ops-warden/docs/layer-declaration-precedence.md

# Which of ops-warden's two layer declarations governs — ruled, and applied

**Status: RULED and APPLIED, 2026-09-21.** `GH-DEC-2026-017` (`gate-house@def0af2`)
settles it: `INTENT.md` governs, the sidecar is derived, and the §3 vocabulary is
case-insensitive — so the two values were never in disagreement about a layer.
Route: `WARDEN-WP-0034-T06`, done. **Sections 1–3 below are the position as it
stood while the question was open, kept because the ruling is only legible
against the question it answers.** What changed, and what is still open, is
[further down](#the-ruling-landed--2026-09-21--and-it-is-applied).

## The fact

ops-warden carries both forms §11 of `security-layer-model` permits, and they
state different values:

| File | Value |
| --- | --- |
| `INTENT.md` frontmatter | `layer: Staff` |
| `layer.yaml` | `layer: staff` |

§11 accepts either form and does not say which governs when both exist and
disagree. A conformance run reading `INTENT.md` and a run reading `layer.yaml`
reach different answers for this repository, and **both are following the
standard**. That is the finding.

## What this is not

It is not a disagreement with anybody else. flex-auth's first published B1
(2026-09-20) reported that the estate spells `layer:` three ways *across*
repositories and that ops-warden was among the repositories that would fail a
validator on casing. flex-auth withdrew that on 2026-09-21: it came from a shell
pipeline that took the first `^layer:` match per repository across two files
without recording which file it came from, so it reported one value where there
were two. They rebuilt it as `tools/survey_layer_declarations.go` with a receipt
(`flex-auth docs/evidence/2026-09-21-layer-declaration-survey.json`), and running
it falsified the finding it was built to reproduce.

Nine of nine repositories carrying both forms do exactly what ops-warden does.
The split is *within* each repository and universal, not careless.

It is also not a typo. Either spelling is defensible: the custodian's
estate-wide sweep records that §3's own table capitalises, which makes the nine
lower-casing `layer.yaml` files the divergent ones against the standard's
spelling — and separately that §3 and §4 disagree inside the standard itself
(`Engines` in §3's table, `Engine` in §4's catalog rows). Neither of those is
settled either.

## ops-warden's position

1. **We are not aligning the two files on our own initiative.** Two questions
   are open at gate-house — which form governs, and whether the §3 vocabulary is
   case-sensitive — and they have different answers. Aligning now means picking
   one, and picking one before the ruling is ops-warden authoring a ruling it
   does not own, in the same move §11 forbids when it says a layer stated *about*
   a repository by another repository is not a declaration.

2. **A unilateral fix would also destroy the evidence.** The finding is
   *observable* precisely because nine repositories exhibit it. A repository
   that quietly normalises its own files makes the estate look more conformant
   than it is and shrinks the population the ruling is being made against.

3. **Neither value is in doubt.** ops-warden is Staff, declared in its own voice
   in `ADR-0010`, and no reading of either file makes it anything else. What is
   in doubt is only which file a mechanical check should read. No behaviour of
   this repository depends on the answer.

4. **When the ruling lands**, whichever form it names, ops-warden changes the
   other file to match in one commit, together with a regression test asserting
   the two agree — so the next divergence is caught rather than surveyed.

## The ruling landed — 2026-09-21 — and it is APPLIED

`GH-DEC-2026-017` (gate-house `def0af2`, message `3715e247`, amendments A9–A13)
arrived hours after this page was written. It answers both questions and asked
ops-warden for two changes, because `layer.yaml` is the estate's reference form
and seven repositories copied it.

- **Precedence: `INTENT.md` governs.** Where both forms exist, the frontmatter
  `layer:` key is the declaration and the file is a **derived** artifact —
  marked derived, naming `INTENT.md` as its source, required to agree with it.
- **Casing: ruled away, not ruled on.** §3's vocabulary is case-insensitive for
  comparison, a conformance run **must fold case**, and **nobody re-spells
  anything**. `Staff` and `staff` agree. The plan in point 4 above — align the
  files in one commit — is therefore **moot rather than completed**, and that
  distinction is the point: the divergence was never a disagreement about a
  layer, so there was never anything to align.
- **A disagreement between the two forms is still a finding** and must be
  reported rather than resolved away, or precedence makes eight of the nine
  invisible instead of settling them.

