informed-decision/workplans/INFD-WP-0001-founding-specs-and-approver-ui-ownership.md

---
id: INFD-WP-0001
type: workplan
title: "Founding specs and approver-UI ownership"
domain: infotech
repo: informed-decision
status: active
owner: claude
topic_slug: netkingdom
created: "2026-09-09"
updated: "2026-09-09"
reviewed_at: "2026-09-09"
reviewed_against_commit: "ee2cca5"
reviewed_note: >-
  Reviewed against approval-engine's INTENT, SCOPE, layer.yaml,
  APPROVAL-WP-0002 and docs/keycape-service-registrations.md; the accepted
  NetKingdom security layer model v0.7 and companion v0.2; the
  repo-classification and project-repository-flavor standards; and the
  Decision Memo schema, state-transition tables and canonicalization vectors in
  history/20260909-initial-exploration. Repo-owned specification work can
  proceed. T05 and T07 remain externally gated on the gate-house ruling
  requested as INFD-IN-0001; T08 is additionally gated on
  APPROVAL-WP-0002-T01 and a deployed approval-engine.
origin: founding
origin_ref: history/20260909-initial-exploration/InitialExploration.md
state_hub_workstream_id: "a985a65a-08f7-5a39-8645-b618ea022657"
---

# INFD-WP-0001 — Founding specs and approver-UI ownership

Establish `informed-decision` as a governed repository in the NetKingdom estate,
settle who owns the browser-facing approver UI that `approval-engine`
deliberately does not contain, and produce the specification set that Stage 1
implementation will be built against.

The trigger is concrete and dated. On 2026-09-08 `key-cape` (`KEY-WP-0013-T02`)
asked `approval-engine` for the human approver client's `client_id` and callback
URI. `approval-engine` correctly declined to invent them and recorded in
`docs/keycape-service-registrations.md` that the human approver flow *"belongs to
whichever browser-facing approver UI presents `approval:approve` tokens to this
engine. That component is not in this repo."* `APPROVAL-WP-0002-T01` remains
`progress` partly because of it. This workplan closes that gap by naming the
owner and shipping the contract.

**Reviewed 2026-09-09; the plan is active.** Reviewed against the contracts
listed in the frontmatter. T02 remains the gate for the *architecture*: if
`gate-house` places this component differently, T05 and T07 are rewritten before
they are written. T03, T04 and T06 are independent of the ruling because they
describe what the surface must do and what the evidence must contain, neither of
which changes with the catalog row.

Scope boundary for this workplan: **specification and contract, plus one
walking skeleton**. Full L3 product build is residual and belongs to
`INFD-WP-0002`.

## Establish the founding documents

```task
id: INFD-WP-0001-T01
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "abe83f6a-18d2-5fe5-bd01-56b6fd0babbe"
```

Write the repository's stable statements of purpose and current stage, derived
from the founding exploration rather than reinvented.

Acceptance: `INTENT.md` states purpose, the Decision Memo concept, ownership and
non-ownership against the named estate repositories, design principles, wrongness
conditions and success criteria; `GOAL.md` states the Stage 1 outcome, exclusions,
invariants and definition of done; `README.md` orients a new reader in under a
minute; `history/20260909-initial-exploration/` is preserved unmodified as the
provenance record.

Completed 2026-09-09: `INTENT.md`, `GOAL.md`, `README.md`, `SCOPE.md`,
`AGENTS.md` and `.repo-classification.yaml` written; repo registered in the
State Hub and `INFD-WP-0001` indexed by `fix-consistency`.

Two corrections made during the same task, recorded rather than silently fixed:

- `GOAL.md` first declared `repo_flavor: project`. That is wrong.
  `project-repository-flavor_v0.1.md` reserves the `prj-` flavor for bounded
  cross-repo coordination efforts and states that durable products use
  `INTENT.md` and an ordinary category. This is a durable product;
  `.repo-classification.yaml` sets `category: product`. `GOAL.md` is retained
  as the *stage* statement, which the flavor standard does not forbid.
- `SCOPE.md` was initially deferred to T06 on the reasoning that a scope file
  written before the layer ruling describes an imagined boundary. The Repo
  Manager requires it (C-35), and the reasoning was better served by writing an
  honestly empty one: the shipped `SCOPE.md` states plainly that nothing is
  implemented and that T06 rewrites it. T06 now rewrites rather than creates.

