Declare the layer per GH-DEC-2026-012; close T02

Gate House ruled all three questions within a day, attributing the speed to the
request being filed before the architecture with candidate answers and their
costs.

R1 PEP-shaped, confirmed as proposed. The ruling settles the shape; the layer
stays ours to declare, so layer.yaml is written in this repository's voice
rather than transcribed from the reply.

R2 yes to a presentation claim, no second catalog row, under three limits now
declared in layer.yaml and tested. Limit 2 — the claim must never be an input to
the decision it presents for — is load-bearing: our self-dealing argument was
accepted because it holds, not despite it. Limit 3 drives architecture, since
here the actor being audited and the evidence source are the same component.

R3 (b) with the authority rule: binding digest authoritative for what the
request is, view_hash only for what was shown, neither substitutable, and a
disagreement between them is a finding against the presenting surface rather
than a fact about the request. Linkage is co-reference; nesting was refused
because it reproduces the GH-DEC-2026-008 hash cycle.

Built to v0.8 obligation 3 rather than migrating later: axis enumerated, unknown
resolves to fail_closed, absent distinguishable from unknown in the record, and
published-equals-shipped asserted by test rather than claimed. Every stance is
fail_closed, which is a conclusion not a shortcut — ops-warden can justify
fail_open on a continuity argument that does not exist here.

GH-DEC-2026-010 inherited as a declared gap in four documents: a decision cannot
today be proven to have come from access-engine. The decision path must not be
described as validated while FLEX-WP-0024 is open.

46 tests pass. T05 and T07 unblocked.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01V3W1dQG7GFFM9d94jFx7iR

Assistant: claude-code
Assistant-Model: opus
Assistant-Process: 1565372@bnt-lap001
Assistant-Session: 16bb2f25-b34c-49ef-8e94-5fec3567a568

GOAL.md

@@ -85,6 +85,11 @@ These hold for Stage 1 and for every stage after it.
 - **`approved` is never rendered as permission to act.** It is a state of an
   object. Presenting it as "you may now do the thing" is a policy decision point
   in the browser.
+- **The decision path is not validated, and must not be described as such.**
+  `GH-DEC-2026-010` requires a decision be attributable to `access-engine`, and
+  no consumer can satisfy that today — the envelope is unsigned
+  (`FLEX-WP-0024`). This surface records that a decision was obtained and what
+  it said, and records `decision_attributable: false`.
 - **Entitlement to view is `access-engine`'s.** A `200` from `approval-engine`
   is not permission to see the approval; that engine never answers "may this
   actor do X". This surface obtains a decision before rendering and never
@@ -108,7 +113,9 @@ These hold for Stage 1 and for every stage after it.
 
 > **Who owns the approver UI?**
 
-The answer this repository proposes, to be ratified rather than assumed:
+**Answered 2026-09-09 by `GH-DEC-2026-012`.** The proposal below was confirmed
+in full. Recorded as proposed-then-ratified rather than rewritten as though it
+had always been settled:
 
 - **informed-decision owns it** — the surface, the presentation record, the
   browser client, and the evidence of informedness.
@@ -117,13 +124,20 @@ The answer this repository proposes, to be ratified rather than assumed:
   and statute §6.4.
 - It supplies exactly one PIP-like fact — *what was presented* — as a claim
   carrying `view_hash`, issuer and freshness, and it never evaluates that fact.
-- The catalog row does not exist yet. `INFD-WP-0001-T02` asks `gate-house` and
-  writes `layer.yaml` from the ruling. If `gate-house` places this component
-  elsewhere, `INTENT.md` and this file change to match — the ruling wins.
+- **Ruled:** PEP-shaped, confirmed as proposed. No second catalog row for the
+  presentation claim — PEP and PIP are shapes a repository has. The claim is
+  permitted under three limits (presentation-only; never an input to the
+  decision it presents for; evidence reaches `audit-core` independently), and
+  `view_hash` versus the binding digest is settled as distinct attestations with
+  an authority rule, linked by co-reference and never by nesting.
+  `layer.yaml` and `pep-stance.yaml` declare it; `INTENT.md` carries the
+  reasoning.
 
 ## Definition of done
 
-1. `gate-house` has ruled on the layer placement and `layer.yaml` reflects it.
+1. ~~`gate-house` has ruled on the layer placement and `layer.yaml` reflects
+   it.~~ **Done 2026-09-09** — `GH-DEC-2026-012`; `layer.yaml`,
+   `pep-stance.yaml` and `tests/test_layer_conformance.py`.
 2. `key-cape` has the `client_id` and callback URI, and `KEY-WP-0013-T02` is
    unblocked with the answer traceable to this repository.
 3. The four specs exist, are reviewed against the current `approval-engine`,