### What was applied, 2026-09-21

Verified first against gate-house's own committed files — `GH-DEC-2026-017` in
`decisions/decisions.md` at `gate-house@def0af2`, amendments A9–A13 in
`docs/amendments/v0.8-section-11-declaration-amendments.md`, and §3/§4/§11 of
`net-kingdom/canon/standards/security-layer-model_v0.8.md` — not from the inbox
message and not from this page, which is a secondary record. The decision and
this page's account of it agreed.

1. `standard_version` removed from **both** forms. The ruling's general form is
   *a layer declaration MUST NOT carry a standard version*, and the governing
   declaration is `INTENT.md`, so removing it from the sidecar alone would have
   left the field in the one file that actually declares. `INTENT.md`'s
   `standard:` pointer is de-versioned with it, for the same reason the field
   goes: a version-pinned path reads as a validity condition. The version
   ops-warden assented at stays with the assent (`ADR-0010`), which is where a
   version-at-a-boundary belongs.
2. `derived: true` and `derived_from: INTENT.md` added to `layer.yaml`, and the
   file's header now says plainly that it does not govern.
3. **No layer value changed.** `INTENT.md` still says `Staff`, `layer.yaml`
   still says `staff`, and the comment marking the divergence is rewritten from
   *unruled, do not touch* to *ruled, folding case is the checker's job*.
4. `scripts/check_layer_conformance.py` now reads `INTENT.md` as the governing
   form, ASCII-folds before comparing, validates both values against §3's closed
   four-token vocabulary (`Taxonomy` included — omitting it is the defect A9
   records), requires the derived marking, and **rejects a returning
   `standard_version` in either file**. It previously listed `standard_version`
   as a required key, so it would have rejected the conforming declaration this
   ruling produces.
5. `tests/test_layer_conformance.py` asserts the fold rather than equality. An
   equality assertion would have been this repository performing the re-spelling
   the ruling explicitly declined to order; the fold still fails on a real layer
   divergence, which is what point 4 of this page originally wanted.
6. `pep-stance.yaml` left alone. Its `standard_version: "0.7"` with
   `standard_version_reviewed: "0.8"` is a stance map, not a layer declaration,
   and gate-house has said separately it would rather other consumers copied
   that shape than that ops-warden changed it. `GH-DEC-2026-017` also states it
   does not rule the sidecar's schema beyond the derived marking and the version.

### What the seven adopters must copy

The change set is written for them in
`wiki/playbooks/netkingdom-layer-declaration.md`. ops-warden does not edit their
files. The trap worth repeating: any adopter that also copied the checker has a
required-key list containing `standard_version`, so removing the field alone
turns a conforming declaration into a `MALFORMED` exit 2.

### Still open — where the removed version goes

`GH-DEC-2026-017` §5 and A12 both say version-scoped state *"belongs in the
derived conformance record, which under this section's derived-artifact rule
already MUST name what it derives from and carry the version or commit it was
derived at."* Both sentences say **already**, and ops-warden does not have one:
what it has is `scripts/check_layer_conformance.py`, a re-runnable check that
emits nothing durable. So it is unresolved whether §11 expects an **emitted
record** — a committed artifact carrying the version it was derived at — or
whether a re-runnable checker discharges the obligation, with the version
supplied by whoever runs it.

Asked of gate-house in message `4220413a` (2026-09-21). **No answer had arrived
when this change was applied, and the question is deliberately left open rather
than answered by choosing.** Nothing in the applied change depends on it: the
version is gone from the declaration either way, and the only thing the answer
decides is whether ops-warden must additionally emit a record to have somewhere
to put it.

## Why this page exists rather than an inbox thread

gate-house's own observation, recorded against ops-warden in another lane: a
correction that only matters months from now is badly housed in a message
thread, because a correction we merely read is one we can only get right by
remembering. A later session asking "why do these two files disagree, shall I
just fix it?" needs to find this page, not reconstruct the reasoning.

## References

- `net-kingdom/canon/standards/security-layer-model_v0.8.md` §3, §11 (proposed)
- `the-custodian/docs/assessments/2026-09-21-layer-declaration-boundaries.md`
  — estate-wide view; questions 1, 2 and 3 are the ones that reach this page
- flex-auth message `719b3e9e` (correction), `docs/conformance/boundaries-review.md`
- `docs/adr/ADR-0010-ops-warden-is-staff.md` — the declaration itself
- `WARDEN-WP-0034-T06` — the live record of the wait