ops-warden/workplans/WARDEN-WP-0034-layer-model-v07-conformance.md

---
id: WARDEN-WP-0034
type: workplan
title: "Layer model v0.7 conformance — state the deadline, bind the agent boundary, steward the estate's newest rule"
domain: infotech
repo: ops-warden
status: active
flavor: implementation
depends_on:
  - WARDEN-WP-0030
owner: ops-warden
topic_slug: netkingdom
planning_priority: P1
depends_on_workplans:
  - WARDEN-WP-0030
created: "2026-08-29"
updated: "2026-09-21"
state_hub_workstream_id: "ae3ff76f-883d-5e2f-b6aa-144d61e8fdef"
---

# WARDEN-WP-0034 — Layer model v0.7 conformance

`security-layer-model_v0.7` is **accepted**. ops-warden declared Staff and PEP-shaped,
shipped the two declaration artifacts the standard now cites as estate reference forms,
and had four findings adopted into the text between v0.4 and v0.7.

The assessment in `history/2026-08-29-v07-scope-intent-assessment.md` checked every
v0.7 obligation against shipped code rather than intent. Three gaps survive, plus a
role the companion assigns that no conformance check will ever catch.

## Why a workplan and not an adhoc

T01 is a `MUST` that is currently unstated. T02 changes an enforcement boundary and
touches `ADR-0004`. T04 is a cross-repo stewardship commitment against a standard eight
repositories have yet to adopt. The convention reserves adhocs for low-risk work
completed directly; none of these qualify.

## Tasks

```task
id: WARDEN-WP-0034-T01
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "8b3bdb9f-d2c2-5b3e-89e2-417bf3e37484"
```

**State the revocation visibility deadline (§9.7.2, a MUST).**

ops-warden states none, and the honest value is the certificate TTL: **up to 48 hours**.
A cert issued under an allow remains valid for its full TTL even if the authorizing
decision is revoked the next minute. There is no CRL, no KRL distribution, and host-side
`auth_principals` belongs to `railiance-infra`.

Add the deadline to `pep-stance.yaml` as what it is — `adm` 48h / `agt` 24h / `atm` 8h —
with the mechanism named (TTL expiry, no revocation channel) rather than implied. Assert
it against the shipped `ActorType` TTL policy by test, the same way the stance map is
asserted equal to shipped behaviour: a stated deadline free to drift from the code has
the same defect as a stated stance free to drift.

**Done when:** the deadline is published, test-bound to the TTL policy, and the absence
of a revocation channel is stated rather than left to inference.

**Not in scope:** shortening it. Whether 48h is acceptable is a joint question with
`railiance-infra` (KRL distribution) and is T05's to raise, not this task's to decide.

Completed 2026-09-04. `pep-stance.yaml` now publishes TTL expiry as the only
revocation mechanism, explicitly records that no CRL/KRL channel exists, and
states `adm=48h`, `agt=24h`, and `atm=8h`. The conformance test derives the
expected map from `ActorType`/`MAX_TTL_HOURS`, so declaration and issuance
policy cannot drift independently. The layer and stance declarations now name
the accepted v0.7 standard.

```task
id: WARDEN-WP-0034-T02
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "3318ee1a-b5d9-5d39-baf7-9c42a8bc7b55"
```

**Bind the agent read-boundary to an issued identity (§3.4 rule 1).**

`ADR-0004`'s boundary triggers on `WARDEN_AGENT_ID` — a variable the agent sets about
itself. An agent that omits it is not recognised as one. §3.4 rule 1 now requires
authority to be *issued* per task and attributable to the principal acted for.

The identity exists as of `KEY-WP-0009-T03`: `codex-railiance-platform`, subject
`service:codex:railiance-platform`, role `coding-agent`, 15-minute lifetime, with
`railiance-platform` enforcing the OpenBao-side policy.

Key the boundary on the issued identity where one is present; keep `WARDEN_AGENT_ID` as
a fallback that fails **toward** the boundary, never away from it. State plainly in the
ADR trail which half is enforced and which is advisory: the OpenBao-side deny is real,
the ops-warden-side refusal is a courtesy that a determined caller can decline.

