rein-aharness/docs/adr/ADR-002-governed-execution-responsibility-chain.md

---
id: ADR-002
title: Governed execution is a responsibility chain, not a single enforcement point
status: proposed
date: "2026-08-23"
workplan_task: HARNESS-WP-0003-T01
---

# ADR-002 — Governed execution responsibility chain

## Status

Proposed. Acceptance requires acknowledgement from the owners of Activity Core,
Glas, sand-boxer, and llm-connect. Until then this document records the
implementation target for `HARNESS-WP-0003` but does not amend `INTENT.md` or
supersede accepted ADR-001.

## Context

ADR-001 and `INTENT.md` describe rein-aharness as the only credential holder
and the only policy enforcement point for an agent session. That was a useful
boundary against putting credentials or tool wiring in consuming repositories,
but it is not an accurate description of the current governed chain:

- Activity Core owns the claimable `ops_run`, its worker lease, and the pinned
  execution selector.
- Glas resolves the selector to a versioned rein, model, tool, sandbox, and
  limit constellation, rejects blocked profiles before sandbox creation, and
  coordinates the outer lifecycle.
- sand-boxer owns placement, filesystem/network isolation declared by its
  profile and extension, reachability, TTL, and teardown.
- the selected rein owns its inner agent loop, backend-specific tool-policy
  enforcement, and session credential acquisition/injection.
- OpenBao is credential custody; ops-warden catalogs credential lanes and
  access routes; flex-auth or the relevant authorization owner gates release.
- llm-connect supplies provider-neutral model primitives and usage/error
  normalization. It neither stores credentials nor chooses organizational
  policy.

Calling the rein the only enforcement point obscures these fail-closed
boundaries. Calling it the only credential holder obscures custody and release
authority. Conversely, moving provider or tenant credentials into Glas would
violate accepted Glas ADR-002, which keeps credential resolution rein-local.

The current code also has two coexistence routes. A profile-absent `ops_run`
selects tenant-specific code in `approaches.py`, and issue-core/direct task-file
entry points can invoke the older runtime. Neither route may become an implicit
fallback from a refused profiled request.

## Decision

### 1. Strategic route

The production target for unattended agentic repository mutation is:

```text
Activity Core ops_run + lease
  -> rein-aharness queue adapter (worker identity -> actor agt)
  -> Glas pinned execution profile
  -> sand-boxer isolated venue
  -> selected rein and model/provider adapter
  -> rein-aharness repository acceptance
  -> Activity Core close + durable evidence projections
```

Every production request must name a version-pinned `harness_profile_ref`.
Selection is exact: no component may substitute a different profile, rein,
model, tool profile, sandbox profile, credential route, or repository after
emission.

Catalog enablement is not runtime readiness. A Glas profile marked `blocked`
must refuse before sandbox creation. An `unverified` profile is permitted only
for an explicitly bounded and labelled proof; it is not a production-ready
route. There is currently no committed `ready` Glas profile for rein-aharness.

### 2. Compatibility routes

The following posture applies while `HARNESS-WP-0003-T04` migrates existing
definitions:

| Route | Supported posture | Retirement condition |
|---|---|---|
| Profile-absent Activity Core row | Compatibility-only for the enumerated existing FI/Binky definitions; no new tenant or approach | Each definition has a versioned profile and tenant-owned blueprint/manifest, then `ACTIVITY_CORE_REQUIRE_HARNESS_PROFILE=true` |
| issue-core | External-ticket compatibility only; never the scheduled automation claim authority | All intentional external-ticket consumers use a separately owned typed adapter or are removed |
| Direct task-file/CLI | Attended development and bounded smoke use; not an unattended production scheduling path | Retained only as a guarded operator/development surface after the T02/T03 repository transaction and acceptance checks are shared |

A present profile reference is authoritative. Resolution refusal, sandbox
failure, session failure, or teardown failure must never consult
`approach_hint`, issue-core, a direct host checkout, or a legacy executor.

### 3. Responsibility and evidence matrix

The owners below are authoritative for their boundary. Passing a reference or
recording evidence does not transfer that authority.

