risk-nexus/workplans/RISK-WP-0004-run-the-register.md

---
id: RISK-WP-0004
type: workplan
title: "Run the register: make the cadence actually happen, and close the gaps the first week found"
domain: infotech
repo: risk-nexus
status: active
owner: the-custodian
topic_slug: risk-nexus
created: "2026-08-20"
updated: "2026-08-20"
depends_on_workplans:
  - RISK-WP-0001
---

# RISK-WP-0004 — run the register

**Draft.** `RISK-WP-0001` built the instruments. This one is about the register
being *operated*, which is a different thing and the one that fails quietly.

## Goal

Nine findings, two notes, a regulatory record and an adaptive cadence exist.
**Nothing currently performs a check.** `make check` says what is due; a person
or an agent has to read the finding, ask the five questions, and record the
outcome. If that does not happen, every finding sits at `instant` forever and
the ladder becomes decoration.

Done means: checks happen on their own schedule without the operator
remembering, the register's own known gaps are closed, and the failure modes
found in the first week cannot recur silently.

## What the first week actually found

Every task below traces to something that happened, not something imagined.

| What happened | Task |
| --- | --- |
| Graded `RISK-F-0001` `critical` while its fix notice sat unread in the inbox | T02 |
| `RISK-F-0003` returned as `mitigated`, a word the tooling did not know, and vanished from the nag | fixed ad hoc; T03 generalises it |
| `ops-warden` and this register both used `RISK-F-0004` | fixed ad hoc; duplicate check now in `make check` |
| Two gradings rest on file comparison because an operator token is expired | T05 |
| `RISK-F-0007` accepted with an on-request path nobody has exercised | T04 |

## Tasks

### T01 — Something performs the checks

```task
id: RISK-WP-0004-T01
status: progress
priority: high
```

`tools/record_check.py` moves a finding along the ladder and writes the dated
line. What is missing is the thing that *calls* it on schedule.

Options, in ascending order of how much this repo should want them: a scheduled
agent session that runs `make check`, works the due list, and records outcomes;
a cron that only reports; a human habit. The first is the only one that
survives the operator being busy, which is the condition the whole ladder is
designed for.

Whatever it is, the check must remain a **judgement** — re-read the grade,
re-check every stated blocker, read the owner's tracking record. A job that
stamps `clean` without doing that is worse than no job, because it manufactures
a stability signal that is false. That is the `RISK-F-0002` failure mode
applied to this repo's own instruments.

In progress 2026-08-20. The procedure exists (`docs/method/check-procedure.md`), `make due` prints the work list, and `make checked` records an outcome. **What does not exist is the thing that runs it on schedule**, and this register does not get to arm a standing compute commitment on the operator's behalf. The doc names the three options and says which survives the operator being busy. Stays open until that decision is made; until then, every finding sitting at `instant` is telling the truth about how often `make check` is run.

### T02 — Inbox before grading, as a check rather than a habit

```task
id: RISK-WP-0004-T02
status: done
priority: high
```

`RISK-WP-0001`'s residual says: if it slips again, make it a check. It has
slipped once, on the register's first day, and cost a wrong grade and a nearly
sent escalation.

`make check` should compare each finding's `last_checked` against the newest
message this repo has received about that system, and report any finding whose
inbox has spoken more recently than its register has. That is mechanical and
does not require the tooling to understand the message.

Completed 2026-08-20. `tools/inbox_check.py`, wired into `make check`. Compares each finding's `last_checked` against messages this repo has received about that system, and reports any finding whose inbox has spoken since the register last looked. Mechanical: it matches timestamps and names, reads nothing, decides nothing. Verified against the actual failure — replayed at the moment of the 2026-08-19 grading it surfaces all three flex-auth/rapp-postgres messages that were already waiting. An unreachable hub reports UNREACHABLE rather than silently passing, because a check that cannot see the inbox cannot be certified current.

### T03 — Fail loud everywhere else too

```task
id: RISK-WP-0004-T03
status: done
priority: medium
```

The `mitigated` defect was one instance of a class: the tooling quietly
tolerating something it did not expect. Sweep for the rest — unknown disclosure
states, unparseable dates, a `constraint_on` pointing at a finding that does
not exist, an `embargo_condition` on a finding that is not embargoed.

