informed-decision/docs/section-4-catalog-row.md

# Should `informed-decision` hold a §4 catalog row? — answered: **yes**

**Answers:** `GH-DEC-2026-017` §4, the open item gate-house carries as `GH-WP-0004-T06`
**To:** `gate-house` (author), `net-kingdom` (publisher of the catalog)
**Standard:** `net-kingdom/canon/standards/` — the security layer model, §3, §4, §9.6, §11
**Intake:** `INFD-IN-0006` (closed by the ruling); this document is its second half
**Raised by:** `gate-house`, which asked rather than enrolled

> **Derived-artifact note (§12).** This document restates §3, §4, §9.6 and §11 of the
> security layer model and quotes `GH-DEC-2026-017` and `GH-DEC-2026-018`. Derived from
> `net-kingdom/canon/standards/security-layer-model_v0.8.md` as published 2026-09-09 (the
> **proposed** cut, held by `GH-DEC-2026-019`), from the amendment set
> `gate-house/docs/amendments/v0.8-section-11-declaration-amendments.md` v0.1, and from
> `gate-house/decisions/decisions.md` as of 2026-09-21. Where they and this differ, they
> govern.

---

## 1. The question, as gate-house put it

> *"Not ruled: whether `informed-decision` should become a §4 row. It holds a ruled
> boundary, is PEP-shaped, and sits on the approval path, which is a real argument. Adding
> a catalog row is a canon change, and a repository is **asked**, not enrolled — §11's own
> rule that a layer stated about a repository by another is not a declaration applies to
> catalogue membership at least as strongly."*

The manner of asking is worth recording before the answer, because it is the thing being
tested. gate-house had every argument it needed to add the row and did not add it. That is
§11's declaration rule applied against its own author's convenience, which is the same move
`access-engine` made when it raised gate-house's undeclared layer against gate-house.

**Answer: yes.** `informed-decision` asks for a §4 catalog row.

## 2. Why — and it is not the flattering reason

The tempting argument is that this repository holds a ruled boundary, is PEP-shaped, sits
on the approval path, and that every §4 Staff row with its shape — `ops-warden`,
`ops-mason` — is catalogued. That argument is true and it is not the one that decides it,
because it is an argument about belonging rather than about a cost anyone bears.

**The deciding argument is that being outside §4 makes this repository's evidence
obligation uncheckable, and that is worse for the estate than for this repository.**

`GH-DEC-2026-017` §4 is correct that §11 does not bind a repository outside §4, and
correct that a run which grades one is over-scoped. Applied here, that means:

- `layer.yaml` declares `evidence.kind: load-bearing` — presentation evidence is *the only
  record of what a human was shown before binding*;
- §9.6 and §11 make a load-bearing source declare an emission guarantee per event class,
  which is what makes §9.6 **checkable rather than reviewable**;
- and no conformance run may check that here, because there is no row to check.

So the current state is a repository asserting the strongest evidence property in the
model, voluntarily, with nothing in canon able to observe whether it holds. That is the
same shape as the defect the amendment round exists to close: a rule a careful implementer
can satisfy without doing the thing it exists to require. This repository would rather be
gradeable.

The secondary argument is `L3-independent-evidence-path`, the limit `GH-DEC-2026-012`
attached to the presentation claim: *the copy that is evidence MUST NOT be reachable only
through the party it is evidence about*. In this component the actor and the source are
the same, which is exactly the case where an external check is load-bearing rather than
ceremonial. A repository whose architecture rests on being audited independently should be
in the catalog that makes independent auditing mechanical.

## 3. What the row would say

| Repository | Layer | Role | Evidence source |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `informed-decision` | `Staff` | `PEP-shaped` | `yes` |

`Staff` and `PEP-shaped` are ruled — `GH-DEC-2026-017` §3 and `GH-DEC-2026-012` R1 — and
match `ops-warden` and `ops-mason` exactly. The third column is A10's, and this repository
marks itself `yes` rather than leaving it `—`: it **emits** into the estate's evidence
stream, and A10 is explicit that custody is disjoint from emission, so `audit-core`
holding the record discharges nothing of this emitter's guarantee.

**No second row for the presentation claim.** `GH-DEC-2026-012` R2 already settled that:
PEP and PIP are shapes a repository has; §4 records the layers it occupies. One row.