**Done when:** an agent presenting the issued identity is recognised without setting
`WARDEN_AGENT_ID`, the fallback still refuses on `risk: high` lanes, and the
enforced/advisory split is written down.

**Watch:** do not turn this into ops-warden validating a token — that is verifying an
identity claim, adjacent to deciding, and `ADR-0002`/§6 both point away from it. Read
the identity; do not adjudicate it.

Completed 2026-09-04. The advisory CLI guard now prefers the exact issued
KeyCape subject `service:codex:railiance-platform` from
`WARDEN_POLICY_SUBJECT`, then falls back to `WARDEN_AGENT_ID`. Tests prove the
issued subject triggers exit 7 without the legacy marker, the fallback remains,
and an operator subject does not manufacture an agent identity. ADR-0004
revision 2 records the enforced/advisory split: Warden reads the marker and
does not validate a token; OpenBao's `agent-high-risk-boundary` is the real
enforcement.

```task
id: WARDEN-WP-0034-T03
status: done
priority: medium
state_hub_task_id: "a891b32c-b0a7-59f6-a5cd-977be65c09ca"
```

**Derive an emission cadence, or defer it with a reason (§9.6).**

ops-warden's trail is attributive, so cadence is a SHOULD rather than v0.7's MUST for
load-bearing sources. It has been silent through two reviews, which is the one outcome
that is not defensible.

Derive a baseline from the existing `audit.jsonl` and signatures log. If the signal is
too bursty to support a threshold — plausible, since volume is operator-driven — record
that as the finding with the distribution that shows it, and declare the deferral in
`pep-stance.yaml`. A measured "no useful baseline" is a result; silence is not.

**Done when:** either a declared cadence with its derivation, or a declared deferral
carrying the data that justifies it.

Completed 2026-09-04 with an explicit measured deferral. The signatures log
contains three issuances across the 79-day observation window, on only two
active days: one on 2026-06-17 and two within 40 minutes on 2026-08-22. The
unified audit carries the latter two events. `pep-stance.yaml` records the
counts, dates, attributive classification, and reason that this sparse,
operator-driven burst cannot support a meaningful rate threshold.

```task
id: WARDEN-WP-0034-T04
status: done
priority: medium
state_hub_task_id: "94e73daa-f74d-51fd-8639-68896a4066ee"
```

**Answer the question the companion sends the estate here to ask.**

> *"For how to get something done — which lane, which credential, which route — ask
> `ops-warden`."*

Today the repo answers credential questions and no others. `warden route` and
`warden plan` cover lanes, owners and acts. Nothing answers *"which layer am I"*, *"how
do I declare"*, *"I am PEP-shaped, what do I owe"* — and eight of fifteen catalogued
repositories have yet to declare.

Provide the path, not the doctrine (that boundary is `ADR-0010`'s and does not move):
a routing entry and a short playbook that carry a reader from the companion to the files
to copy — `layer.yaml`, `pep-stance.yaml`, `check_layer_conformance.py`,
`test_layer_conformance.py` — and the check to run. The standard already names these in
§11 and §6.4; what is missing is the route to them.

**Done when:** `warden route find "how do I declare my layer"` resolves, and the
playbook is reachable from the catalog. **Not** a restatement of the companion — a
pointer layer, per `ADR-0001`.

Completed 2026-09-04. Catalog entry `netkingdom-layer-declaration` resolves the
exact query to `wiki/playbooks/netkingdom-layer-declaration.md`. The short
playbook points at the accepted companion/statute, the four reference artifacts
and checks, and the gate-house review path while explicitly leaving doctrine
with gate-house and declaration truth with each repository.

```task
id: WARDEN-WP-0034-T05
status: wait
priority: low
state_hub_task_id: "7d1b3c82-9b96-5087-a53a-496212909029"
```

**Two things to raise rather than absorb.**

Both are other repositories' to own; ops-warden's obligation is to route them, not to
fix them (`ADR-0003`, `ADR-0005`).

