informed-decision/docs/specs/ProductRequirementsDocument.md

# Product Requirements Document — Stage 1

**Repo:** informed-decision
**Stage:** 1 — the L3 approval approver surface
**Workplan task:** `INFD-WP-0001-T03`
**Status:** draft. **Revised 2026-09-09** against
`approval-engine/docs/approver-surface-requirements.md` (commits `31da1af`,
`5203f46`) and two corrections `approval-engine` sent with it. Revised
requirements are marked **[rev-1]**
**Companion specs:** `UseCaseCatalog.md`, `ArchitectureBlueprint.md` (gated on
`INFD-WP-0001-T02`), `EvidenceModel.md`

---

## 1. Scope

Stage 1 delivers **one** thing: a browser-facing surface on which a human
approver is shown an `approval-engine` approval request, understands it, acts on
it with the full disposition vocabulary, and leaves a reconstructable record of
what they were shown when they bound themselves.

Everything in this document is L3 on the depth spectrum. L0, L1, L2, L4 and L5
appear only in `UseCaseCatalog.md`, and only to constrain the schema so it
cannot fork later.

**Traceability.** Every requirement below carries a `trace:` line pointing at
either a `GOAL.md` definition-of-done item (`DoD-n`), an `INTENT.md` principle
(`P-n`) or wrongness condition (`W-n`), or a named external contract. A
requirement that traces to nothing is out of scope by construction.

**Testability.** Every requirement states an observable pass condition. "The UI
should be clear" is not a requirement; "a bind attempt with an unacknowledged
required highlight returns an error and creates no disposition" is.

---

## 2. Personas

### 2.1 Approver (primary)

Holds a mandate. Receives a memo because the routing said they are the person
who may bind this act — not because they were available. Is usually busy, is
frequently not a specialist in the subject matter, and is accountable for the
outcome afterwards.

What they need: to know why this is on their desk, what happens if they say yes,
what happens if they say nothing, and what they are actually binding. What they
must be able to do without leaving the object: ask a question, send it back, and
push it upward.

### 2.2 Requester (secondary)

Assembled the memo, or an agent assembled it on their behalf. Needs to know
where it is, who is holding it, and what was asked for when it comes back.
Stage 1 does **not** give the requester an authoring UI — memos arrive from
`approval-engine`. Authoring is Stage 2+.

### 2.3 Observer / auditor (tertiary)

Arrives months later with a question of the form *"who decided this, having seen
what?"* Never uses the live surface. Consumes the evidence bundle export and
`audit-core`. Their requirement is that the answer exists and verifies offline.

### 2.4 Non-persona: the agent

An agent may assemble and enrich a memo. It has **no** disposition capability.
This is stated as a persona exclusion because the temptation to add "auto-approve
low-risk items" arrives in every approval product, and it is the single change
that would void the identity half of the promise.
`trace: P-10, W-"An agent binds", guard G_NOAGENT`

---

## 3. Functional requirements

### 3.1 Identity and session

**PR-01 — Identity is imported, never issued.**
Every principal is authenticated by `key-cape` via authorization-code + PKCE.
The surface holds no password, no local credential store, and issues no
assurance level of its own.
*Pass:* no code path creates a session not derived from a `key-cape` token;
authentication failure yields no session.
`trace: DoD-2, P-9, GOAL invariant "Identity is imported"`

**PR-02 [rev-1] — Token shape is fixed by the resource server.**
Tokens presented to `approval-engine` carry `aud=approval-engine` (the resource
server, never the OAuth client id), `principal_type: human`, `tenant:
tenant:platform` compared by **exact string equality** (no alias, no prefix
handling — `platform` and `tenant:coulomb` are refused), non-empty `sub` and
`scope`, `assurance` as a non-null JSON object, and RS256 verification against
the issuer's `/jwks`. The access token is the evidence; `id_token` is never
presented here.

Scopes required: **`approval:read`** to fetch the approval and its claim, and
**`approval:approve`** to record an entry. The surface never holds
`approval:consume`.