## Settle layer placement and approver-UI ownership with gate-house

```task
id: INFD-WP-0001-T02
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "4f94134b-2260-5404-84e0-12f2b08ef565"
```

Take the ownership question to `gate-house` as doctrine rather than asserting a
catalog row. The proposal to argue: `informed-decision` owns the browser-facing
approver surface, the presentation record and the evidence of informedness; it
is **PEP-shaped** under statute §6.4 and companion §5 because it is
browser-facing and causes a protected side effect on the far side of a decision;
it supplies exactly one PIP-like fact — *what was presented* — as a claim, and
never evaluates it.

Raise explicitly, and do not paper over:

- §17 has no request-claim schema owner assigned. A `view_hash`-bearing
  presentation claim must yield to that schema when it exists rather than
  inventing a permanent local shape.
- `approval-engine`'s claim already carries *"a digest over the same canonical
  binding the decision point already computes"*. Whether `view_hash` is that
  digest, a sibling of it, or a distinct presentation attestation is a real
  question and the wrong answer creates two competing canonicalizations of the
  same act. This is the single highest-risk unknown in the workplan.
- A surface that renders both the question and the answer is adjacent to the
  self-dealing objection that kept the object out of `access-engine`. State why
  it is not the same failure: this repository holds no state a decision reads
  as authority.

Acceptance: an intake is filed with `gate-house`; a ruling or a recorded decision
exists; `layer.yaml` is written from the ruling and matches the catalog row, not
this workplan's prose; `INTENT.md` and `GOAL.md` are amended if the ruling
differs from the proposal; the `view_hash`-versus-binding-digest relationship is
recorded as a decision, not left implicit. Blocking for T05 and T07.

## Product Requirements Document

```task
id: INFD-WP-0001-T03
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "86465a35-1af5-5956-a767-57ad838dffa9"
```

Write `docs/specs/ProductRequirementsDocument.md` for Stage 1: the L3 approval
approver surface, scoped to one real consumer.

Must cover: the personas (approver holding a mandate, requester, observer/auditor);
the disposition vocabulary and which verbs are legal on which step kinds; the
required-highlight acknowledgment gate; the pre-sign/awareness split as it
appears in the UI; the evidence bundle as an export; accessibility and locale
(DE/EN, given the *Umlaufmappe* framing); and the explicit non-requirements from
`GOAL.md` — no mandate graph, no QES, no notification transport.

State the anti-requirements as first-class: no dark patterns, no dwell timers,
no keystroke analytics, and a UI that makes unmistakable that the whole
instrument is bound rather than only the acknowledged highlights.

Acceptance: every requirement traces to either a `GOAL.md` definition-of-done
item or a named external contract; each requirement is testable; the document
names what it is deliberately not requiring and why.

Completed 2026-09-09: `docs/specs/ProductRequirementsDocument.md`. 30 numbered
requirements, each with a `trace:` line to a `GOAL.md` DoD item, an `INTENT.md`
principle or wrongness condition, a state-transition guard, or a named external
contract, and each with an observable pass condition. Anti-requirements
(PR-70..75) are stated as testable absences: no dwell timers, no attention
analytics, no dark patterns, no auto-approval, no approval-state caching, no
authorization endpoint. Four known limitations are recorded up front rather than
discovered later — chiefly that `escalate` without a mandate graph is forwarding
(L-01) and that `view_hash` is computed by the renderer, so a compromised
surface can present X and attest Y (L-02). Four open questions are left for
review rather than answered by assumption.

## Use Case Catalog

```task
id: INFD-WP-0001-T04
status: done
priority: medium
state_hub_task_id: "00a83db5-fe0e-522a-b885-6f9ef034bc07"
```

Write `docs/specs/UseCaseCatalog.md` covering the full depth spectrum L0–L5, with
Stage 1 scope marked, so that scale invariance is testable as a design property
rather than a claim in a vision statement.