1. **`ops-mason` has published no stance map.** §13.1's register has one row and the
   standard says that is itself the finding. `ops-mason` is catalogued PEP-shaped in
   the same paragraph and is ops-warden's peer lane owner. Offer the reference form;
   do not write their map.
2. **The 48-hour replay window from T01.** Once stated, raise with `railiance-infra`
   whether KRL distribution is worth building, and with `access-engine` whether a
   decision lifetime shorter than the cert TTL is meaningful when nothing can recall
   the cert. State the question; let the owners answer.

**Done when:** both are routed with reasoning, and the answers recorded either way —
including a refusal, which is an equally good answer.

Raised 2026-09-04 and waiting for answers. Ops-mason received the stance-map
reference and classification question (message `6ddd6cc7`). Railiance-infra
received the KRL-versus-TTL question (message `3bfa306e`). Flex-auth, as the
current access-engine implementation, received the decision-lifetime semantics
question (message `02c99a74`). No implementation or policy decision was assigned
to another owner by these messages.

**One of three answered, 2026-09-09.** `flex-auth` answered the decision-lifetime
question as `FLEX-DEC-2026-004` (flex-auth commit `6a6464f`), and answered it
rather than declining it: a decision lifetime shorter than the certificate TTL is
meaningful, but only as authority to **issue**, never as authority to **use** an
already-issued certificate. The action is `sign` and it completes at issuance, so
the decision is consumed once the certificate exists and no field in the decision
record reaches the artifact. 15m against a 48h `adm` certificate was never an
inconsistency to reconcile — the question mistook a decision lifetime for a
credential lifetime.

Two obligations land on this side and are accepted: no replay of an allow past
`expires_at`, and a fresh Check per sign. The second is where the value is, and it
is real rather than nominal because claims are not cached PDP-side (deadline 0 for
the claim class), so a revoked principal stops obtaining *new* certificates
immediately.

`pep-stance.yaml` §9.7.2 is unchanged and stays here: flex-auth explicitly declined
to move the residue to their side, on the ground that a PDP recalling an issued
credential would be "the same shape of lie as fail-open". Declining it was the
right call even though absorbing it would have made their record look tidier.

The TTL lever they named — capping requested TTL per actor class or zone, already a
policy input since `ttl_out_of_bounds` is denied before OpenBao is reached — is
noted and deliberately not requested. Shortening `adm` from 48h has an operator
cost, and issuance on this lane is too sparse (3 signature records across 79 days,
`pep-stance.yaml` `emission_cadence`) to price it from intuition.

T05 stays `wait` on the remaining two: `ops-mason` (no stance map published) and
`railiance-infra` (KRL distribution versus TTL expiry). Neither has replied.

## Await gate-house's §11 precedence and case-sensitivity ruling

```task
id: WARDEN-WP-0034-T06
status: done
priority: low
state_hub_task_id: "b3b573df-2d2d-5a2c-9662-a13e435be57b"
```

ops-warden declares `layer: Staff` in `INTENT.md` frontmatter and `layer: staff`
in `layer.yaml`. §11 permits both forms and is silent on which governs when both
exist and disagree, so two conformance runs over this repository can disagree
while both follow the standard. Nine of nine repositories carrying both forms do
the same thing (flex-auth `tools/survey_layer_declarations.go`, receipt
`docs/evidence/2026-09-21-layer-declaration-survey.json`).

**RULED 2026-09-21, APPLIED 2026-09-21.** `GH-DEC-2026-017`
(`gate-house@def0af2`, amendments A9-A13) answers both questions, and the answer
to the second dissolves the first's consequence:

- **`INTENT.md` governs**; `layer.yaml` is a derived artifact that must be marked
  derived, must name `INTENT.md` as its source, and must agree with it.
- **The §3 vocabulary is case-insensitive**, closed, and has four tokens
  (`Taxonomy`, `Tooling`, `Engine`, `Staff`). A conformance run MUST ASCII-fold
  case before comparing, and **no repository was asked to re-spell anything**.
  `Staff` and `staff` are one value.
- **A declaration MUST NOT carry a standard version** — and that field is the
  *reference form's*, not this repository's habit, so ops-warden was asked to
  remove it here rather than each of seven adopters deciding.

