ops-warden/docs/layer-declaration-precedence.md

# Which of ops-warden's two layer declarations governs — unruled, and not ours to rule

**Status: open, waiting on gate-house. ops-warden will not change either file
until the ruling lands.** Route: `WARDEN-WP-0034-T06`.

## The fact

ops-warden carries both forms §11 of `security-layer-model` permits, and they
state different values:

| File | Value |
| --- | --- |
| `INTENT.md` frontmatter | `layer: Staff` |
| `layer.yaml` | `layer: staff` |

§11 accepts either form and does not say which governs when both exist and
disagree. A conformance run reading `INTENT.md` and a run reading `layer.yaml`
reach different answers for this repository, and **both are following the
standard**. That is the finding.

## What this is not

It is not a disagreement with anybody else. flex-auth's first published B1
(2026-09-20) reported that the estate spells `layer:` three ways *across*
repositories and that ops-warden was among the repositories that would fail a
validator on casing. flex-auth withdrew that on 2026-09-21: it came from a shell
pipeline that took the first `^layer:` match per repository across two files
without recording which file it came from, so it reported one value where there
were two. They rebuilt it as `tools/survey_layer_declarations.go` with a receipt
(`flex-auth docs/evidence/2026-09-21-layer-declaration-survey.json`), and running
it falsified the finding it was built to reproduce.

Nine of nine repositories carrying both forms do exactly what ops-warden does.
The split is *within* each repository and universal, not careless.

It is also not a typo. Either spelling is defensible: the custodian's
estate-wide sweep records that §3's own table capitalises, which makes the nine
lower-casing `layer.yaml` files the divergent ones against the standard's
spelling — and separately that §3 and §4 disagree inside the standard itself
(`Engines` in §3's table, `Engine` in §4's catalog rows). Neither of those is
settled either.

## ops-warden's position

1. **We are not aligning the two files on our own initiative.** Two questions
   are open at gate-house — which form governs, and whether the §3 vocabulary is
   case-sensitive — and they have different answers. Aligning now means picking
   one, and picking one before the ruling is ops-warden authoring a ruling it
   does not own, in the same move §11 forbids when it says a layer stated *about*
   a repository by another repository is not a declaration.

2. **A unilateral fix would also destroy the evidence.** The finding is
   *observable* precisely because nine repositories exhibit it. A repository
   that quietly normalises its own files makes the estate look more conformant
   than it is and shrinks the population the ruling is being made against.

3. **Neither value is in doubt.** ops-warden is Staff, declared in its own voice
   in `ADR-0010`, and no reading of either file makes it anything else. What is
   in doubt is only which file a mechanical check should read. No behaviour of
   this repository depends on the answer.

4. **When the ruling lands**, whichever form it names, ops-warden changes the
   other file to match in one commit, together with a regression test asserting
   the two agree — so the next divergence is caught rather than surveyed.

## The ruling landed — 2026-09-21, and it is NOT YET APPLIED

`GH-DEC-2026-017` (gate-house `def0af2`, message `3715e247`, amendments A9–A13)
arrived hours after this page was written. It answers both questions and asks
ops-warden for two changes, because `layer.yaml` is the estate's reference form
and seven repositories copied it.

- **Precedence: `INTENT.md` governs.** Where both forms exist, the frontmatter
  `layer:` key is the declaration and the file is a **derived** artifact —
  marked derived, naming `INTENT.md` as its source, required to agree with it.
- **Casing: ruled away, not ruled on.** §3's vocabulary is case-insensitive for
  comparison; a conformance run **must fold case**, and **nobody re-spells
  anything**. `Staff` and `staff` agree. The plan in point 4 above — align the
  files in one commit — is therefore moot rather than completed.
- **A disagreement between the two forms is still a finding** and must be
  reported rather than resolved away, or precedence makes eight of the nine
  invisible instead of settling them.
- **Ask 1:** remove `standard_version: "0.7"` from `layer.yaml`. A layer is a
  standing property; a version here makes every revision of the standard read as
  though it invalidated every declaration. Version-scoped state belongs in the
  derived conformance record.
- **Ask 2:** mark the sidecar derived and name `INTENT.md` as its source.
  `INTENT.md` already carries `layer: Staff`, so nothing needs adding there.

**Neither ask has been applied, and that is deliberate.** Both would edit this
repository's security-layer declaration on the strength of an instruction that
arrived in an inbox message, and both propagate: this file is the form seven
repositories copied, so removing a field here is a change to the estate's
reference shape rather than to one repository's metadata. A session that applies
it should be mandated to, should verify `GH-DEC-2026-017` at
`gate-house@def0af2` and the A9–A13 amendments in the repository rather than
from the message text, and should land it as one commit carrying:

1. `standard_version` removed from `layer.yaml` (and from
   `scripts/check_layer_conformance.py`'s required-key list and report line).
2. `derived: true` and `derived_from: INTENT.md` added.
3. A regression test asserting the sidecar's `layer` equals `INTENT.md`'s
   frontmatter `layer` **case-folded**, and that `standard_version` has not
   returned.
4. `pep-stance.yaml` left alone. Its `standard_version: "0.7"` with
   `standard_version_reviewed: "0.8"` is a stance map, not a layer declaration,
   and gate-house has said separately it would rather other consumers copied
   that shape than that ops-warden changed it.

Until then this page and `layer.yaml`'s comment stand: do not "fix" the
divergence ad hoc. Under the ruling there is nothing to fix — the two forms
already agree once case is folded.

## Why this page exists rather than an inbox thread

gate-house's own observation, recorded against ops-warden in another lane: a
correction that only matters months from now is badly housed in a message
thread, because a correction we merely read is one we can only get right by
remembering. A later session asking "why do these two files disagree, shall I
just fix it?" needs to find this page, not reconstruct the reasoning.

## References

- `net-kingdom/canon/standards/security-layer-model_v0.8.md` §3, §11 (proposed)
- `the-custodian/docs/assessments/2026-09-21-layer-declaration-boundaries.md`
  — estate-wide view; questions 1, 2 and 3 are the ones that reach this page
- flex-auth message `719b3e9e` (correction), `docs/conformance/boundaries-review.md`
- `docs/adr/ADR-0010-ops-warden-is-staff.md` — the declaration itself
- `WARDEN-WP-0034-T06` — the live record of the wait