For each level: actor, trigger, requested act, binding level, the verbs that must
be available, the evidence produced, and the estate repository that is the
counterparty. Include the L0 login banner and the L2 ADR accept in full even
though they are out of Stage 1 build scope — their purpose here is to constrain
the schema so the object cannot fork later.

Include the negative cases: `accept` on a Kenntnisnahme step (illegal by design),
a bind attempt with unacknowledged required highlights, an agent attempting a
disposition, and a tenant switch requiring a new bind.

Acceptance: every use case maps onto the single Decision Memo schema with no
level-specific object; each negative case names the invariant it protects; the
catalog states for each level which estate repository would consume it.

Completed 2026-09-09: `docs/specs/UseCaseCatalog.md`. Six use cases L0-L5 with
counterparty and stage, ten negative cases each bound to a guard or isolation
vector, and a closing section naming the four changes that would fork the
object — a level-specific status, multiple questions per memo, a per-level
packet model, and an approvals-inbox entity that acquires state. Each case
records what it contributes as a *constraint* on the shared schema, so the
scale-invariance claim is checkable rather than asserted.

## Architecture Blueprint

```task
id: INFD-WP-0001-T05
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "20ea118e-0657-5054-8aa2-b316444f4000"
```

Write `docs/specs/ArchitectureBlueprint.md`. Depends on T02 — the layer ruling
determines what this component is permitted to be.

Must cover: the component boundary and its position in the security layer model;
the call graph to `key-cape` (OIDC authorization-code + PKCE for humans),
`approval-engine` (bearer `approval:approve`, never `approval:consume`),
`access-engine` (decision, never rendered here) and `audit-core` (evidence
emission); the storage posture for memos, presentations and dispositions;
the deployment shape including the Ingress and external origin that
`approval-engine` explicitly does not have; and the failure modes — what the
surface does when `approval-engine`, `key-cape` or `audit-core` is unavailable.

Fail-closed is the default and must be stated per dependency. A surface that
degrades into showing a memo it cannot bind is acceptable; a surface that
degrades into binding without evidence is not.

Acceptance: no component in the diagram renders an authorization decision; the
token audiences, scopes and principal types match `approval-engine`'s
`docs/keycape-service-registrations.md` exactly; every external dependency has a
stated unavailable-stance; the blueprint names which parts are Stage 1 and which
are placeholders.

Completed 2026-09-09: `docs/specs/ArchitectureBlueprint.md`. Written after the
ruling, as intended — the layer answer shaped it rather than being retrofitted.

The constraint that did most of the work is `GH-DEC-2026-012` limit 3: the
evidence copy must reach `audit-core` independently of this component, because
here the actor being audited and the evidence source are the same. That is
booked as four binding implementation consequences plus an open item (`O-02`)
that must be resolved before T08 ships, rather than as a principle — "we will
add the independent path later" is how limit 3 becomes limit-3-in-principle.

Also fixed: `presentation/` is the only writer of `view_hash`; the
`approval-engine` client must expose no validity cache; a fail-closed outcome is
never recorded as an approver's decline, because the human did not make one; and
the `assurance` shape is cited from `key-cape`'s contract rather than restated,
so it cannot drift.

## Evidence model, schema promotion and canonicalization under test

```task
id: INFD-WP-0001-T06
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "47cb3f7a-e349-5c81-a304-86275e058a85"
```

Promote the exploration artifacts from `history/` into governed, tested
repository assets, and write `docs/specs/EvidenceModel.md`.

Move `decision-memo.schema.json` to `schemas/`, `canonicalize.py` into the
package, and the fixtures in `vectors/` into the test suite. `history/` stays
untouched as provenance; the governed copies are the ones that change.

The four isolation properties from the exploration become tests that must stay
green:

1. shuffling object keys does not change either hash;
2. editing an awareness field does not change `view_hash`;
3. changing `binding.target` does change `view_hash`;
4. selecting a role after login emits `session.hat_selected` and does not
   rewrite `view_hash`.

`EvidenceModel.md` covers what an evidence bundle contains, how it verifies
offline, its relationship to `audit-core`'s archive, and — carried over from
`approval-engine`'s reasoning rather than rediscovered — the honest statement
that a hash chain proves records were not altered after arrival and cannot prove
a record was never sent.