Verified before editing against gate-house's own committed files rather than the
inbox message: the decision 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`.

**What was applied.** `standard_version` removed from `layer.yaml` **and** from
`INTENT.md` frontmatter (the ruling's subject is the declaration, and `INTENT.md`
is the declaration), with the version-pinned `standard:` path de-versioned for the
same reason; `derived: true` / `derived_from: INTENT.md` added; **no layer value
changed**; `scripts/check_layer_conformance.py` rewritten to read `INTENT.md` as
governing, fold case, validate the closed four-token vocabulary, require the
derived marking, and reject a returning `standard_version` — it previously
*required* that field and so would have rejected the conforming declaration this
ruling produces; `tests/test_layer_conformance.py` asserts the **fold** rather
than equality, because an equality assertion would perform the re-spelling the
ruling declined to order. `pep-stance.yaml` untouched: a stance map is not a layer
declaration, and the schema beyond the derived marking and the version is
explicitly not ruled.

**Evidence.** `python3 scripts/check_layer_conformance.py --report` exits 0 and
prints the governing form and the derived one separately; `pytest
tests/test_layer_conformance.py` green; full suite and `ruff` green. Reasoning
and the adopter change set: `docs/layer-declaration-precedence.md` and
`wiki/playbooks/netkingdom-layer-declaration.md`.

**Left open, and not decided here.** Where the removed version now lives. A12
says version-scoped state belongs in the derived conformance record, which
"already MUST" carry the version it was derived at; ops-warden has a re-runnable
checker that emits nothing durable, not an emitted record. Whether §11 expects an
emitted artifact or a re-runnable check discharges it is asked of gate-house in
message `4220413a` and unanswered. Nothing applied above depends on the answer.

**Ruled the same day, and still `wait` — deliberately.** `GH-DEC-2026-017`
(message `3715e247`) landed hours later: `INTENT.md` governs, the sidecar is a
derived artifact that must be marked as such, §3's vocabulary is case-insensitive
so **nobody re-spells anything**, and `standard_version` must come out of the
declaration. Two asks land on ops-warden specifically because `layer.yaml` is the
form seven repositories copied.

This task stays `wait` rather than flipping to `progress`, because applying it
edits this repository's security-layer declaration — and the estate's reference
shape — on the strength of an instruction delivered in an inbox message. The
session that applies it should be mandated to, and should verify the decision at
`gate-house@def0af2` and amendments A9–A13 in the repository rather than from the
message text. The exact change set and its four conditions are written down in
`docs/layer-declaration-precedence.md`; the casing half of the original "done
when" above is moot rather than outstanding, since the ruling folds case.

Raised by flex-auth's corrected B1 (message `719b3e9e`, 2026-09-21), which
withdrew an earlier claim that the estate disagreed *across* repositories. The
withdrawal matters to this task: the original finding would have had ops-warden
changing a file to match an estate consensus that did not exist.

## Related

Review 2026-09-05: reviewed the pending implementation and fixed the identity
helper so an explicitly empty environment does not inherit the process identity.
Regression coverage also proves an operator subject cannot override the legacy
agent marker. Refreshed the generated high-risk path artifact after the catalog
changes. T05 remains waiting: no corresponding reply was present in the inbox,
and the checked owner workplans contained no resolution of these questions.
Validation: 415 unit tests and four SSH integration tests pass; Ruff, the
layer-conformance script, and the declaration-route CLI smoke check pass.

- `history/2026-08-29-v07-scope-intent-assessment.md` — the gap analysis behind this plan
- `history/2026-08-29-layer-model-v04-review.md`, `-v06-review.md` — the two prior reviews
- `security-layer-model_v0.7.md` §3.4, §6.4, §9.6, §9.7, §11, §13.1
- `net-kingdom/SECURITY-COMPANION.md` v0.2
- `ADR-0002`, `ADR-0003`, `ADR-0004`, `ADR-0005`, `ADR-0009`, `ADR-0010`