Draft WARDEN-WP-0032 properly — security zones, ownership question first
Expands the placeholder into a real plan, grounded in what the estate already has rather than first principles: - tenancy-posture_v0.1 is the structural model to follow (canon standard + per-repo declaration + "accuracy, not altitude"), and its §14 adoption stance is "structure, not tooling" — a precedent about sequencing. - Reefs are substrate placement zones with real risk statements. A security zone is not a reef; repo-manager's own "topology is not readiness" applies here as "placement is not posture". - flex-auth is latency-critical and already consumes a compiled registry snapshot, so zone membership should reach the PDP by compilation rather than a synchronous lookup in the decision path. - warden plan already returns verdicts with reasons; zone-aware enforcement extends that machinery instead of growing a parallel one. T01 settles ownership before any modelling, because it decides which repo the rest lives in: canon standard, a zone-engine runtime authority, or flex-auth policy data. The recommendation is canon-first with zone-engine named as an explicit promotion — but the time-boxed refactor exception is the case that could justify an engine immediately, since an expiring grant is state and state wants an owner. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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---
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id: WARDEN-WP-0032
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type: workplan
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title: "Security zones — scope enforcement to bands of differing rigidity"
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title: "Security zones — bands of enforcement rigidity, and where they live"
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domain: infotech
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repo: ops-warden
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status: proposed
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@ -18,48 +18,103 @@ updated: "2026-08-19"
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# WARDEN-WP-0032 — Security zones
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`ADR-0006` defers `policy.enabled: true` until enforcement can be scoped. This
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workplan builds the thing it defers to.
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`ADR-0006` defers `policy.enabled: true` until enforcement can be scoped to a
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zone. This workplan builds the model it defers to, and — first — settles who
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owns it.
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## The problem in one paragraph
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## The problem, precisely
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ops-warden has three posture axes already: environment (`dev`/`test`/`prod`,
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WP-0015), workload maturity (`M0`–`M3`, WP-0015), and organization posture
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(`build`, WP-0029). What it does not have is a way to say *"this band of the
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estate is enforced, that one is advisory"* — so every enforcement control it
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ships is a repo-wide boolean. `policy.enabled` is the first one to actually
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become flippable, and flipping it would harden the access needed to perform the
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refactors currently underway. The axes describe posture; nothing acts on them.
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ops-warden can express *how exposed* something is and *how mature* it is. It
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cannot express *how rigidly this band of the estate is governed right now*.
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## What a zone has to answer
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| Axis | Shipped | Answers |
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| --- | --- | --- |
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| Environment posture (`dev`/`test`/`prod`) | WP-0015 | Where does this run? |
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| Workload maturity (`M0`–`M3`) | WP-0015 | How ready is this workload? |
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| `organization_posture: build` | WP-0029 | What state is the org in? |
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| **Enforcement stance** | **missing** | **Is this control enforced here, and what happens when it fails?** |
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A zone is only useful if it decides something. Minimum:
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Because the fourth is missing, every enforcement control ops-warden ships is a
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repo-wide boolean. `policy.enabled` is the first to become flippable, and
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flipping it would make flex-auth a hard dependency of every `warden sign` —
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including the certificates the ops-bridge tunnels depend on, one of which
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carries the policy call itself. Across an estate mid-refactor that hardens
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exactly the access needed to perform the refactor.
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- **Membership** — what puts a lane, actor, or workload in this zone? Derived
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from the existing axes where possible rather than a fourth hand-maintained
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list.
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- **Enforcement stance per control** — for each gate (pre-sign policy, agent
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read-boundary, high-risk refusal): enforced, advisory, or exempt.
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- **Failure mode** — fail-closed or fail-open, per control per zone. This is the
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actual bite: `fail_closed` is what makes a dead tunnel an outage.
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- **Who may change it, and how it is observed** — a zone that can be quietly
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widened is not a boundary.
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The three existing axes *describe*. Nothing *decides*. A zone is the object that
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decides.
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## Open questions to settle before designing
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## What already exists — do not reinvent these
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- Is a zone a property of the **actor** (`adm`/`agt`/`atm`), the **lane**
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(catalog entry), the **workload**, or the **moment** (an active refactor)? The
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CoulombCore decommission suggests the last one matters and is the hardest to
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model — a time-boxed relaxation is a different object than a standing zone.
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- Do zones compose with the three existing axes, or replace one? A fourth
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independent axis multiplies states; folding `organization_posture` in may be
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the honest move.
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- Is this ops-warden's model to own at all, or NetKingdom canon that ops-warden
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consumes? ADR-0005 says implement narrowly and route broadly. A security zone
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model that only ops-warden honours is worth much less than one flex-auth,
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secrets-engine, and tenant-engine also read — but ops-warden should not
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absorb an estate-wide model on its own authority either. **Settle this
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first**; it changes who writes the rest.
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Four estate mechanisms are adjacent, and getting the relationships right is most
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of the design work.