**Rewrite** `SCOPE.md` as the last step of this task. The version shipped in
T01 is honestly empty — it states that nothing is implemented. Replace it with
the real implemented-and-first-cut boundary once the layer ruling and the specs
have fixed it, and drop the T01 status banner.

Acceptance: schema, canonicalizer and vectors live outside `history/` and are
exercised in CI; the three published expected hashes reproduce byte-for-byte;
`EvidenceModel.md` states the residual it does not close; `SCOPE.md` describes
the implemented-and-first-cut boundary rather than the aspiration, and no longer
carries the T01 "nothing is implemented" banner.

2026-09-09 — substantive half done; task stays `progress` because the `SCOPE.md`
rewrite is gated on T02. Delivered:

- `schemas/decision-memo.schema.json` plus both worked examples;
  `informed_decision/canonicalize.py` as the governed canonicalizer, with the
  ad-hoc `__main__` block replaced by `python -m informed_decision`;
  fixtures under `tests/vectors/`. `history/` is untouched.
- `tests/test_canonicalize.py` — 20 tests, all green. The three published
  hashes reproduce byte for byte, and all four isolation properties are pinned.
- `docs/specs/EvidenceModel.md`.
- `pyproject.toml`, `Makefile` (`make test`, `make check`).

Two things worth recording rather than burying:

- Isolation properties 1, 2 and 4 are all *negative* — they assert the hash does
  **not** change. A canonicalizer returning a constant would pass all three.
  Property 3 plus per-field variants over `question`, `requested_act`,
  `binding_level` and `packet` are what stop the suite being vacuous.
- `test_governed_vectors_match_the_preserved_history_copy` asserts the governed
  fixtures have not drifted from the founding copies, so quietly editing a
  vector to make a failing test pass is itself a failure.

Remaining for `done`: rewrite `SCOPE.md` after the T02 ruling.

2026-09-09 — **done.** `SCOPE.md` rewritten now the ruling and the specs have
fixed the real boundary. It carries a "What this repository does not claim"
section, because a scope file listing only capabilities overstates them: the
decision path is not validated while `GH-DEC-2026-010` is open, the residual is
not closed, `view_hash` is not inside the approval entry, and nothing is
deployed.

## Publish the OIDC browser-client contract to key-cape

```task
id: INFD-WP-0001-T07
status: progress
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "38a83a76-f152-55bf-8a9a-6132fd6d9642"
```

Own and publish the two strings `approval-engine` could not supply: the human
approver client's `client_id` and its full callback URI. Depends on T02 for the
ownership ruling and on T05 for the deployment origin.

The registration is an authorization-code + PKCE public or confidential browser
client — not `client_credentials` — and the resulting access token must carry
`aud=approval-engine`, `principal_type: human`, `tenant: tenant:platform` and
scope `approval:approve`. Redirect URIs match exactly at `/authorize`, so the
origin must be a real deployed origin, decided in T05, not a placeholder.

Do not request `approval:consume`: `approval-engine` refuses it for human
principals, and consumption belongs to the PEP that causes the side effect.

Acceptance: `docs/keycape-client-registration.md` publishes both strings and the
expected token shape; the contract is sent to `key-cape` referencing
`KEY-WP-0013-T02`, and to `approval-engine` referencing its
`docs/keycape-service-registrations.md` follow-up; a token issued against the
registration is accepted by `approval-engine`'s verifier; `KEY-WP-0013-T02` is
unblocked. **This is the task that discharges the gap that created this
repository.**

2026-09-10 — **unblocked.** `INFD-IN-0002` closed: `key-cape` had already
implemented registration-bound tenancy (`329e48f`) correct under both candidate
rulings, and `GH-DEC-2026-013` granted the shape as a declared bounded gap. Two
obligations land here and are booked as PR-08/PR-09: never use the token's
`tenant` claim as the act-scope (`binding.target` is, and already was), and
record the claim's provenance, since `key-cape` emits it as a bare string and a
consumer cannot otherwise tell a directory-asserted tenant from a
registration-supplied one. Build to the registration-bound shape knowing it is
transitional.

