docs: assent to v0.8 obligation 3, and price its adoption

gate-house circulated security-layer-model v0.8, whose §6.4 obligation 3
makes our `unknown: fail_open` cell non-conformant, and asked to be argued
with rather than obeyed.

Finding 1 -- assent. They wrote the falsifier into GH-DEC-2026-009: a scope
genuinely unknown AND genuinely low-consequence, expected to be a §5.1
read-only diagnostic. We looked and do not have one. The stance map governs
`warden sign` -- a credential-issuing side effect -- so §5.1 does not reach
it and the argument stands. Being unclassifiable must not buy permissiveness.

Finding 2 -- adopting it today would be a global fail-closed flag in all but
name. Of four signing targets, zero resolve to a zone and three are
`unknown`, so the cell would fail closed on essentially every certificate
during a flex-auth outage -- including the SSH certificate needed to reach
the host and repair flex-auth. That is exactly ADR-0006's rejected
configuration reached by another route. Asked for a dated transition gated
on coverage, or failing that for §13.1 to record coverage alongside stance:
a row reading `unknown: fail_closed` while every target is unknown is
conformant and misleading.

Not flipping the cell. It is a proposed standard, 18 of our 18 unknown
lanes are unknown because another repo has not declared, and ADR-0009 rule 3
forbids closing that with inference -- a stricter stance is not a licence to
manufacture the membership that makes it survivable. WARDEN-WP-0040 records
the order: classify the continuity path, raise coverage by asking owners,
then supersede ADR-0009's unknown row.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_013EPuTc18FjU5WFqoSEKH3C

Assistant: claude-code
Assistant-Model: opus
Assistant-Process: 1276224@bnt-lap001
Assistant-Session: 426ec497-e1c4-4dd3-b417-dfce1ca1dbc3