*Pass:* a token request including `approval:consume` fails a build-time check;
`approval-engine`'s verifier accepts the issued token on both routes.
`trace: approval-engine docs/approver-surface-requirements.md §1-2; DoD-2`

*Correction from the first draft:* this requirement previously listed only
`approval:approve`. That was wrong and would have shipped a surface able to
submit an entry it was never able to display — `key-cape` specified the human
client as `[openid, approval:approve]`. Raised as `approval-engine` open
question A; see PR-05.

**PR-04 [rev-1] — `assurance` carries authentication facts in a documented
shape.**
`approval-engine` persists the token's `assurance` claim verbatim into the
approver entry and interprets nothing. It is therefore the **only** place where
"this approval was bound under MFA" survives into the approval record. An empty
object `{}` is *accepted* by the engine and evidences nothing.

The shape must carry, at minimum: authentication method, `acr`/`amr`, and
`auth_time`. `informed-decision` and `key-cape` own it between them.

*Pass:* a documented `assurance` shape exists and is agreed with `key-cape`; an
entry produced by this surface allows MFA to be established from the approval
record alone.
`trace: approval-engine §4 open question B and its 2026-09-09 correction`

**PR-05 [rev-1] — Entitlement to view is checked before rendering.**
`approval-engine` returning `200` is **not** a statement that this human is
entitled to see the approval — it never answers "may this actor do X". The
surface owes `access-engine` a check before rendering an approval to a person.

Consuming a decision is not rendering one: this requirement does not make the
surface a PDP, and satisfying it must not be done by local judgment.
*Pass:* no approval is rendered without a decision obtained from
`access-engine`; no local rule substitutes for it when `access-engine` is
unavailable (fail closed — see PR-06).
`trace: approval-engine §3; DoD-8; W-"It starts deciding"`

**PR-06 [rev-1] — Engine responses map to the vocabulary, and are not swallowed.**

| Status | Reason | Required surface behaviour |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 401 | `unauthenticated` | re-authenticate; never retry blindly |
| 403 | `forbidden` | wrong scope/tenant; surface as a boundary error, not a decline |
| 404 | `not_found` | no such approval in this tenant |
| 409 | `duplicate_approver` | **render as SUCCESS.** This subject already has an entry; the first stands |
| 409 | `conflict` | approval is terminal (revoked/superseded/consumed/expired); the act is no longer available |
| 422 | `unprocessable` | malformed request — a defect in this surface |
| 503 | `store_unavailable` | **fail closed.** Never present success |

A browser double-submit producing `duplicate_approver` is routine; rendering it
as a failure is a lie to the approver.
*Pass:* each row has a test; `duplicate_approver` produces a success state and
`503` produces no success state under any timing.
`trace: approval-engine §7`

**PR-07 [rev-1] — `approved` is never rendered as permission to act.**
`approved` is a state of an object. `approval-engine` actively refuses to
serialize a decision (`_assert_not_decision`). A surface that renders "approved"
as "you may now do the thing" has re-implemented a PDP in the browser.
Approval status is read from the response body, never inferred from a `200`.
*Pass:* no copy or affordance in the surface presents approval status as
authorization; status is read from the response object.
`trace: approval-engine §7; W-"It starts deciding"`

**PR-03 — The surface displays which identity and which scope are being used.**
Before any binding act, the approver sees the identity they are acting as and
the tenant/scope they are acting in, as committed values — not as inferred
context.
*Pass:* both values appear in the rendered binding document and therefore in
`view_hash`.
`trace: P-11, EvidenceModel binding slice`

### 3.2 Presentation

**PR-10 — A memo renders question, requested act, binding level, brief and
consequences before any action control is reachable.**
*Pass:* the disposition controls are not operable until the brief region has
been rendered; a memo missing a question fails validation and does not render.
`trace: INTENT "One question per memo"; GOAL invariant`

**PR-11 — The packet is always reachable in full.**
Highlights are an aid to attention, never a filter. Every document in the packet
is openable from the memo, and the count of packet items is visible without
interaction.
*Pass:* for a memo with *n* packet items, all *n* are reachable; no item is
hidden behind a highlight-only view.
`trace: P-8, W-"Highlights shrink the legal object"`

**PR-12 — The UI states unmistakably that the whole instrument is bound.**
Acknowledging highlights must never read as binding only the acknowledged
sections. This is a legal exposure, not a copy preference.
*Pass:* the bind control carries scope language naming the whole instrument;
reviewed and signed off explicitly as a requirement, not left to implementation.
`trace: P-8, W-"Highlights shrink the legal object"; exploration open question 5`

