security-canon/infospace/mappings/mode-of-authority-to-infotechcanon.md

id	title	type	namespace	version	status	source_artifact	target_repository	target_artifacts	decisions
sec-authority:MoAToInfoTechCanonMapping	Mode of Authority to InfoTechCanon mapping	mapping	sec-authority	0.1.0	draft	sec-authority:ModeOfAuthority	info-tech-canon	itc-access:AccessControlModel itc-caring:CaringAccessGovernanceStandard	SECURITY-DEC-2026-001 SECURITY-DEC-2026-002

Mode of Authority → InfoTechCanon mapping

Relates the architecture-layer vocabulary to the two InfoTechCanon artifacts that speak about the same subject at the implementation layer. Per SEC-ADR-001 this is a mapping, not a merge: neither side is rewritten to match the other.

1. Entity vocabulary

Mode of Authority	ITC access control	CARING	Relationship
Actor	Subject, Principal	Principal, effective actor	imported — ITC owns actor semantics via the Organization Model
AuthorityContext	—	Delegator	refines; CARING scopes it to non-human subjects
relation = DELEGATED	delegation	Delegated Access §33.2	same concept, three granularities
relation = IMPERSONATED	—	customer impersonation; ImpersonationBlocked §29	CARING adds the restriction
PrincipalType	—	Subject dimension §9	imported from the ITC identity model
—	—	audit identity, capability ceiling	no architecture-layer equivalent
—	—	Mediated §33.3, Induced §33.4 access	no architecture-layer equivalent

The blank cells are informative rather than defects. Capability ceilings and induced access paths are implementation findings; the architecture layer has no business asserting them.

2. Dimension vocabulary

Mode of Authority	CARING	Relationship
AuthMode	Canonical Role §11, Plane §22	orthogonal — three different questions, see disambiguation
Scope	Scope §21	imported from ITC access control; one definition
AccessOperations	Capability §23	imported; CARING's is the richer implementation form
Activation	Condition §26	same idea; Activation is the architecture term
Environment	—	architecture-layer only
EvidenceBoundary	Audit Plane §22.10	different — surface versus trust question
AuthorityProvenance	—	architecture-layer only
AuthorityRealm, DOMINATES	—	architecture-layer only; models substrate authority
—	Exposure Mode §25, Exposure Event §29	implementation-layer only
—	Lifecycle State §27, Restriction §28	implementation-layer only
—	Organization Relation §10	implementation-layer only

3. Mode-to-plane affinity

Affinity, not equivalence. A mode may touch any plane; these are the common pairings, useful for orientation and not normative.

Auth Mode	Planes most often touched
USE	Data, Execution, Commercial, Community
OBSERVE	Audit, Runtime, Data
OPERATE	Runtime, Execution
ADMINISTER	Configuration, Identity, Policy, Secret
GOVERN	Policy, Intent
CONSTRUCT	Build, Intent, Configuration
SOVEREIGN	Identity, Secret, Policy

4. Mode-to-canonical-role affinity

Also affinity only. CARING roles describe lifecycle posture; a role does not grant a mode.

CARING role	Modes commonly exercised
Creator	GOVERN, CONSTRUCT
Builder	CONSTRUCT
Verifier	OBSERVE
Maintainer	CONSTRUCT, OPERATE
Integrator	CONSTRUCT, ADMINISTER
Operator	OPERATE, OBSERVE
Manager	ADMINISTER, GOVERN
Coach	OBSERVE, USE with authority_context
Doer	USE

Note the Operator row: the role and the OPERATE mode are not the same thing, and the row says only that they frequently co-occur.

5. Direction of import

InfoTechCanon  ──owns──>  Actor, Subject, Principal, Scope,
                          AccessOperations, PrincipalType, Purpose
                              │
                              │ imported by
                              ▼
SecurityCanon  ──owns──>  AuthMode, AuthorityContext, AuthorityRealm,
                          AuthorityProvenance, Activation, EvidenceBoundary
                              │
                              │ referenceable by
                              ▼
CARING         ──owns──>  Canonical Role, Plane, Capability, Exposure,
                          Lifecycle State, Restriction, Organization Relation

Nothing flows upward as a redefinition. CARING may reference the vocabulary; the vocabulary imports from the shared roots; the shared roots know nothing of either.

6. Open

• Whether CARING generalises its §32 role set beyond non-human subjects. Closed 2026-09-20. InfoTechCanon accepted option B as INFO-DEC-2026-001: the role set now applies wherever access is exercised through another party, CARING is at canon version 0.4.0-RC2-itc2, and the change is additive. The mapping below is unaffected. Analysis in the implications note §4.
• Whether AuthMode becomes a machine-readable authorization attribute consumable by CARING descriptors (v0.1 draft Q7).