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

pep-stance.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,110 @@
+# informed-decision — PEP unreachable-engine stance map
+#
+# Framework: net-kingdom/canon/standards/security-layer-model_v0.7.md §6.4, §9.3, §9.7
+# Built to:  v0.8 obligation 3 (GH-DEC-2026-011), not v0.7 — per GH-DEC-2026-012,
+#            so this is built to rather than migrated to.
+# Ruling:    GH-DEC-2026-012
+# Validate:  pytest tests/test_layer_conformance.py
+#
+# §6.4 obligation 3 requires a declared unreachable-engine stance that is total,
+# scoped per zone, carries no implicit default and no per-call discretion, and is
+# published rather than held in code comments. A map that lives only in a module
+# default is not published — it is merely written down.
+#
+# The property that makes this worth reading: it is asserted equal to the shipped
+# map in informed_decision/stance.py by tests/test_layer_conformance.py. A
+# published map that may drift from the code is worse than none, because it
+# invites reliance it cannot support.
+
+schema_version: "0.1"
+framework: netkingdom-security-layer-model
+standard_version: "0.7"
+built_to_obligation_3_of: "0.8"
+repository: informed-decision
+pep_shape: true
+declared_by: layer.yaml
+ruling: GH-DEC-2026-012
+
+protected_action: "Approver entry recorded against an approval object"
+decision_engine: access-engine
+
+# v0.8 obligation 3: the map MUST enumerate its axis rather than lean on a
+# catch-all. The axis here is the memo's binding_level — this repository's own
+# graded property, and the one that determines how costly a wrong bind is.
+axis: binding_level
+axis_source: decision-memo.schema.json#/properties/binding_level
+
+# Total by enumeration, not by catch-all. Every value of the axis appears
+# explicitly, plus the two non-value outcomes required to be distinguishable.
+#
+# Every stance is fail_closed, and that is a conclusion rather than a shortcut.
+# ops-warden can justify fail_open on some zones because refusing removes
+# production host access to close a documentation gap — a continuity argument.
+# No such argument exists here. Refusing to render or to bind delays a decision;
+# it does not remove a capability anyone depends on to keep a system running.
+# Binding a human's identity to an act without an authorization decision is the
+# precise failure this repository exists to prevent, so there is no level at
+# which proceeding-without-a-decision is the safer error.
+stance:
+  acknowledgment: fail_closed
+  organizational: fail_closed
+  aes:            fail_closed
+  qes:            fail_closed
+  unknown:        fail_closed   # v0.8 obligation 3: unknown MUST resolve to fail_closed
+  absent:         fail_closed   # distinct from unknown in the record — see below
+
+# v0.8 obligation 3 requires an absent scope to be DISTINGUISHABLE in the record
+# from an unknown one. They resolve to the same stance here but must never be
+# recorded as the same fact:
+#   absent  — the memo carried no binding_level at all (a defect in the memo)
+#   unknown — a binding_level was present but is not a value this map enumerates
+#             (a version skew between memo and this map)
+# Collapsing them would hide a schema-drift incident inside a malformed-input
+# statistic.
+scope_absence:
+  distinguishable: true
+  recorded_as:
+    absent: "binding_level.absent"
+    unknown: "binding_level.unknown"
+
+# §6.4 obligation 1 requires a decision record for a protected side effect.
+# Where the engine is unreachable there is no decision to hold, so this surface
+# records the APPLICATION OF THE STANCE instead.
+on_apply:
+  recorded_fields:
+    - memo_id
+    - memo_version
+    - binding_level
+    - binding_level_state      # present | absent | unknown
+    - stance_applied
+    - decision_id              # only where a decision was actually rendered
+    - decision_attributable    # see inherited gap below
+    - presentation_id
+  user_visible: >-
+    The approver is told the act could not be authorized and that nothing was
+    bound. The surface never presents a fail_closed outcome as a decline by the
+    approver: no disposition is recorded, because the human did not make one.
+
+# GH-DEC-2026-010, inherited. Obligation 1 requires a decision be ATTRIBUTABLE to
+# access-engine, and no consumer can satisfy that today — flex-auth's envelope is
+# unsigned (declared §13 gap, FLEX-WP-0024). `decision_attributable` is therefore
+# recorded as false and MUST NOT be reported as satisfied while that is open.
+inherited_gap:
+  id: GH-DEC-2026-010-attributability
+  decision_attributable_today: false
+  tracked_by: FLEX-WP-0024
+
+# §13.1 / GH-DEC-2026-011 — a dated classification-coverage figure beside the
+# stance. Honest figure for a repository at spec stage: the axis is fully
+# enumerated against the schema, and no protected action has shipped yet.
+classification_coverage:
+  as_of: "2026-09-09"
+  axis_values_enumerated: 4
+  axis_values_in_schema: 4
+  coverage: "4/4 (100%) of binding_level values enumerated"
+  protected_actions_shipped: 0
+  note: >-
+    Coverage is complete against the schema, not against production behaviour:
+    nothing is deployed. Re-date this figure when the walking skeleton
+    (INFD-WP-0001-T08) ships, and treat a coverage figure that predates a schema
+    change as stale.