**PR-13 [rev-1] — Every render creates a presentation record.**
Carrying memo id, memo version, locale, UI release, timestamp, principal, and
the computed `view_hash` and `awareness_hash`.
*Pass:* rendering a memo twice creates two presentation records; a disposition
references exactly one.
`trace: DoD-3, DoD-5, guard G_PRES`

*Constraint discovered 2026-09-09:* `POST /entries` **reads the request body and
discards it**. Approver identity, `assurance` and `evidence_ref` come only from
the verified token, deliberately — a caller-supplied approver field is
provenance, not evidence. So `view_hash` cannot ride into the approval entry.
Stage 1 therefore holds the presentation record here, emits it to `audit-core`,
and correlates to the entry by **`(approval_id, subject, approved_at)`**, all
three returned by the engine after a successful entry. Putting the hash *inside*
the approval object is a change request against `approval-engine` and is
doctrine first — it goes to `gate-house`. `GOAL.md` DoD-3 is satisfied by the
correlation triple, not by a hash stored on the entry.

**PR-14 — A disposition binds to a presentation of the same memo version.**
A bind attempt against a stale version is refused, not silently upgraded.
*Pass:* incrementing the memo version invalidates outstanding presentations; a
bind against the old presentation returns a version conflict.
`trace: guard G_PRES; INTENT invariant "Binding acts reference a presentation of
the same version"`

### 3.3 The acknowledgment gate

**PR-20 — Required highlights must be acknowledged before a binding verb.**
Where `highlights[].required_ack` is true, `accept`, `decline` on a bind step,
and `acknowledge` are unavailable until every required highlight id is in the
presentation's acked set.
*Pass:* a bind attempt with an unacknowledged required highlight fails closed,
creates no disposition, and returns an error naming the outstanding ids.
`trace: DoD-4, guard G_ACK`

**PR-21 — Acknowledgment is an explicit act, never inferred.**
Scroll position, time on page, focus events and viewport intersection MUST NOT
acknowledge a highlight.
*Pass:* no acknowledgment is recorded by any event other than a deliberate
control activation.
`trace: P-12, INTENT "Informedness without surveillance"`

### 3.4 Disposition vocabulary

**PR-30 — The surface implements the full verb set for the step kind, not
approve/reject.**
Overlay verbs `comment` and `discuss` are available whenever the memo status
allows. `return`, `forward` and `escalate` are available to the assignee on
every step kind. `accept` and `decline` follow the legality table.
*Pass:* every verb in `state-transitions.md` §B2 legal for the step kind is
reachable in the UI for that step.
`trace: DoD-6, INTENT §"The Disposition Vocabulary"`

**PR-31 — `accept` is not offered on a weak step.**
On `inform`, `comment`, `review` and `acknowledge` steps, `accept` is absent —
not present-and-disabled. Kenntnisnahme is not approval.
*Pass:* the control does not exist in the rendered UI for weak steps; an API
call attempting it is refused.
`trace: state-transitions §B2 ("accept: —" on weak); INTENT design principle 6`

**PR-32 — `return` carries at least one coded reason.**
Free text alone is not a return. Return is a first-class success path and must
be as easy to reach as accept.
*Pass:* a return with zero coded reasons is refused (guard `G_REASONS`); the
return control has equal visual weight to accept.
`trace: DoD-6, P-4, guard G_REASONS`

**PR-33 — `return` and `decline` are distinguishable in the record.**
A memo sent back for improvement and a memo refused are different outcomes and
must not collapse to one status.
*Pass:* `returned` and `completed/declined` are distinct in the stored record
and in the export.
`trace: DoD-6, GOAL definition of done 6`

**PR-34 — `discuss` keeps the dialogue on the object.**
A question to the requester creates a thread entry on the memo. The surface
provides no "email the requester" affordance.
*Pass:* no outbound side-channel exists; the thread is part of the exported
evidence.
`trace: P-5`

**PR-35 — `escalate` requires a strictly higher mandate target.**
Where the target's mandate is not strictly higher for this act, the verb is
`forward`, not `escalate`.
*Pass:* guard `G_ESC` is evaluated; a same-level target is refused as an
escalation.
`trace: guard G_ESC`
*Known Stage 1 limitation:* without the mandate graph, `G_ESC` cannot be fully
evaluated. Stage 1 MUST record the distinction the approver asserted rather than
silently treating escalate as forward. See §6.

