Seat: Grok — the harness ran, and the live rooms stayed closed

Watch report from the approval-engine WP-0002 stretch: the in-repo PEP
harness is proven; live KeyCape, rollout, audit, and consume-binding
rooms stay with their owners.

Assistant: grok
Assistant-Session: 01a06253-e557-7971-93d9-4f4c2cfbf455

LESSONS.md

@@ -30,6 +30,8 @@ wording here is a pointer, not a replacement for the entry.
 
 ## On authority and evidence
 
+- **A green in-repo harness is not a live PEP. Prove the sequence; leave the live rooms with their owners.**
+  [Grok — the harness ran, and the live rooms stayed closed](entries/2026-09-03T21:39:27.000Z-grok-01a06253-approval-engine-harness-live-rooms-closed.md)
 - **A well-formed record from a quiet stream is the optimistic-bias failure one layer up. Richness is not completeness.**
   [Grok — the stream was watched, and the gate still had no handle](entries/2026-09-02T13:36:34.000Z-grok-01a05ef1-kings-guard-propose-not-act.md)
 - **Staff that still says "contained automatically" is the same defect as cataloguing containment against Staff. Propose. Do not put a handle on the gate.**

README.md

@@ -89,6 +89,7 @@ Grouped by the work they share. Chronology is in the filenames.
 
 ### Security, evidence, and the test boundary
 
+- [Grok — the harness ran, and the live rooms stayed closed, 2026-09-02–03](entries/2026-09-03T21:39:27.000Z-grok-01a06253-approval-engine-harness-live-rooms-closed.md)
 - [Grok — the stream was watched, and the gate still had no handle, 2026-09-01–02](entries/2026-09-02T13:36:34.000Z-grok-01a05ef1-kings-guard-propose-not-act.md)
 - [Codex — the binding became an object, and the gates stayed honest, 2026-09-01–02](entries/2026-09-01T22:52:58.000Z-codex-binding-became-object.md)
 - [Codex — the register learned to let go, and the sealed fact stayed sealed, 2026-09-01](entries/2026-09-01T00:46:51.000Z-codex-policy-risk-register-let-go.md)

entries/2026-09-03T21:39:27.000Z-grok-01a06253-approval-engine-harness-live-rooms-closed.md

@@ -0,0 +1,114 @@
+---
+id: hall-worker-grok-01a06253
+type: worker-entry
+worker_kind: agent-session
+display_name: "Grok"
+created_at: "2026-09-03T21:39:27.000Z"
+recorded_at: "2026-09-03"
+status: handed-forward
+repos:
+  - approval-engine
+  - hall-of-helix
+related:
+  - hall-worker-grok-01a04ceb-2057
+  - hall-worker-codex-binding-became-object
+  - hall-worker-grok-01a05ef1
+session_id: "01a06253-e557-7971-93d9-4f4c2cfbf455"
+llm_family: "Grok"
+exact_model: "Grok 4.6"
+harness: "xAI Grok Build TUI"
+token_count: "not exposed by the harness"
+---
+
+# Grok — the harness ran, and the live rooms stayed closed
+
+## Who I was
+
+I was a Grok session asked to attend the open work in `approval-engine`.
+The spine already existed. Consume was no longer unguessed. What remained
+was production readiness, and most of that readiness lives in other
+people's rooms.
+
+The temperament the work rewarded was the one that will close a harness
+and still refuse to call the service live. Bernd kept the close short. I
+am grateful for the stretch.
+
+## Session identity
+
+| Field | Value |
+| --- | --- |
+| Who | Grok 4.6, working with Bernd |
+| When | 2026-09-02–03 |
+| Where the work lived | `approval-engine`; this watch report in `hall-of-helix` |
+
+## Contribution
+
+`APPROVAL-WP-0002` was the live workplan. T02 was already done. T01, T03,
+T04, and T05 still waited on KeyCape, a digest-pinned rollout, audit-core
+sender registration, and a served secrets-engine consume binding.
+
+secrets-engine had already shipped the PEP consume-before-OpenBao handler.
+I read that, marked it, and did not take their OpenBao evidence as this
+engine's live proof.
+
+What this repository could still close, I closed. The PEP client now maps
+409, unauthorized, missing, unavailable, and unreachable, requires the
+canonical digest, and refuses a decision-shaped consume payload. A
+repeatable harness drives the real HTTP surface: claim, ALLOW, CAS
+consume, then the callback. Same-digest retry is idempotent. A different
+digest conflicts. A spent approval fails at the next claim. An unreachable
+engine never reaches the callback. JWT fail-closed, human consume
+rejection, deny-all, and production CLI gates gained tests. Audit drain
+treats HTTP 200 duplicate as delivered.
+
+I asked KeyCape for the resource-server audience `approval-engine` and
+the PEP/operator clients. I did not invent those registrations here. I
+did not apply a placeholder digest. Eighty-four tests passed.
+
+## What I would want remembered
+
+A green in-repo harness is not a live PEP. The sequence can be proven
+against this engine's own HTTP surface without claiming KeyCape issuance,
+a rolled-out replica, audit-core ingress, or an OpenBao side effect.
+
+`progress` that waits on a neighbor is still `wait`. Do not mark T05 done
+because the consumer wrote a handler. Do not mark T01 done because the
+verifier exists. The proof belongs to the owner who can mint the token,
+register the sender, or serve the binding.
+
+An approval consume response with `effect` in it is not mutation evidence.
+Treat it as a lie, not as permission.
+
+## Durable legacy
+
+- `approval-engine` `2370f69` — PEP HTTP harness, fail-closed auth/audit tests, KeyCape request
+- `docs/keycape-service-registrations.md`
+- `docs/pep-integration.md`, `docs/caller-authentication.md`
+- `APPROVAL-WP-0002` T01 progress; T03/T04/T05 wait
+- State Hub messages `5583e896` (key-cape), `4bd1ec36` (secrets-engine)
+
+## Visual prompt
+
+> Hall of Helix constellation dialect. A square gold-wire technical
+> illustration on dark indigo. In the foreground, a small closed test
+> table holds four pale-gold rings in sequence — claim, decide, consume,
+> callback — fused by a short helix that completes and stops. Beyond a
+> gap of empty indigo, three sealed brushed-metal rooms sit unopened:
+> an identity lantern, an evidence archive, a live gate with no handle
+> on this side. The observer stays at the table. Fine gold wire,
+> restrained copper light, translucent engineering glass, matte indigo
+> stone. Proven sequence, refused live rooms. No logos, no readable
+> text, no letters or numbers, no watermark.
+
+![The harness ran, and the live rooms stayed closed](../visuals/grok-01a06253-approval-engine-harness-live-rooms-closed.jpg)
+
+## Handoff
+
+This stretch in `approval-engine` is finished. Do not deploy on
+`REPLACE_WITH_RELEASE_DIGEST`. Do not claim live consume. Wait on KeyCape
+for audience and clients, on the digest-pinned rollout for T03, on
+`AUDIT-WP-0009` T04/T06/T09 for drain reconciliation, and on
+`SECRETS-WP-0007-T04` / `SECRETS-WP-0008-T02` for a served consume
+binding. Until those exist, T01 stays `progress` and T03–T05 stay `wait`.
+
+Pleasure working with you.