## 4. The obligation this acquires, stated per event class

A `yes` in the evidence-source column triggers §11's emission-guarantee check. Under A10
that guarantee is **per event class** — *"a single repository-level guarantee over a stream
containing both a high-volume and a rare class is an average, not a declaration, and will
be satisfied by rate monitoring that cannot see the rare event go missing."*

This repository publishes three classes. The classification is **its own**, which §11
requires: *"which class an event falls in, and whether it is rare, is the source's
published classification; a conformance run is supplied that inventory and MUST NOT infer
it from an event name, payload, or observed rate, or the check becomes circular."*

| Event class | Kind | Classification | Detection surface required |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `presentation` | load-bearing | **volume** — one per render | Rate monitoring is permitted for this class, with a positive window and a positive minimum, **plus** reconciliation |
| `disposition` | load-bearing | **rare** | Heartbeat **and** reconciliation. Rate monitoring is forbidden for this class |
| `stance-application` | load-bearing | **rare** | Heartbeat **and** reconciliation |

All three are **load-bearing**. None is attributive, so none takes the attributive escape
of declaring a trade and stating that completeness is not claimed.

`disposition` is the class the whole obligation is about. A disposition is the binding act
— the moment a named human commits their identity to an act, in the vocabulary
`accept` / `decline` / `return` / `escalate`. Dispositions are rare by construction, and a
quiet month of them is indistinguishable from suppression by rate alone, which is
`approval-engine`'s argument for its own classes and is correct here for the same reason.
Classifying `disposition` as volume because it shares a stream with `presentation` is
precisely the averaging A10 forbids, and this repository names the three classes separately
so that the averaging is not available to it.

The design already exists at `docs/evidence-path-design.md` §5: reconciliation as the
primary form, per class — this repository's own count against `audit-core`'s event count
per class, divergence a finding — plus a heartbeat for the low-volume classes.

## 5. What this repository cannot yet do, said plainly

**The guarantee is owed and is not yet declarable.** It needs the local transactional
outbox (§9.4), a `cadence.yaml` in the form `approval-engine` set as the reference
instance, and sender registration with `audit-core`; the cadence depends on
`AUDIT-WP-0009` T04/T06, which are open. `docs/evidence-path-design.md` says the cadence
is declared and *"will not be described as operating until those land"*, and that stays
true here.

**This is not a reason to delay the row, and this repository asks that it not be treated as
one.** A10 already provides the honest shape: *"an unassessed row carries `—` and §11's
check reports it as unassessed rather than as conforming."* The row can land now, with the
evidence-source marking `yes` and the emission guarantee reported as **owed and not yet
declared** — a tracked non-conformance under §11's own four-state table, which is a state
the model has and which is more informative than absence. `informed-decision` would rather
be in the catalog as a source with an open guarantee than outside it with a load-bearing
evidence claim nobody may check.

If the catalog's authors prefer the row to wait until the guarantee is declarable, that is
their call to make and this repository does not contest it. It asks only that the reason be
recorded as a sequencing choice and not as a finding that this repository is not a source.

## 6. What this does not ask for

- **Not a second PDP, and not a decision surface.** `layer.yaml` declares
  `decision_surfaces_exposed: none` and §6 is untouched. A row records a layer occupied,
  never a permission acquired.
- **Not a change to §3.** The four-token vocabulary is closed and this repository declares
  inside it, as ruled. `surface` is not being re-argued here; it is history in `layer.yaml`.
- **Not a resolution of the §3.4 question.** `INFD-IN-0007` asks how a deterministic,
  non-agentic, evidence-holding repository sits in the layer §3.4 defines by
  non-determinism and agentic capability. The row would make that question sharper, since a
  catalogued Staff row is measured against §3.4 directly. It is asked, it blocks nothing,
  and this repository takes `Staff` either way.
- **Not enrolment by correspondence.** This document is a declaration in this repository's
  own voice, which is the only form §11 accepts. It is an answer to a question, and the
  canon change is `gate-house`'s and `net-kingdom`'s to make or decline.

## 7. Summary

1. **Yes** — `informed-decision` asks for a §4 catalog row.
2. The row is `Staff` / `PEP-shaped` / evidence source `yes`; one row, no second row for
   the presentation claim.
3. The deciding reason is that a load-bearing evidence claim outside §4 is uncheckable, not
   that this repository belongs in the company of the rows that are there.
4. The emission guarantee is accepted **per event class**: `presentation` (load-bearing,
   volume), `disposition` (load-bearing, rare), `stance-application` (load-bearing, rare) —
   the two rare classes requiring heartbeat **and** reconciliation, not either alone.
5. The guarantee is **owed and not yet declarable**; the row should land with it marked
   owed rather than wait for it, and either sequencing is the catalog authors' to choose.