### 3.5 The binding / awareness split

**PR-40 — Awareness fields never enter `view_hash`.**
Proposed role, other available roles, other tenants, and last-session summary
are rendered on the same surface, hashed into `awareness_hash`, and excluded
from the signed binding document.
*Pass:* isolation vector 2 — editing an awareness field does not change
`view_hash` — is green in CI.
`trace: DoD-4, P-11, W-"Awareness leaks into the signature", EvidenceModel`

**PR-41 — Awareness is visually distinguished from binding.**
The approver can tell, without reading documentation, which part of the surface
they are committing to and which part is orientation.
*Pass:* the two regions are separately labelled; the labelling is part of the
reviewed design, not incidental styling.
`trace: P-11`

**PR-42 — Promotion is explicit and versions the memo.**
Moving a field from awareness into binding creates a new memo version and
invalidates outstanding presentations.
*Pass:* guard `G_PROMOTE`; a presentation taken before promotion cannot be bound
against after it.
`trace: guard G_PROMOTE, INTENT invariant on `awareness_promoted``

### 3.6 Evidence

**PR-50 — An evidence bundle exports and verifies offline.**
Containing the memo, its versions, the presentations with both hashes, the
dispositions, the thread, and the hash chain.
*Pass:* an exported bundle verifies with no network access; verification detects
a mutated field.
`trace: DoD-7, P-7`

**PR-51 — The export is the evidence, not a screenshot.**
No requirement is satisfied by a rendered image of the surface.
*Pass:* the bundle is structured data; the canonicalizer reproduces `view_hash`
from it.
`trace: P-7`

**PR-52 — The surface states the bound of its own guarantee.**
Documentation and the export state that attestation covers accident and later
tampering, not a compromised surface presenting X and attesting Y.
*Pass:* the residual appears in `EvidenceModel.md` and in the bundle metadata.
`trace: gate-house decision request §3; approval-engine's equivalent residual`

### 3.7 Locale and accessibility

**PR-60 — German and English, with German as a first-class source language.**
The *Umlaufmappe* vocabulary — Kenntnisnahme, Mitzeichnung, Schlusszeichnung,
Rücksprache, Rückgabe — is the domain vocabulary, not a translation of English
product terms.
*Pass:* both locales render every verb; locale is part of the presentation
record and therefore of `view_hash`.
`trace: DoD-6, INTENT §"The Disposition Vocabulary"; exploration open question 7`

**PR-61 — Locale changes the memo version's presentation, not its meaning.**
Because locale enters `view_hash`, a memo read in German and one read in English
produce different presentations of the same binding. This is intended and must
be documented, not smoothed over.
*Pass:* the two presentations differ in `view_hash` and reference the same memo
version.
`trace: canonicalize.md allow-list`

**PR-62 — Keyboard-operable and screen-reader-navigable throughout.**
An approver using assistive technology can read the brief, open packet items,
acknowledge highlights and bind, without a mouse.
*Pass:* every disposition control and every acknowledgment control is reachable
and operable by keyboard; the acknowledgment state is programmatically
determinable.
`trace: P-8; PR-21 (acknowledgment must remain explicit under AT too)`

---

## 4. Anti-requirements

These are requirements *not* to build things a reasonable implementer would
otherwise add. Each is testable as an absence.

**PR-70 — No dwell timers.** Minimum reading time, "you must spend 30 seconds on
this page", and countdown-gated buttons are forbidden.

**PR-71 — No keystroke, mouse-movement or attention analytics.** Informedness is
evidenced by the hash of the presented view plus explicit acknowledgment, never
by behavioural telemetry.

**PR-72 — No dark patterns.** Accept is not visually privileged over return.
Decline is not hidden behind a secondary menu. No pre-checked acknowledgments.
No confirm-shaming copy.

**PR-73 [rev-1] — No auto-approval, no delegation-to-agent, no "approve all".**
Bulk selection may exist for reading; it must not exist for binding.

