01 / The operating case
What changes in a real workflow?
An incident agent requests production host isolation. The current grant permits observation but containment needs commander approval. A decision should not silently turn that escalation into either immediate execution or permanent denial.
- 01Authority origin
- 02Task and grant
- 03Current decision
- 04Observed outcome
02 / Decision contract
What the executor must check
Return decision ID, outcome, request digest, reason code, validity and any required approval or narrower mode. The executor must enforce the selected outcome and reject unsupported values.
03 / Failure and evidence
What goes wrong, and what can be proven?
A caller treats ESCALATE as ALLOW because the response is not a hard DENY, or treats DEGRADE as permission to run the original write with a warning.
Retain request, decision version, reason, approval completion or reduced-mode choice, executor attempt and observed result. Approval must cause a fresh check.
04 / Canonical scope
Why this reference stands alone
Individual code meanings belong together because client and executor must implement them as one exhaustive state machine, not four near-duplicate pages.
Implementation review
Executor state machine
ALLOW → execute exactly evaluated request within validity. DENY → stop and preserve reason. ESCALATE → pause, obtain bounded approval, decide again. DEGRADE → substitute named lower-risk action; never run original write.
Adversarial check
Send an unknown outcome value and an ESCALATE without completed approval. Both must stop; an unrecognized response is not an implicit ALLOW.
Primary references