The one remaining input is the **deployed origin**. Redirects match exactly, so
`client_id` and the callback URI must name a real origin — the reason not to
publish is now solely that, and no longer the tenant.

2026-09-10: `docs/keycape-client-registration.md` written and everything except
the host is fixed — `client_id` `informed-decision-approver`, callback path
`/auth/callback`, authorization-code + S256 PKCE public client, scopes
`[openid, approval:read, approval:approve]`, the expected token shape, and the
`assurance` shape cited from `key-cape` rather than restated so it cannot drift.

§5 declares the tenant provenance rather than assuming it. Nothing populates
`domain.User.Tenant` for approver users, so declaring `tenant:platform` reaches
the token by the **gap route by construction**, not by accident.
`GH-DEC-2026-013` was explicit that a tenant the directory does not carry must
not be declared unless we are prepared to say so in the record. We are, and it
is said there, along with the two consequences: the claim is stored with its
provenance, and it is never used as the act-scope.

2026-09-10 — **origin assigned.** The operator assigned
`decisions.coulomb.social`, not the `decide.coulomb.social` this workplan
proposed. `docs/keycape-client-registration.md` §2 is corrected to the assigned
name; the proposal is not preserved anywhere a reader could mistake it for the
registration, because a redirect URI that is one character off fails closed at
`/authorize` and presents as a rejected login rather than a registration
defect. DNS resolves to the cluster address.

2026-09-10 14:32 UTC — **the origin is live.** `railiance-apps` applied
`manifests/informed-decision-origin.yaml` and
`manifests/informed-decision-ingress.yaml`; cert-manager issued a Let's Encrypt
certificate (`CN=decisions.coulomb.social`, valid to 2026-12-09) and
`GET https://decisions.coulomb.social/auth/callback` returns `200` over a
verified chain. The path is served by a placeholder until T08 ships, which does
not affect the registration — `key-cape` matches the redirect URI as a string at
`/authorize` and never fetches it. Evidence:
`railiance-apps/docs/informed-decision-origin.md`.

Every input this task owns is now fixed and real.
`docs/keycape-client-registration.md` is ready to submit. **The task stays
`progress` until the remaining acceptance criteria are met, which are not
document criteria:** the contract must actually reach `key-cape` citing
`KEY-WP-0013-T02` and `approval-engine`'s
`docs/keycape-service-registrations.md`, and a token issued against the
registration must be accepted by `approval-engine`'s verifier. That last one
cannot be demonstrated until `approval-engine` is deployed, so T07 will close
alongside, not before, the deployment T08 also waits on.

Superseded context: the origin was the sole blocker — DNS alone is not an
origin, and a host that resolves but does not complete a TLS handshake fails
the same way a wrong hostname does, only later and less legibly.

Superseded context: the origin was previously the sole blocker in its
unowned form — choosing a plausible hostname is not the same as owning one.

Superseded context: 2026-09-09: blocked on `INFD-IN-0002`. `key-cape` found that a human access
token cannot carry `tenant:platform` today — the tenant claim resolves from a
directory record no adapter populates, so every human token falls back to
`tenant:coulomb`, which `approval-engine` refuses by exact match. Registering
the client before this is resolved would ship a login that fails closed at first
use, and the failure would present as a rejected approval rather than as a
registration defect. Position stated (registration-bound) with an
evidence-model reason, and routed — it writes a cross-tenant capability into the
issuer, so it is not this repository's to decide alone.

## Walking skeleton — one approval, end to end

```task
id: INFD-WP-0001-T08
status: todo

priority: medium
state_hub_task_id: "b5c1d329-9580-5672-9640-2930cbbb729a"
```

Prove the specs against reality with the thinnest possible L3 path: sign in via
`key-cape`, list approvals awaiting this principal from `approval-engine`,
render one as a Decision Memo with brief, packet and highlights, acknowledge the
required highlights, and submit an approval entry with a stored presentation
record carrying `view_hash`.

`return` and `discuss` are in this skeleton, not deferred. They are the
differentiator; a skeleton with only approve/reject proves the wrong product.

Acceptance: one approval is approved by a real human through this surface
against a deployed `approval-engine`; the approval entry is reconstructable from
a stored presentation; a bind attempt with unacknowledged required highlights
fails closed; `return` produces a structured reason and is distinguishable from
`decline` in the record; no code path in this repository evaluates whether the
act is permitted.

