wifi-densepose/docs/adr/coherence-engine/ADR-CE-005-governance-objects.md

ADR-CE-005: First-Class Governance Objects

Status: Accepted Date: 2026-01-22 Parent: ADR-014 Coherence Engine Architecture

Context

Governance decisions (thresholds, policies, approvals) must be:

• Versioned and traceable
• Signed by authorized parties
• Immutable once approved
• Addressable for reference in witnesses

Decision

Governance objects are first-class, immutable, addressable.

Three governance object types:

1. PolicyBundle: Versioned threshold configurations

   • Signed by required approvers
   • Content-addressed (ID = hash of contents)
   • Immutable once created

2. WitnessRecord: Proof of gate decisions

   • Links to PolicyBundle used
   • Chains to previous witness (hash chain)
   • Content-addressed

3. LineageRecord: Provenance of writes

   • Links to authorizing witness
   • Tracks causal dependencies
   • Enables "why did this change?" queries

Consequences

Benefits

• Complete audit trail for compliance
• Multi-party approval for sensitive changes
• Content addressing prevents substitution attacks

Risks

• Cannot modify bad policies (must create new version)
• Storage overhead for immutable objects

References

• ADR-014: Coherence Engine Architecture, Section 4