history/2026-09-09-layer-model-v08-review.md

@@ -0,0 +1,119 @@
+# security-layer-model v0.8 — ops-warden review
+
+**Date:** 2026-09-09
+**Reviewing:** `net-kingdom/canon/standards/security-layer-model_v0.8.md` (status
+`proposed`, net-kingdom@66eeaba), circulated for assent by gate-house
+**Prior reviews:** `2026-08-29-layer-model-v04-review.md`, `-v06-review.md`,
+`-v07-scope-intent-assessment.md`
+
+## The cell in question
+
+v0.8 §6.4 obligation 3 adds: *unknown is not a zone and MUST resolve to
+`fail_closed`.* `pep-stance.yaml` declares `unknown: fail_open` under `ADR-0009`.
+§13.1 records the cell as non-conformant.
+
+## Finding 1 — assent. The rule is right and our falsifier check fails.
+
+gate-house wrote the falsifier into GH-DEC-2026-009's reversal: a scope that is
+genuinely unknown **and** genuinely low-consequence, where failing closed costs
+availability with no security gain. Their expectation is that any such path is a
+§5.1 read-only diagnostic carrying no PEP obligation at all.
+
+We looked for one on our side and do not have it. The stance map governs exactly
+one protected action — `warden sign`, SSH certificate issuance. That is a
+credential-issuing side effect, not a diagnostic; §5.1 does not reach it. So the
+predicted escape hatch is absent here, and the argument stands unrebutted on its
+own terms:
+
+- §9.3 licenses trading availability for openness **per zone**, knowingly, for a
+  named scope. Where the scope is unknown that trade was never made for the
+  request in hand, so resolving permissively does not extend a considered
+  decision — it invents one.
+- Unknown is the cheapest state to induce. Our own `unknown` reasons are
+  `workload_resolution_absent` and `catalog_applicability_absent` — an
+  unregistered workload or a missing declaration, neither of which requires a
+  credential to arrange.
+
+We accept that being unclassifiable must not buy permissiveness. The cell is
+wrong as doctrine.
+
+## Finding 2 — the rule is right and adopting it today would be a global fail-closed flag in all but name
+
+This is the finding we would like recorded, and it is about adoption cost, not
+about the rule.
+
+The stance map applies only when the engine is unreachable, so the cell's bite is
+proportional to how much of the target population sits in `unknown`. Measured
+today:
+
+| Population | Resolved to a zone | `unknown` | `not-applicable` |
+| --- | --- | --- | --- |
+| Signing targets (actor resources in the flex-auth snapshot) | **0** | **3** | 1 |
+| Routing catalog lanes | 3 | 18 | 12 |
+
+Every signing target that resolves at all resolves to `unknown`. So
+`unknown: fail_closed` adopted today does not fail closed on an edge case; it
+fails closed on **essentially every certificate ops-warden issues** whenever
+flex-auth is unreachable.
+
+That is the precise configuration `ADR-0006` rejected and `ADR-0009` replaced: one
+value making the decision engine a uniform dependency of every signing path,
+*including the continuity paths needed to repair that dependency*. If flex-auth is
+unreachable and the operator needs an SSH certificate to reach the host and
+restore it, `unknown: fail_closed` denies the certificate — and the target is
+`unknown` precisely because nobody has classified the repair path.
+
+The zone model already answers this: classify continuity paths `z2-continuity`,
+whose stance is `fail_open`, and the deadlock does not arise. We accept that as
+the right answer. The point is that it is *work not yet done*, and the reason it
+is not done is not ours to fix — 18 of our 18 unknown lanes are unknown because
+another repo has not published an authoritative workload identity declaration.
+`ADR-0009` rule 3 forbids us from closing that gap with inference, correctly.
+
+So as written, v0.8 §6.4 obligation 3 transfers an availability cost onto the
+consumer for a classification gap the consumer cannot close alone, and it does so
+at the moment of assent rather than at the moment the gap closes.
+
+**What we ask for**, in preference order:
+
+1. **§6.4 obligation 3 names a transition.** A consumer may declare
+   `unknown: fail_open` as a dated, published transitional state with a
+   classification-coverage figure attached, converting to `fail_closed` on
+   coverage rather than on calendar. This keeps the doctrine and prices the
+   adoption honestly.
+2. Failing that, **§13.1 records classification coverage alongside stance.** A
+   register row reading `unknown: fail_closed` while 100% of that consumer's
+   targets are unknown is conformant and materially misleading; a reader cannot
+   tell a strict consumer from an unclassified one. This is the same defect
+   §11's *published map equals shipped behaviour* rule exists to prevent, one
+   level up: the map is now accurate about itself and inaccurate about its
+   effect.
+
+## Finding 3 — §12's derived-artifact rule, small and in agreement
+
+Six instances in one week matches our experience. `registry/generated/high-risk-data-paths.yaml`
+carries `catalog_revision` and a `catalog_dirty` flag for exactly the reason §12
+now generalises: a derived artifact whose revision does not describe the file it
+came from is worse than one with no revision, because the stale one is trusted.
+No change requested; recording the agreement since the rule is being generalised
+from other repos' incidents.
+
+## What ops-warden is doing about it
+
+Not flipping the cell on a `proposed` standard, and not flipping it before
+coverage exists — that ordering is `ADR-0006`'s whole holding. `WARDEN-WP-0040`
+records the adoption sequence: raise signing-target classification coverage
+first, then convert the cell, with the deadlock case classified before rather
+than after. If v0.8 is accepted with obligation 3 unchanged, ops-warden's cell
+remains a **declared gap** under §11 — tracked non-conformance with a named
+owner and a route, which is the mark §9.1 exists for and which we argued for in
+the v0.6 round.
+
+## Axis declaration (second change touching us)
+
+`pep-stance.yaml` already carries `scope: security-zone`. No change needed. We
+agree with rejecting a forced migration onto zones — secrets-engine scoping by
+catalog stage is an accurate statement about their control, and making them
+assert a zone they cannot know would trade a real fact for a conformant fiction.
+The unavailability of cross-axis aggregation is better recorded than papered
+over, and §13.1 now says so.