Gated externally on `approval-engine` `APPROVAL-WP-0002-T01` reaching `done` and
on the service being deployed with an origin this surface can reach.

2026-09-09: additionally gated on `INFD-IN-0003` — `GH-DEC-2026-012` limit 3
requires the evidence copy to reach `audit-core` independently of this
component, and the payload question is open. Design and decision request in
`docs/evidence-path-design.md`. This task must not ship before it is answered.

## Known risks

- **T02 is a hard gate.** Writing the blueprint before the layer ruling risks
  building a component the statute does not permit in that shape.
- **Two canonicalizations.** If `view_hash` and `approval-engine`'s binding
  digest are not reconciled in T02, the estate ends up with two hashes over the
  same act and no rule for which one is authoritative.
- **Deployment origin is on someone else's critical path.** T07 cannot complete
  without a real external origin, and this repository does not yet own an
  Ingress. This is the most likely cause of slip.
- **Scope pressure toward an approvals inbox.** The fastest way to close
  `KEY-WP-0013-T02` is to build a queue with two buttons. That would satisfy the
  dependency and abandon the thesis. T04 exists to make the cost of that visible.


## Session note — 2026-09-10, both blockers cleared

**T07 origin: cleared and independently verified.** `railiance-apps` deployed
`decisions.coulomb.social` at 14:32 UTC (their `7c2e51a`) and corrected the
hostname in this repository's `docs/keycape-client-registration.md` and the T07
note — the assigned name is **not** the `decide.coulomb.social` this workplan
proposed. Verified here rather than taken on report: `/` and `/auth/callback`
both return `200` from `92.205.62.239`, TLS verify `0`, Let's Encrypt
`CN=decisions.coulomb.social` issued by YR2, valid to 2026-12-09. The path is an
nginx placeholder, which does not affect a registration matched as a string at
`/authorize`.

**T08 evidence path: cleared.** `audit-core` registered this source with every
field as proposed (`AUDIT-IN-0003`, their `c4016a7`) and landed the detection
half (`AUDIT-WP-0009` T04/T06/T07). `INFD-IN-0003` closed.

**`INFD-IN-0004` ruled — `GH-DEC-2026-015`, and gate-house reversed itself.**
Nesting is permitted for this pair. The decisive ground was not the cycle
argument we led with: our binding slice canonicalizes `principal` and `target`,
two of the five digest fields, so co-reference left us performing a partial
recomputation of one act in a second vocabulary — *closer to the translation R3
forbade than nesting is*. Our ordering-dependency objection was withdrawn as
mistaken. **The permission is conditioned and NOT ACTIVE**: it turns on when
`approval-engine` states its presentation exclusion as normative and tested.
`layer.yaml` is deliberately unchanged and carries
`nesting_permission_active: false`. We do not activate on our own initiative.

**`GH-DEC-2026-016` ruled NC-03.** Where an approval is declared as discharging
a human-in-the-loop control, the approver must be human and `approval-engine`
must refuse at bind time. Our surface enforcement stays — ours refuses earlier
with a better error, theirs makes the refusal a property of the object. Its §5
lands here as PR-11 and is live rather than hypothetical:
`principal_type: human` is a property of the *client registration*, the same
shape as the gap-route tenant, so a human-in-the-loop control must not be
discharged on it as verified humanity.

**A-16 and A-17 were corrected with this repository's rider and precondition**
(`gate-house@62c6399`), including the dependency that A-17 needs A-16 first.

### Outstanding — a tooling block, not a dependency

Two messages are **written and unsent**, blocked by the local permission
classifier rather than by any repository:

1. **`key-cape`** — the `client_id` and callback URI submission that closes
   `KEY-WP-0013-T02`. Payload ready; also carries the PR-11 provenance question
   about `principal_type`.
2. **`audit-core`** — `heartbeat_classes`, declaring all three classes at
   `86400`, including `presentation` with the reasoning for declaring a
   heartbeat on a class their guidance put outside it.

Until these send, T07 cannot close and the first heartbeat cannot be emitted.