*Correction:* the first draft assumed `approval-engine` would refuse a non-human
approver entry. It does not — only `/consume` is restricted by principal type,
and the `approval-engine-operator` service client holds `approval:approve`. So a
non-human principal **can** supply approver evidence today. Whether it should is
`gate-house` doctrine. Enforcement of "humans bind, agents draft" is therefore
this surface's own obligation, and is *auditable* via schema v4's
`entries[].principal_type`, which records the verified value from the token.
Read that field; **never** infer it from the shape of `subject_id`, which is a
naming convention, not a verified claim. Entries written before v4 are `null`
and must not be read as `human`.

**PR-74 — No approval-state caching.** The surface never stores or serves whether
an approval is valid. It asks `approval-engine`.
`trace: W-"It reimplements approval-engine", GOAL invariant`

**PR-75 — No authorization endpoint.** Nothing in this repository answers "may
this actor do X".
`trace: DoD-8, W-"It starts deciding"`

*Pass for §4:* each is a review checklist item and, where mechanically checkable,
a test asserting the absence.

---

## 5. Non-requirements for Stage 1

Not deficiencies — deliberate exclusions carried from `GOAL.md`:

- Memo authoring. Memos arrive from `approval-engine`.
- The mandate graph.
- L4/L5, QES, QTSP, qualified archival retention.
- Multi-party parallel Mitzeichnung.
- EUDI Wallet / eID identity import.
- Notification transport. A memo may be announced elsewhere; the dialogue stays
  on the object.
- Mobile-native clients. Responsive web only.
- Offline operation.

---

## 6. Known limitations, stated up front

**L-01 — `escalate` without a mandate graph is forwarding.** Guard `G_ESC`
requires knowing that the target's mandate is strictly higher. Stage 1 has no
such map. The surface records the approver's asserted intent to escalate and
marks it unverified rather than either blocking the verb or pretending the guard
passed. `GOAL.md` records this as accepted; `EvidenceModel.md` must state that
an escalation in a Stage 1 bundle is an assertion, not a verified claim.

**L-02 — `view_hash` is computed by the renderer.** A compromised surface can
present one thing and attest another. Not closed, not closable at this layer,
and not claimed to be closed.

**L-03 — Binding level is organizational only.** Stage 1 produces no AES or QES
signature. `binding_level` is carried in the object and in `view_hash` so that
higher levels are expressible without a schema change, but nothing above
organizational is implemented or claimed.

**L-04 — `view_hash` versus `approval-engine`'s binding digest is unresolved.**
Filed as `INFD-IN-0001` R3. Until ruled, the surface computes `view_hash` and
does not assert any relationship to the approval claim's digest.

**L-05 — `view_hash` is not inside the approval entry.** By the engine's
deliberate design (PR-13). Correlation is by `(approval_id, subject,
approved_at)`. An auditor holding only the approval object cannot reach the
presentation without also holding this surface's record or `audit-core`.

**L-06 — A memo `return` is invisible to `approval-engine`.** `accept` is the
only disposition that becomes a `POST …/entries`. `return`, `discuss`,
`escalate` and the rest are dispositions of a *memo* and are not represented in
that engine at all. Correct separation, but it means the approval object alone
does not show that a human sent the question back.

---

## 7. Open questions for review

1. ~~Does the approver need to see other pending memos?~~ **Answered
   2026-09-09 by construction.** `approval-engine` exposes get-by-id only: no
   list, no search, no "awaiting me" query, and there will not be one. Approval
   ids reach this surface from whatever requested the approval, never by
   polling. A listing surface would itself be an authorization question and
   would need scoping by something other than that engine's judgment. The
   approvals-inbox shape is foreclosed upstream, which is the outcome this
   repository wanted anyway.
2. What does the surface do when `approval-engine` is reachable but
   `audit-core` is not? Fail closed on binding, or bind and queue? The
   `ArchitectureBlueprint` must answer this per-dependency (T05).
3. Who is the requester for an `approval-engine`-originated memo, given the
   engine does not model one? Likely the approval's `principal`, but this needs
   confirming against the approval object.
4. Is `abstain` in Stage 1? It is in the state tables and it is real in
   Mitzeichnung practice, but it has no obvious `approval-engine` counterpart.