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**`net-kingdom/canon/standards/tenancy-posture_v0.1.md`** — the closest
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structural analogue and the model to follow: six orthogonal axes, graduated
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levels, a per-repo declaration file (`tenancy.yaml`) carrying current /
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implemented / target vectors with evidence and a review date, and §6
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"conformance is accuracy, not altitude". Its §14 adoption stance is
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*"structure, not tooling"* — a direct precedent about sequencing, and one this
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workplan should not quietly break.
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**Reefs** (`repo-manager/docs/RailianceAppDeploymentGuide.md`) — `reef-railiance`,
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`reef-storage`, named in a rapp's `bound_reefs`. These are **substrate**
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placement zones with real risk statements attached (`reef-railiance` carries a
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single-node/shared-control-plane residual risk requiring explicit acceptance).
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A security zone is *not* a reef — reef answers *where does it run*, zone answers
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*how rigidly is it governed* — but they are correlated, and a taxonomy that
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ignores reefs will fight them. Also note repo-manager's own ADR-0006: *topology
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is not readiness*. The same caution applies here: **placement is not posture.**
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**flex-auth** — the PDP, `service_class: latency-critical`, which already
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consumes a *compiled registry snapshot*
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(`registry/flex-auth/production_registry_snapshot.json`, built by
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`scripts/build_flex_auth_registry.py`). This matters enormously for T03: zone
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membership can reach the decision point by compilation, with no runtime lookup
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and no new service in the request path.
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**`warden plan`** (WP-0029) — already classifies a need as `autonomous` /
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`founder_required` / `unroutable` from properties of the thing, returning the
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`reasons` that produced the verdict. Zone-aware enforcement should extend this
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verdict machinery rather than grow a parallel one.
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## The question that changes everything else: who owns this?
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Three placements are defensible. **T01 settles it before any modelling**,
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because the answer changes who writes T02–T05 and in which repo they live.
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**(a) NetKingdom canon + per-repo declaration.** A `security-zones_v0.1.md`
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standard beside `tenancy-posture_v0.1.md`; each repo declares its lanes'
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zones in a `zones.yaml` the way it already declares `tenancy.yaml`; flex-auth
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enforces from the compiled registry. ops-warden drafts and offers, exactly as it
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did for the WP-0015 maturity model. *Strongest fit to precedent; no new runtime
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dependency; matches "structure, not tooling".*
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**(b) A new `zone-engine` repo.** A runtime authority owning zone identity,
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membership, and lifecycle, in the family of `tenant-engine` / `user-engine` /
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`secrets-engine` — each of which has a boundary contract in canon. *Justified
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if and only if zone membership needs minting, an API other components query, or
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— the real candidate — **time-boxed exceptions with expiry and an audit trail of
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who widened what**. A standing classification does not need an engine; a
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relaxation that must expire probably does.*
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**(c) flex-auth policy data.** Zones as attributes in the policy package, no new
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artefact anywhere. *Cheapest, and wrong if zones must govern controls flex-auth
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does not evaluate — the agent read-boundary (ADR-0004) and `warden desk`
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escalation are ops-warden-side and would fall outside.*
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**Recommendation to be tested in T01, not assumed:** start at (a), and name
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(b) as an explicit promotion with a written trigger, rather than seeding an
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engine before the model exists. An empty `zone-engine` would end up defining
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zones by accident — through whatever its first schema happened to be — which is
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the failure `ADR-0001` names in a different register. The counter-argument
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deserves a fair hearing: if time-boxed refactor exceptions are in scope from day
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one, (b) may be right immediately, because an expiring grant is state and state
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wants an owner.
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Under `ADR-0005` ops-warden does not absorb an estate-wide model on its own
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authority. A zone model only ops-warden honours is worth much less than one
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flex-auth enforces and secrets-engine reads.
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## Tasks
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@ -69,11 +124,15 @@ status: todo
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priority: high
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```
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**Decide ownership before designing.** Take the third open question to
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net-kingdom (canon) and flex-auth (the PDP that would enforce it). If it is
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canon, ops-warden drafts and offers, as it did for the WP-0015 maturity model,
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and consumes the result. If it is ops-warden's, say so explicitly and record
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why. Do not build a model whose owner is unsettled.
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**Settle ownership and placement.** Take the three options above to
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`net-kingdom` (canon) and `flex-auth` (the PDP that would enforce), with the
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time-boxed-exception question stated explicitly since it is what decides
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between (a) and (b). Record the outcome as a decision with its reasoning — if
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it lands outside ops-warden, this workplan's remaining tasks move to the owning
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repo and ops-warden keeps only its consumer-side tasks.
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Deliverable: a decision record, and coordination messages sent. Do not model
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anything before this closes.
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```task
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id: WARDEN-WP-0032-T02
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@ -81,12 +140,24 @@ status: todo
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priority: high
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```
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**Name the zones against reality, not in the abstract.** Walk the current
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estate — the 27 catalog lanes, the actor inventory, the workloads with posture
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descriptors — and see what bands actually exist. A zone model that does not
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partition today's lanes cleanly is wrong, and the exceptions are the interesting
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part. Include the refactor case explicitly: what zone is a lane in while the
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component it fronts is being rebuilt?
