ops-warden/workplans/WARDEN-WP-0039-explicit-policy-refusal.md

id	type	title	domain	repo	status	owner	topic_slug	created	updated	origin	origin_ref	state_hub_workstream_id
WARDEN-WP-0039	workplan	Preserve explicit policy caller refusals before credential and CA effects	infotech	ops-warden	blocked	codex	custodian	2026-09-08	2026-09-08	residual	HFACT-WP-0001	ae44a935-6fca-514c-a385-4550dd2b1fe8

The factory critical-path review reproduced a live HTTP 403 from the reachable PDP for the configured ops-warden caller and a railiance-platform secret read. check_fetch_policy treated it as evaluator unavailability and used unknown-zone fail-open. Caller-auth rejection is an explicit refusal, not a transport outage.

Preserve explicit authentication and binding refusals

id: WARDEN-WP-0039-T01
status: done
priority: high
assignee: the-custodian
state_hub_task_id: "eaad08d9-ae47-5f50-8278-ea402a0e2869"

HTTP 401 and 403 stop signing and credential fetch irrespective of the outage profile. Do not expose response bodies or alter system identity to bypass the refusal. Preserve configured behavior for genuine evaluator failures. Prove both permissive and closed outage profiles and refusal before child execution.

Verify and publish the correction

id: WARDEN-WP-0039-T02
status: done
priority: high
assignee: the-custodian
state_hub_task_id: "ac85cf00-391c-5c63-b8f4-ed5bd57684e5"

Run the policy and proxy suites, retain a value-free live refusal receipt, publish the reviewed source, and verify the installed CLI refuses before any credential transport. A refusal is not a successful credential-read admission.

The owner installer initially reused a cached wheel despite --force, leaving the pre-fix policy code installed. Both Makefile installation targets now use --reinstall-package ops-warden to refresh this package from the reviewed source. Verify the installed module as well as the checkout before the live refusal test.

Resolve the credential proxy's admitted policy binding

id: WARDEN-WP-0039-T03
status: wait
priority: high
assignee: the-custodian
blocking_reason: "The configured ops-warden caller represents ops-warden; credential requests name their owner as resource.system. Need the flex-auth/credential-owner contract for that exact delegated read, without broadening caller bindings or relabelling resource ownership."
state_hub_task_id: "8ca28b63-2e04-5333-b635-011b124c1806"

Consume the existing native-lane handoff (WARDEN-WP-0033 / SECRETS-WP-0006) and flex-auth caller contract. Establish whether this interim transport needs an admitted dedicated policy route or must finish its native handoff. Retain the refusal until that contract yields positive and wrong-caller/owner/tenant negative evidence. No credential read, secret generation, or policy grant is authorized by this workplan alone. HFACT-WP-0001-T03 consumes this return.

Validation: 429 tests passed (4 integration tests deselected by the repository default); Ruff passed for changed Python files. Full tests used the declared phase-memory source and an isolated temporary memory store. The focused policy/proxy suite passed 69 tests. The existing authenticated SSH policy probe still returns HTTP 200/ALLOW, decision:f3f7c88f9585582a; the credential-owner request returns 403. No CA issue or credential read was performed by these probes.

Installed verification: source guard present after refreshed owner installation (19bb75c). warden access forgejo-admin-api-token --exec --field API_TOKEN -- true exits 4 with explicit HTTP 403 before credential transport or child execution. The previous fail-open warning is absent. The probe requested no output value; no credential was fetched. T01/T02 are complete; T03 owns the remaining exact policy-binding admission.

T03 routed 2026-09-09. Asked flex-auth whether an admitted contract exists for a delegated credential read where the caller (ops-warden) and the resource owner differ, since that is exactly the shape drawing the live 403. Three outcomes were named as equally acceptable answers, with no preference stated between the first two: an existing contract to conform to; no contract yet, making this a design question they should raise rather than one ops-warden invents a shape for; or that there should be no such contract — the interim proxy transport is itself the defect and the answer is to finish the native handoff (WARDEN-WP-0033 / SECRETS-WP-0006).

The third is a real possibility and was not argued against. Eleven catalog lanes are ops-warden proxies with a named intended owner precisely because no owner front door exists; if delegated reads should not be made policy-admissible, that shortens WP-0033 rather than blocking it.

Two fixes were explicitly ruled out in the message rather than left unmentioned: broadening the ops-warden caller binding so it may read other systems' resources, and relabelling resource.system as ops-warden so the existing binding matches. The second is worse — it would make the audit trail assert ops-warden owns credentials it deliberately does not, which is the claim ADR-0002 exists to prevent, achieved by editing a field instead of making an argument.

The refusal stays in place until an answer yields positive evidence plus wrong-caller, wrong-owner and wrong-tenant negatives. No grant was requested. secrets-engine was told this bears on SECRETS-WP-0007-T04 and on how many lanes stay proxied; gate-house was told it may reach how the signing lane's approval-consume is built (GH-DEC-2026-005).