The decision model

A Decision is a function, not a guess.

A governed request is normalized, bound to one immutable Snapshot, evaluated through capability, topology, and policy gates — and, when the Snapshot declares a constraint, through the mathematical evaluator — and resolved to a single categorical Decision.

Governance Request

agent action, normalized

Immutable Snapshot + Session

policy IR · capability catalog · topology (TBoM) · constraints

Gates: capability · topology · policy

deterministic pre-execution evaluation

only if the Snapshot declares a constraint

Math Gateway → Enterprise Math Provider

structural_legality · evaluates, never authorizes

Decision — ALLOW · DENY · DEFER · ERROR

categorical, reproducible, fail-closed

Decision Receipt + Governance Transaction

signed evidence for every created transaction

ALLOW only

Authorization Lease

single-use · claim → complete / abort / expire

Governance Engine milestones 0–6 implemented and committed. build-v2 native governance suite passing (454/454 CTest at last full run; 458/458 enterprise regression re-run during deployment qualification, July 2026).

Separation of authority

Governance decides. Mathematics evaluates.

The two are deliberately separated. The Governance Engine is the sole authorization authority. The mathematical core is a required evaluator reached only through the Math Gateway — it returns a structural verdict and never issues an authorization.

Authorizes

Governance Engine

Normalizes requests, pins an immutable Snapshot, runs capability / topology / policy gates, resolves the Decision, signs the Decision Receipt, writes the durable transaction journal, and issues an Authorization Lease only for a valid ALLOW. If a required evaluator is missing or unready, it fails closed.

Evaluates

Enterprise Math Provider

A production Level-2 sparse-graph evaluator (enterprise.math.level2.sparse-graph) bound to the C++20 verification core. When a Snapshot declares a structural_legality constraint, it computes a deterministic structural verdict and returns it to Governance. It authorizes nothing.

Mathematical authorization

When policy needs mathematics, mathematics is on the decision path.

A Snapshot constraint is the only thing that triggers mathematical evaluation. When one is present, the Governance Engine constructs a bounded constraint request, invokes the Enterprise Math Provider, validates the returned fingerprints and metadata, and maps the structural result into the Decision. This is a real Continuous-Time Markov Chain (CTMC) core, not a heuristic.

Level 1

Iterative validation

Canonical hashing and evidence / refusal receipts that establish that a governed execution occurred.

Level 2 · on the decision path

Sparse structural validation

Deterministic graph-legality checks on the declared topology, with no heavy numerical dependencies. This is the evaluator connected to governed decisions today.

Level 3

CTMC consequence modeling

Deeper stochastic-process analysis over the model. The architecture is published; the solver internals are protected IP.

The verification core is exposed through a stable C ABI isolation boundary; the solver implementation is confidential. 573/573 native math-core tests passed (July 2026).

Canonical authority

Governance that cannot fall back to a weaker path.

A deployment can be built in a canonical Governance-only configuration. In that build the earlier lightweight marker evaluator is removed at compile time, and any configuration whose Governance authority is not enabled is rejected. There is no alternate authorization path to fall back to — the deployed system decides through native Governance or it does not run. This is the configuration used by the deterministic deployment lifecycle.

Evidence, by construction

Every decision leaves a record.

Governance produces durable, structured artifacts — not transient log lines. Each can be inspected, cryptographically verified, and referenced by fingerprint.

Decision Receipt

A signed record of the Decision, bound to the request, transaction, Snapshot, and — when present — the mathematical verdict. Produced for every created transaction.

Authorization Lease

Issued only for ALLOW. Single-use, correlated to the exact tool call, and consumed through a claim → complete / abort / expire lifecycle. An expired or already-claimed lease cannot re-authorize.

Refusal, as an artifact

A DENY is a first-class, classified governance object carrying a refusal code and layer — a policy refusal is categorically distinct from a topology or attestation refusal.

Fail-closed by default

Translation, transport, timeout, invalid-result, or missing-evaluator conditions resolve to DENY. The safe state is the default state.

See real evidence artifacts How governance is deployed Discuss a governed pilot