Every one of them should be reported by name and keep the finding watched.

Completed 2026-08-20. `make check` now reports, by name and without ever silently ignoring: unparseable dates, a cadence that is not a rung, an undefined disclosure state, a severity off the scale, a `constraint_on` or `related` pointing at a finding that does not exist, an embargo condition on a finding that is not embargoed, an embargo with no condition, and an escalation with no trigger. Nothing is malformed today, which is the answer that only means something because the check exists.

### T04 — Exercise the on-request verification path once

```task
id: RISK-WP-0004-T04
status: done
priority: medium
```

`RISK-F-0007` is accepted until production on the strength of a path nobody has
used. A route that has never been walked is a plan, not a route.

Pick one named consumer boundary, request verification through the documented
path, and see what actually happens: who answers, what evidence comes back,
whether the finding's likelihood moves for that consumer, and what the record
looks like. The value is in the friction it exposes.

Completed 2026-08-20 as far as this repo can complete it. `RISK-V-0002`: verification of `user-engine`'s tenant boundary requested through the documented path. `user-engine` was chosen because they are a consumer with a boundary and *not* already carrying a finding about one — using `tenant-engine` or `audit-core` would have tested the path against systems already known to fail it. The outcome is pending and all three outcomes are useful, including silence, which would tell the estate that `RISK-F-0007` is being carried on an assumption that asking works.

### T05 — The verification credential

```task
id: RISK-WP-0004-T05
status: done
priority: medium
```

`RISK-F-0009` and `RISK-F-0003`'s mitigation both rest on comparing files
because `ops-warden`'s operator token is expired and `bao policy read` cannot
be run.

That is not a finding — nothing is wrong with the estate because a token
expired — but it means the register is grading deployed controls from their
source. Establish what this repo can legitimately verify itself, and what it
must always take from owners. **If the answer is "nothing", that is worth
knowing and writing down**, because it bounds every grade in the register.

Completed 2026-08-20, by trying rather than reasoning. `docs/method/verification.md`. **Cluster reads work from this host; OpenBao returns 403**, the same wall `ops-warden` hit. So the register can check what the cluster admits and cannot check what the secret store permits, and every grade touching an OpenBao policy is a grade on a document. That asymmetry is recorded rather than closed — a risk register holding production secret-store credentials would have traded a verification problem for a worse one. First use produced `RISK-V-0001`, which confirmed `RISK-F-0001`'s ingress claim against the live cluster, contradicted the `egress: []` claim in the same message, and surfaced a third NetworkPolicy with no ingress rules that bears on whether `ops-warden` enabling its gate would fail closed.

### T06 — Regulatory records on the same ladder

```task
id: RISK-WP-0004-T06
status: done
priority: low
```

Duplicate of `RISK-WP-0003-T04`, kept here as a pointer rather than a second
copy. Whichever workplan reaches it first does it; the other closes with a
reference.

Completed 2026-08-20. Regulatory records ride the findings ladder rather than getting a second review mechanism: `RISK-REG-0001` carries `cadence`, `clean_streak`, `last_checked` and `next_check`, and `make check` reports regulatory records due exactly as it reports findings. `RISK-WP-0003-T04` closes by reference.

## Non-goals

- **No dashboard.** `REGISTER.md` and `make check` are the surface, and the
  register is supposed to stay small enough to read.
- **No automated grading.** A machine may schedule, list and record. Severity,
  disclosure and escalation stay judgements this repo makes.
- **No monitoring of other systems.** `RISK-N-0003` records that everything
  here was found by reading rather than watching; this workplan does not
  attempt to change that, and a register that grows probes becomes a second
  engineering team.

## Risks

**A scheduled check becomes a rubber stamp.** The whole value of the ladder is
that a `1q` rung means something. Mitigation: T01 treats stamping without
judgement as a defect, and `clean_streak` makes a suspiciously smooth climb
visible.

**The register spends its attention on itself.** Six tasks about the register's
own machinery, none of which fix a defect in the estate. Mitigation: T01, T02
and T05 all exist because the register got something wrong in week one; if
week two produces no such items, this workplan should shrink rather than grow.