Status: Accepted Date: 2026-07-23 Amended: 2026-08-22 (current classification versus historical identifier segment) Deciders: Bernd Worsch, Codex

## Context

`canon/standards/iam-profile_v0.2.md`'s "Tenant Claim" section lists four suggested (not exhaustive) tenant identifiers: `tenant:platform`, `tenant:coulomb`, `tenant:sandbox:<name>`, `tenant:customer:<name>`.

Separately, an unratified exploration (`docs/princedom-isolation-exploration.md`) proposes a non-exclusive capability-role model for tenants: `PLTF` (operates the platform), `IAM` (organizes its own users/secrets), `VEN` (provides apps/services to others), `CUS` (consumes apps/services from `PLTF` or `VEN` tenants) — one tenant can hold multiple roles simultaneously.

Binky Hedgehog GmbH is being onboarded as the platform's first tenant outside `tenant:coulomb` (`key-cape/workplans/KEY-WP-0004-binky-hedgehog-tenant-onboarding.md`), forcing a concrete identifier decision. Binky already exercises both `CUS` (consumes `qonto-assistant`) and, per `binky-control/INTENT.md`, will exercise `VEN` (packages and sells offers built on the ecosystem to real external customers) — it is not purely a "customer" in the role sense.

Using a capability-role word (`customer`, `vendor`, ...) as the tenant grouping segment collides with that separate role dimension: a tenant labeled `tenant:customer:binky` would carry a stale, misleading label the moment it also starts acting as a vendor, and tenant identifiers are expensive to rename once tokens, OpenBao paths, and downstream config reference them.

## Decision

Adopt an onboarding-risk / entity-shape grouping taxonomy for the tenant identifier's second segment, replacing the `sandbox`/`customer` suggested identifiers in `iam-profile_v0.2.md`'s "Tenant Claim" section:

    tenant:<grouping>:<name>

    trial        - test/trial/showcase tenants only
    friendly     - known, easily reached, tolerant of experimentation/instability
    single       - one-person business entities (freelance consultants)
    small        - up to 10 employees at time of onboarding (attoo)
    medium       - up to 100 employees (attoo)
    large        - up to 1000 employees (attoo)
    enterprise   - 1001+ employees (attoo)
    consumer     - private individuals
    family       - a legal family
    community    - a non-legal group of people
    association  - a legal association of people
    agentic      - financially enabled AI entities

The taxonomy has two deliberately different uses:

- At creation, the identifier's grouping segment records the tenant's onboarding-time classification. The complete identifier is immutable, so this segment is historical after creation.
- The tenant record's `grouping` field records current classification. It may change as the entity changes and is authoritative for present-day policy, including guardrails and spend ceilings.

No consumer may parse the identifier's middle segment and treat it as current grouping. Consumers needing current grouping MUST read it from `tenant-engine`. Identifier creation still validates the segment against this vocabulary; historical does not mean free-form or optional.

Grouping is deliberately orthogonal to capability role (`PLTF`/`IAM`/`VEN`/`CUS`, subsequently ratified by ADR-0014): grouping describes what kind of entity a tenant is and its current onboarding-risk classification; role describes what it does on the platform. Both are carried as tenant metadata, but never conflated into the immutable identifier segment — that conflation is exactly what this ADR avoids.

`tenant:platform` and `tenant:coulomb` remain reserved, ungrouped identifiers outside this taxonomy: `tenant:platform` is the control-plane root, not a business entity being onboarded; `tenant:coulomb` is the reference tenant established by ADR-0006, predating this taxonomy, and none of the twelve groupings meaningfully describe "the platform building itself." The taxonomy applies to tenants onboarded from here forward. (This sub-point completes an open question raised during KEY-WP-0004 drafting and is Codex's reasoned proposal — flagged for Bernd's explicit confirmation rather than assumed settled.)

First application: Binky Hedgehog GmbH maps to `friendly` — known, reachable, tolerant of early instability — giving `tenant:friendly:binky` (`key-cape/workplans/KEY-WP-0004-binky-hedgehog-tenant-onboarding.md`).

## Scope and Governance Classification

Per ADR-0011's breaking-change governance, this does not meet the breaking-change bar: it doesn't add, remove, or rename a required claim; it doesn't change `tenant`'s type or validation rule (still an opaque string); it doesn't affect acceptance of any previously-issued token (`tenant:platform`, `tenant:coulomb` tokens remain valid as-is, and no `tenant:customer:*` or `tenant:sandbox:*` tokens have been issued yet). It only replaces non-normative suggested-identifier guidance for tenants onboarded going forward.

Per ADR-0011's own versioning rule ("New versions are added as new files... except for clearly editorial fixes that do not affect semantics"), this qualifies as an editorial update to `iam-profile_v0.2.md`'s Tenant Claim section — not a new versioned profile document.

## Consequences

- `canon/standards/iam-profile_v0.2.md`'s "Tenant Claim" section needs a follow-up edit replacing the `sandbox`/`customer` suggested identifiers with this taxonomy. Not made by this ADR itself — tracked as follow-up so the change is reviewable on its own.
- `key-cape/workplans/KEY-WP-0004-binky-hedgehog-tenant-onboarding.md` already reflects this decision (`tenant:friendly:binky`).
- Future tenant onboarding work should classify a tenant against this list before minting an identifier, rather than reaching for a role word.
- Tenant identifiers never change when current grouping changes. The middle segment is creation-time history; `tenant-engine` is authoritative for the current grouping value.
- Policy and commercial consumers, including spend-ceiling resolution, MUST query `tenant-engine` and MUST NOT derive current grouping by splitting a tenant identifier.
- The capability-role model (`PLTF`/`IAM`/`VEN`/`CUS`) remains a separate dimension, now ratified by ADR-0014. Role metadata is carried alongside — not instead of — current grouping and the historical identifier segment.
- `tenant:platform` and `tenant:coulomb` are reserved outside the taxonomy, pending Bernd's explicit confirmation (see Decision).

## Alternatives Considered

### Keep using capability-role words as the tenant grouping

Rejected: tenants are already known to hold multiple roles at once (Binky is `CUS` now, `VEN` later); a role-word grouping would need renaming as a tenant's roles evolve, which tenant identifiers are specifically expensive to do once tokens, OpenBao paths, and config reference them.

### Retrofit `tenant:coulomb` into the new taxonomy

Considered `tenant:friendly:coulomb` or similar. Rejected for now: Coulomb is structurally the reference tenant from ADR-0006, predating this taxonomy, and none of the twelve entity-shape groupings describe "the platform's own ecosystem-development tenant." Revisit if a future grouping is ever added that genuinely fits it.

### Do nothing / keep the four original suggested identifiers

Rejected: `tenant:customer:binky` was the working default going into Binky's onboarding despite the role-collision problem above; the fleet needs this resolved before the first non-Coulomb tenant goes live, not after.

## Follow-Up

- Edit `canon/standards/iam-profile_v0.2.md`'s Tenant Claim section to replace the old suggested identifiers with this taxonomy (separate, reviewable change).
- Confirm the `tenant:platform`/`tenant:coulomb` reserved/ungrouped treatment explicitly.
- ADR-0014 and the Tenant Engine Boundary Contract define how capability-role metadata is carried alongside grouping.
- Keep `tenant-engine`'s identifier parser vocabulary-validating for creation and lookup compatibility, but do not expose parsed grouping as current classification.