex-auth's proposed `ActionAuthorization` is **not** required
here, is not served here, and MUST NOT be served from this endpoint: a step-1
response cannot contain a step-2 decision.

**A PEP validates across both artifacts it already fetches**, and each against
the layer that owns its data:

| Artifact | Source | What the PEP checks |
| --- | --- | --- |
| approval-claim | step 1, `approval-engine` (PIP) | binding digest, validity window, consumption state, observation freshness, issuer |
| `DecisionEnvelope` | step 2, `access-engine` (PDP) | exact `CheckRequest` match, policy package and version pin |

A PIP MUST NOT republish the PDP's decision, and a PEP MUST NOT accept the
approval fact from the decision artifact or the decision from the approval
artifact. Composing the two into one served object is a separate, post-decision
artifact at a separate endpoint if it is ever ratified — not a change to the
claim.

**Claim provenance is not State Hub.** A PEP MUST NOT require
`provenance.authority == "state-hub"` on the claim. State Hub is a read model and
holds no runtime approval authority; the issuer to check is the engine that
served the claim.

**The correspondence is the PDP digest.** Amended by `GH-DEC-2026-008`. A consumer
on this path MUST verify that `claim.binding.pdp_digest` equals the decision's
`NewDecisionBinding.request_digest`, and MUST NOT use a claim that carries no
`pdp_digest`. Recomputing `approval-engine`'s native `binding.digest` from a
`CheckRequest` is **not** a permitted fallback here: it requires translating between
two engines' vocabularies, no mapping is published, and a wrong translation fails
open by silently accepting a claim approved for something else. The native limb
survives only for consumers already in `approval-engine`'s vocabulary, including the
`T-06` assurance case.

Without this, `valid_now: true` plus an ALLOW establishes *approved* and *permitted*
but never *approved for this request*, which is the property the binding exists to
carry.

## Why consume is before the side effect

§9.7.3 says consumption MUST NOT be inferred from a decision record. That
stands. A decision record proves an intent to act, not an act. The consume
mutation is the act's evidence at this engine.

The same paragraph currently reads as if the *action* must precede the
*consume call*. That reading is a protocol, and it is the wrong one. If the
PEP acts and then consumes, two racing PEPs can both observe `valid_now`,
both receive ALLOW, and both act; CAS then prevents only the second
*record*, not the second *side effect*. Single consumption would be theatre.

**The PEP MUST obtain a successful consume before the protected side effect.**
In-flight duplicate ALLOWs are expected; the CAS serializes use. A later
CheckRequest sees `valid_now: false` and cannot mint a new ALLOW against the
same object.

This is a protocol clarification of §9.7.3, not a retraction of the forensic
claim. It lands in statute v0.8. Until then this contract governs the
implementers who were blocked on it.

## Consume request

```text
POST /v1/approvals/{id}/consume
```

```json
{
  "request_digest": "<canonical request digest from the decision binding>",
  "decision_id": "<optional; the ALLOW this consume discharges>"
}
```

`request_digest` is the same digest companion §5.2 already uses as the
mechanical replay test (`NewDecisionBinding.request_digest` in flex-auth).
Go's `json.Marshal` of a CheckRequest is **not** this digest. Compare to the
binding the PDP already computed, not to a re-serialized CheckRequest.

The mutation is compare-and-swap:

| Current status | Digest on the object | Result |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `approved`, inside validity window | none | consumed; store this digest; emit `use` |
| `consumed` | same digest | **idempotent success** — same logical request, a retry |
| `consumed` | different digest | **conflict** — already used for another request |
| `revoked` / `superseded` / `expired` / outside window / not `approved` | — | **conflict**; MUST NOT act |

The `use` outbox row is inserted in the same transaction as the status change
([`approval-outbox.md`](approval-outbox.md)). A failed insert rolls the
consume back. An `audit-core` outage does not.

There is **no unconsume**. There is no reserve/release. An approval authorizes
one *attempt*, not one *success*.

## The three failure modes

### 1. Allow rendered, never consumed

**Cause.** PEP crash or abandonment between ALLOW and consume.

**Effect.** The object stays `approved`. A later PEP can still consume it,
inside the remaining validity window and inside the ALLOW's own lifetime
(§9.7.1). That is a delayed first use, not a replay of a completed one.

**Owner.** The PEP is obligated to consume before the side effect. The
**approval-engine** does not auto-consume from the existence of a decision.
The **PDP** bounds the window with the decision lifetime. Detection of a
stale ALLOW with no matching `use` is a finding on this surface
([`approval-emission-detection.md`](approval-emission-detection.md)), not a
consume.

### 2. Double consumption by racing callers

**Cause.** Two PEPs, two ALLOWs in flight, both presenting consume.

**Effect.** CAS: one success; the other is idempotent success if and only if
the digest matches, otherwise conflict.

**Owner.** `approval-engine` performs the CAS. The PEP that receives conflict
MUST NOT perform the side effect. The PDP that rendered the second ALLOW has
done nothing wrong — it decided on a still-valid claim.

Same-digest idempotent success is a retry of one logical request. Companion
§5.2 already permits reusing an ALLOW inside its binding and lifetime. The
side effect MUST itself be idempotent under that digest; that is the PEP's
obligation, not this engine's.

### 3. Consumed, then the authorized action fails

**Cause.** Consume succeeded; the protected side effect then failed or was
never reached (crash after consume).

**Effect.** The approval is spent. Retry requires a new approval object.

**Owner.** Accepted here as the cost of closing (2). Unconsume would reopen
replay. A flake is an issuance problem, not a reason to make consumption
reversible. The PEP MAY request a new approval; it MUST NOT infer that the
spent object is still valid.

## What this is not

- Not a second decision. Consume answers "did this engine accept the use",
  never "may this actor do X".
- Not an inference from `audit-core`. The archive reports what it received.
- Not a PDP duty. `access-engine` reads the claim and never mutates.
- Not implemented until `approval-engine` wires `POST /consume` to the CAS
  that already exists internally, with the digest column this contract adds.

## Acceptance

`APPROVAL-WP-0001-T05` may implement the public consume against this
document. `FLEX-WP-0017-T05` may require the PEP (secrets-engine, for that
task) to consume before the OpenBao call. Canon `T-06` consume-side replay —
a second, different digest against a consumed object — becomes in-scope with
that implementation.