workplans/WARDEN-WP-0040-unknown-zone-fail-closed-adoption.md

@@ -0,0 +1,122 @@
+---
+id: WARDEN-WP-0040
+type: workplan
+title: "Adopt unknown -> fail_closed behind signing-target classification coverage"
+domain: infotech
+repo: ops-warden
+status: proposed
+owner: ops-warden
+topic_slug: netkingdom
+planning_priority: P1
+depends_on_workplans:
+  - WARDEN-WP-0032
+  - WARDEN-WP-0034
+created: "2026-09-09"
+updated: "2026-09-09"
+---
+
+# WARDEN-WP-0040 — `unknown` → `fail_closed`, in the right order
+
+security-layer-model v0.8 §6.4 obligation 3 (proposed, 2026-09-06) rules that
+`unknown` is not a zone and must resolve to `fail_closed`. ops-warden's
+`pep-stance.yaml` declares `unknown: fail_open` under `ADR-0009`.
+
+**We agree with the rule.** `history/2026-09-09-layer-model-v08-review.md` records
+the assent and why our falsifier check failed: the cell governs certificate
+issuance, not a §5.1 read-only diagnostic, so nothing rescues it.
+
+**We disagree with adopting it first.** Measured 2026-09-09: of four signing
+targets, zero resolve to a zone, three are `unknown`, one is `not-applicable`.
+Flipping the cell today makes flex-auth a hard dependency of essentially every
+certificate — `ADR-0006`'s rejected configuration, reached by a different route,
+including the continuity path needed to repair flex-auth itself.
+
+So: coverage first, then the cell. That ordering is the whole holding of
+`ADR-0006` and the reason `ADR-0009` replaced a global switch with a zone map.
+
+## Tasks
+
+```task
+id: WARDEN-WP-0040-T01
+status: todo
+priority: high
+```
+
+**Classify the continuity path before anything else changes.**
+
+The deadlock is specific and worth naming before it is designed around: flex-auth
+unreachable → operator needs an SSH certificate to reach the host → target is
+`unknown` because nobody classified the repair path → `fail_closed` denies it.
+
+`z2-continuity` exists for this and its stance is `fail_open`, so the fix is
+classification, not an exception. Determine which actor(s) constitute the
+repair path, establish whether the declaration is ops-warden's to make (our own
+`tenancy.yaml` covers ops-warden as a workload; the actors' target workloads may
+not be ours), and route what is not.
+
+Blocks T03. Converting the cell with the repair path unclassified is the one
+outcome this workplan exists to prevent.
+
+```task
+id: WARDEN-WP-0040-T02
+status: todo
+priority: high
+```
+
+**Raise signing-target coverage, by asking owners — never by inferring.**
+
+Three actor resources report `workload_resolution_absent`:
+`agt-codex-interhub-bootstrap`, `agt-state-hub-bridge`, `atm-backup-daily`.
+Their owners (ops-bridge and the backup execution unit among them) have not
+published an authoritative workload identity declaration.
+
+`ADR-0009` rule 3 forbids closing this with path or repository-name inference,
+and that prohibition holds under pressure from this workplan specifically —
+adopting a stricter stance is not a licence to manufacture the membership that
+makes it survivable.
+
+Route to each owner with the concrete consequence: while the declaration is
+absent their actor cannot be issued a certificate during a flex-auth outage once
+the cell converts. That is a better ask than a generic request to publish a
+declaration, and it is true.
+
+Report coverage with `scripts/report_workload_join.py`; this task is done when
+coverage is stated, not when it reaches a threshold — the threshold is T03's
+gate, and owners may legitimately decline.
+
+```task
+id: WARDEN-WP-0040-T03
+status: wait
+priority: high
+```
+
+**Convert the cell and supersede `ADR-0009`'s unknown row.**
+
+Gated on T01, and on v0.8 (or its successor) reaching `accepted`. Do not convert
+against a `proposed` standard.
+
+`ADR-0009` is `owner: ops-warden`, so changing it means a superseding ADR, never
+an in-place edit (`.claude/rules/architecture.md`). The superseding record should
+carry the v0.8 argument rather than restate it: unknown is not a zone, so a §9.3
+per-zone trade was never made for that request.
+
+`pep-stance.yaml` is asserted equal to `PolicyConfig.failure_modes` by
+`tests/test_layer_conformance.py`, so the map and the code convert in one commit
+or the test fails — which is the property that makes the map worth publishing.
+
+```task
+id: WARDEN-WP-0040-T04
+status: todo
+priority: medium
+```
+
+**Return findings to gate-house and track the transition ask.**
+
+Sent 2026-09-09 with the review. Two asks, in preference order: obligation 3
+names a dated transitional state gated on coverage; or failing that, §13.1
+records classification coverage alongside stance, so a register row cannot read
+`unknown: fail_closed` while every target is unknown.
+
+If both are declined, that is an answer and this workplan proceeds unchanged —
+the cell stays a **declared gap** under §11 with this workplan as its route,
+which is what the `declared-gap` mark (our own v0.6 finding) exists to express.