What is a Policy Artifact?
A Policy Artifact is a sealed cryptographic object that encodes governance parameters for autonomous systems. Once sealed, it cannot be modified without invalidating its signature.
Key Components
- ■Subject Identifier: Cryptographic binding to the evaluated entity
- ■Policy Reference: Content-addressable hash of the governing policy
- ■Sealed Hash: Reference hash for runtime comparison
- ■Enforcement Parameters: Measurement cadence, TTL, triggers
- ■Signature: Ed25519 signature binding all fields
Why It Matters
Policy Artifacts transform passive audit records into active governance workflows. The artifact dictates rules; the runtime enforces rules; the system writes back proof of enforcement.
Unlike traditional configuration files, a Policy Artifact provides cryptographic guarantees that the governance rules in effect at runtime match exactly what was intended at build time.
Technical Details
{
"policy_v": "1.2.1",
"policy_id": "sha256:a1b2c3...",
"subject_id": "sha256:d4e5f6...",
"selection_rules": [...],
"enforcement_mapping": {
"DRIFT_DETECTED": "QUARANTINE",
"SIGNATURE_INVALID": "TERMINATE"
},
"signature": "Ed25519:..."
}