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

id	type	title	domain	repo	status	owner	topic_slug	planning_priority	depends_on_workplans	created	updated	state_hub_workstream_id
WARDEN-WP-0040	workplan	Adopt unknown -> fail_closed behind signing-target classification coverage	infotech	ops-warden	proposed	ops-warden	netkingdom	P1	WARDEN-WP-0032 WARDEN-WP-0034	2026-09-09	2026-09-09	c8ee441e-1be1-5219-910c-e79ff23cc9ec

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

id: WARDEN-WP-0040-T01
status: todo
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "611f0901-9fb5-5954-8dd0-a860c5f0cbec"

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.

id: WARDEN-WP-0040-T02
status: todo
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "54ad4864-7bcf-592e-a187-9239a81a0b11"

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.

id: WARDEN-WP-0040-T03
status: wait
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "93eaf1f2-daaa-5e22-8804-85ca9433571c"

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.

id: WARDEN-WP-0040-T04
status: todo
priority: medium
state_hub_task_id: "222a8c5d-0c0f-5a1d-98d8-02be7dca3358"

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.