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.

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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.