| Concern | Authority / enforcement | Required evidence at the handoff |
|---|---|---|
| Schedule and task definition | Activity Core definition owner | definition id, trigger/idempotency key, target repo, bounded task, pinned profile, allowlisted organizational refs |
| Queue identity and lease | Activity Core authenticates the worker; rein-aharness claims, heartbeats, and closes as its configured `worker_id` | ops_run id, claim owner, attempt, lease/heartbeat outcome, final queue state |
| Governed actor identity | Channel/rein adapter maps this runtime to `agt`; Glas and sand-boxer validate the governed actor enum | actor plus request/run correlation; queue `worker_id` remains separate |
| Organizational authority | Workforce/leadership owners upstream of Activity Core | allowlisted assignment, role, duty, goal, and resource-envelope refs; refs are attribution, not authorization |
| Execution constellation | Glas profile catalog and resolver | exact profile/rein/model/tool/sandbox revisions, readiness state, resolution outcome |
| Inner tool policy | Glas selects the named profile; the selected rein implements and enforces backend-specific tool mediation | selected tool profile, supported visibility level, refusal/tool summary without raw content |
| Filesystem and network isolation | sand-boxer profile and extension | sandbox id, extension/profile, placement/reachability mode, declared isolation/egress posture, lifecycle and teardown outcome |
| Model route and inference | Glas selects the approved model route; the rein invokes it through its backend adapter; llm-connect/provider owns portable inference mechanics | provider/model identifiers, bounded usage and normalized error; no provider body or prompt |
| Credential custody and authorization | OpenBao stores values; ops-warden catalogs lanes; flex-auth or the relevant authorization owner gates release | non-secret credential-route refs, authorization decision/ref, acquisition and revocation/expiry outcome |
| Credential acquisition and injection | Selected rein, following its declared credential routes; sandbox extensions separately own any provisioning credentials they require | value-free route id, injection target/lifetime, cleanup result; never a credential value |
| Repository grant | Consuming repo manifest/blueprint and the emitted task/profile define the allowed repository and paths | canonical repo identity, baseline, declared path/publish grant |
| Repository transaction and acceptance | rein-aharness | transaction id, lease status, baseline and accepted commits, changed paths, clean post-state, remote-ref outcome |
| Sandbox execution evidence | Glas normalizes rein and sand-boxer lifecycle facts | compact `ExecutionEvidence`, including outcome/failure stage and teardown; no prompts/tool/provider bodies |
| Queue result | Activity Core allowlists and stores the completion/failure envelope | terminal/reopened state and normalized execution evidence |
| Work history and decisions | State Hub projects progress/decision records; repository workplan files remain work authority | correlation refs and value-safe progress/decision ids |
| Instance learning/metrics | Consuming repo and kaizen-agentic own the schema; T03 will choose an atomic commit or durable external projection | run/transaction correlation and reconciled projection state |

The phrase “only credential holder” is therefore narrowed to: **among tenant
repositories, blueprints, and scheduling records, only the selected rein may
receive session credential material, and it holds that material only for the
bounded session.** It does not displace the secret custodian, authorization
gate, sandbox provisioning credential owner, or provider.

The phrase “only policy enforcement point” is superseded by: **rein-aharness is
the repository-transaction and rein-local tool-policy enforcement point within
a chained grant; it must not weaken or duplicate the authorities at queue,
profile, credential, sandbox, and provider boundaries.**

### 4. Failure classification

| Failure | Current required disposition | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Malformed profile at definition/emission | Terminal definition error; emit no run | A retry cannot repair invalid authority data |
| Unknown, disabled, incompatible, unsafe, or operationally blocked profile | Terminal claimed-run refusal; no sandbox and no fallback | Exact selection is the security boundary |
| Invalid actor or incomplete/ambiguous reachability | Terminal refusal/failure; no host-checkout fallback | Actor and execution venue are governed inputs |
| Sandbox create, session start/execution/end, credential acquisition, or teardown failure | Terminal profiled attempt with normalized stage evidence; no legacy fallback | Re-running may duplicate effects; a new run may be emitted after repair or explicit policy |
| Claim/list transport error before ownership | Retry after the configured full polling interval | No repository work has begun |
| Heartbeat rejection or confirmed lease loss | Stop dispatch, refuse repository acceptance, clean up, and leave reconciliation evidence | Work must not be accepted after ownership expires; T02 implements this |
| Legacy executor failure | Reopen only when the typed executor explicitly marks it retryable and Activity Core attempts remain; unmatched routes are terminal | Preserves current bounded coexistence without making all errors retryable |
| Required close/evidence API outage after repository mutation | Reconcile the same transaction; do not rerun or create another workload commit | Completion delivery is uncertain, not the workload outcome; T03 implements the outbox/reconciler |
| Optional State Hub telemetry outage | Continue only when the event is explicitly labelled best-effort and required evidence remains durable elsewhere | Observability must not masquerade as acceptance authority |

Retries after any possible repository mutation must key on the original ops run
and transaction identity. A producer may create a new run after a terminal
failure only through its normal idempotency and attempt policy; the harness
does not reopen profiled failures itself.

## Consequences

- `INTENT.md` and ADR-001 require a small wording amendment when this decision
  is accepted; their prohibition on tenant-held credentials and tenant-specific
  runtime wiring remains unchanged.
- T02 must make Activity Core lease loss observable inside execution and bind a
  repository lock/transaction to the claimed run.
- T03 must make repository acceptance and required result delivery
  reconcilable. Best-effort Hub telemetry is not sufficient completion proof.
- T04 may migrate, but may not expand, the profile-absent compatibility table.
- T05 readiness must verify the complete selected chain rather than merely
  catalog validation or host package installation.
- T06 may use only a `ready` profile for the positive production proof. An
  `unverified` remote route remains a labelled proof path, not completion
  evidence for production readiness.

## Required acknowledgements

Before changing this ADR to `accepted`, record owner acknowledgements for:

- Activity Core: queue/lease/result and retry semantics;
- Glas: exact selection, readiness, outer lifecycle, and rein-local credential
  resolution;
- sand-boxer: isolation/reachability/teardown ownership; and
- llm-connect: provider abstraction without credential or policy authority.

Any owner objection changes the matrix before acceptance; silence is not
approval.

Acknowledgements received:

- Glas — message `006fa46f-9419-4f61-90ff-0c3b6bc294c1`: exact selection,
  readiness, outer lifecycle/evidence, rein-local credential resolution, and
  no-fallback semantics approved with no edits.

Pending: Activity Core, sand-boxer, and llm-connect.