# Decision records

## TEN-DEC-2026-001 — Declare Engine / PIP; contest approval lifecycle here

```yaml
id: TEN-DEC-2026-001
kind: decision
title: "Declare Engine / PIP; contest approval lifecycle here"
status: resolved
disposition: approved
origin: cross-repo
origin_ref: TEN-IN-0003
standard: net-kingdom/canon/standards/security-layer-model_v0.7.md
companion: net-kingdom/SECURITY-COMPANION.md
owner: tenant-engine
affects:
  - tenant-engine
  - gate-house
  - net-kingdom
  - access-engine
  - approval-engine
created: "2026-08-29"
updated: "2026-08-29"
decided_by: tenant-engine (reviewing side)
decided_at: "2026-08-29"
state_hub_decision_id: "34cfa01f-57c8-4576-b8df-6a1b81baaef5"
```

## Context

gate-house asked this repository, via `TEN-IN-0003`, to declare its layer in
`INTENT.md` in its own voice, or contest it. Proposed layer: Engine —
tenant-as-an-entity facts. The existing boundary contract was to hold
unchanged. One live question: the reserved guardrail/quota policy was
briefly considered as a home for organizational approval lifecycle before
`approval-engine` was seeded; if approvals belong nearer tenant governance,
now is the time to say.

The NetKingdom Security Layer Model was accepted at v0.7 on 2026-08-29. The
working companion is `net-kingdom/SECURITY-COMPANION.md` v0.2. Statute §4
already catalogues this repository as Engine / PIP. Statute §11 says a layer
stated *about* a repository is not a declaration; only this file, in this
repository's voice, conforms. The previous `INTENT.md` carried a gate-house
review note naming Engine above a line that admitted the body was unadapted.

## Decision

1. **Declare Engine, role PIP.** Same authoritative tenant state yields the
   same result. This repository supplies tenant-as-an-entity facts as claims
   a decision consumes. It does not render or cache an authorization
   decision. `access-engine` (`flex-auth` until the governed rename) remains
   the only PDP. The declaration lives in `INTENT.md` frontmatter
   (`layer: Engine`, `role: PIP`) and in the body's own-voice note.
2. **Contest placing approval lifecycle here.** A guardrail is a safety
   ceiling — a PIP fact. An approval is a durable object owned by
   `approval-engine` (statute §4, §9.4) and consumed as a claim by
   `access-engine`. Tenant governance will not mint, store, or evaluate
   approvals. If a tenant mutation should require one, the write stays
   PEP-shaped: this engine mutates only after `access-engine` has allowed
   it, and that decision may rest on an `approval-engine` claim.
3. **Name the write path PEP-shaped without becoming a PDP.** Protected
   side effects (create, grant, revoke, plan, lifecycle, grouping,
   guardrail mutations) proceed only with a decision record or a recorded
   fail-closed unreachable-engine stance. That stance is already the
   shipped default; publishing it and persisting decision ids is
   implementation, recorded as `TEN-WP-0011`, not a change of layer.

## Consequences

- `TEN-IN-0003` is closed, absorbed by this decision.
- Implementation gaps against v0.7 are not hidden by the declaration.
  They are `TEN-WP-0011`.
- A boundary-contract amendment in `net-kingdom` is requested from that
  workplan: guardrails are no longer reserved, and "not a policy
  enforcement point" must be restated so it cannot be read as denying the
  PEP *shape* of our writes.