Policy Artifacts & Runtime Governance

• ■Transforms passive logging into active enforcement
• ■Creates cryptographic proof that rules were evaluated
• ■Enables offline verification of governance claims

What is a Policy Artifact?

A Policy Artifact is a signed, versioned, time-bounded governance object. It contains selection rules that determine which operations are subject to governance, enforcement mappings that define what actions to take, and cryptographic bindings that prevent tampering. Once sealed, modifying any field invalidates the signature.

{
  "policy_version": 3,
  "policy_id": "sha256:a1b2c3...",
  "issued_at": "2024-01-15T10:00:00Z",
  "not_before": "2024-01-15T10:00:00Z",
  "not_after": "2024-07-15T10:00:00Z",
  "selection_rules": [...],
  "enforcement_mapping": {
    "DRIFT_DETECTED": "BLOCK_EXECUTION",
    "SIGNATURE_INVALID": "TERMINATE"
  },
  "issuer_signature": "Ed25519:..."
}

What is a runtime governance boundary?

The runtime governance boundary is the component that intercepts operations, evaluates them against the policy artifact, and enforces the appropriate action. It sits between the request origin and the execution target. Every evaluation produces a signed receipt regardless of whether the action was allowed.

Boundary placement depends on your architecture. Options include API gateway, sidecar proxy, runtime wrapper, or agent framework integration. Each has different latency, isolation, and operational characteristics.

What is selective interception?

Selective interception means the governance boundary evaluates selection rules to determine which operations require enforcement. Not every operation needs governance overhead. The policy artifact defines match conditions; the boundary applies them deterministically.

What are enforcement receipts?

An enforcement receipt is a signed record of a governance decision. It contains the policy reference, the action taken (CONTINUE, BLOCK_EXECUTION, TERMINATE), a reason code, timestamps, and a signature. Receipts chain together via prev_hash to form a continuity chain.

• ■CONTINUE: Operation allowed to proceed; receipt documents the evaluation
• ■BLOCK_EXECUTION: Operation prevented from starting; workload never executes
• ■TERMINATE: Running operation stopped; receipt emitted before shutdown

Frequently asked questions

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