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**Derive the zones from the real estate, not from first principles.** Walk the
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27 catalog lanes, the actor inventory (`adm`/`agt`/`atm`), and the workloads
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carrying posture descriptors, and find the bands that actually exist. The test
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of the model is that it partitions today's estate without a residue of
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exceptions; the exceptions found are the most informative output.
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Must answer explicitly:
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- Is a zone a property of the **actor**, the **lane**, the **workload**, or the
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**moment**? The CoulombCore decommission shows the last one is real and is the
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hardest to model — a time-boxed relaxation is a different object from a
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standing zone, and conflating them produces a permanent hole with a
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temporary-sounding name.
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- Do zones **compose with or fold in** the three existing axes? A fourth
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independent axis multiplies states; absorbing `organization_posture` may be
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the honest move.
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- How do zones relate to **reefs**? Correlated, not identical. Say so in the
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model rather than leaving readers to assume either.
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```task
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id: WARDEN-WP-0032-T03
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@ -94,22 +165,35 @@ status: todo
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priority: high
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```
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**Model enforcement stance and failure mode per zone per control,** covering at
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minimum: the flex-auth pre-sign gate (`policy.enabled` / `fail_closed`), the
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agent read-boundary on `risk: high` lanes (ADR-0004), and the `warden plan`
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escalation verdicts (WP-0029). Each must be expressible as enforced / advisory /
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exempt with an explicit failure mode.
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**Model stance and failure mode per zone per control.** For each control:
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enforced / advisory / exempt, *and* fail-closed or fail-open. The failure mode
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is the part with teeth — `fail_closed` is what turns a dead tunnel into an
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outage, and it is the reason `policy.enabled` was deferred.
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Controls in scope at minimum: the flex-auth pre-sign gate (`policy.enabled`,
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`fail_closed`), the agent read-boundary on `risk: high` lanes (`ADR-0004`), and
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the `warden plan` escalation verdicts (WP-0029).
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Prefer **compilation over runtime lookup** for anything flex-auth evaluates: it
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is latency-critical and already consumes a built registry snapshot. Adding a
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synchronous zone lookup to the decision path would be a regression dressed as an
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architecture.
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```task
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id: WARDEN-WP-0032-T04
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status: todo
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priority: medium
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priority: high
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```
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**Make `policy.enabled` zone-aware and retire the global boolean.** The
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successor control reads the zone of the actor being signed for. Ship the
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migration in the same change as the deprecation — leaving both is exactly the
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second-source-of-truth failure ADR-0001 exists to prevent.
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**Declaration format and conformance rule.** Follow `tenancy.yaml`: a per-repo
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declaration, with evidence, a `reviewed` date and a `review_due`, and the §6
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rule carried over — **accuracy, not altitude**. A repo declaring a stricter zone
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than it can evidence is the failure mode to design against, because it is the
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one that looks like progress.
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Include how a zone assignment is *changed*, and how that change is observed. A
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zone that can be quietly widened is not a boundary. If time-boxed exceptions
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exist, their expiry must be enforced by something, not by an intention.
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```task
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id: WARDEN-WP-0032-T05
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@ -117,7 +201,34 @@ status: todo
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priority: medium
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```
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**Close WARDEN-WP-0031 T05 through this model** — enable the pre-sign gate for
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whichever zone the SSH signing lane lands in, with that zone's failure mode.
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Re-run `scripts/check_policy_caller_identity.py` first; the WP-0031 evidence
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will be stale by then and re-establishing it is cheap by design.
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**Make `policy.enabled` zone-aware and retire the global boolean.** The
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successor control reads the zone of the actor being signed for and that zone's
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failure mode. Ship deprecation and migration in the same change — leaving both
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is the second-source-of-truth failure `ADR-0001` exists to prevent.
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This closes `WARDEN-WP-0031-T05`, cancelled under `ADR-0006`. Re-run
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`scripts/check_policy_caller_identity.py` first: the WP-0031 evidence
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(`decision:f3f7c88f9585582a`, 2026-08-19) will be stale, and re-establishing it
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is cheap precisely so this is a re-check rather than a re-do.
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```task
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id: WARDEN-WP-0032-T06
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status: todo
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priority: medium
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```
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**Close out honestly.** Update `SCOPE.md`, `wiki/WorkloadSecurityPosture.md`,
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and `wiki/PolicyGatedSigning.md`. If the model landed in canon or in another
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repo, `ADR-0006` gains a successor or an amendment recording where enforcement
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scoping now lives — ops-warden follows it rather than owning it, and the ADR
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must say which.
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## Deliberately out of scope
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- **Network segmentation.** "Zone" is an overloaded word; this model is about
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*enforcement rigidity*, not routing or NetworkPolicy. Say so wherever the term
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first appears, or the two will be conflated within a quarter.
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- **Re-litigating the three existing axes.** They stay as they are unless T02
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finds a fold-in.
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- **Zones for anything ops-warden does not consume**, unless T01 hands the model
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to an owner who needs the wider scope.
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