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Decision Record

Purpose​

This page defines the wiki decision record used to accept, reject, defer, escalate, refuse, supersede, or map proposed wiki changes.

Decision records make the wiki review process reconstructable instead of relying on undocumented editorial judgment.

Page Status​

active

Page Posture​

governance policy

Maturity Posture​

conceptual

Authority Boundary​

This page defines decision-record vocabulary for wiki governance. It does not authorize execution, prove runtime admissibility, or replace formalism-tests.

Decision-record outcomes are public wiki-governance outcomes. They are not the canonical runtime execution decision enum.

Canonical Enum Boundary​

Canonical registry:

docs/governance/canonical-decision-enum-registry.md
static/ontology/canonical-decision-enum-registry.v0.1.json

The public wiki currently exposes three related but different decision surfaces:

Runtime transition decision surface:
  ALLOW
  DENY
  DEFER

Wiki governance decision surface:
  ALLOW
  ALLOW_AS_OVERLAP
  DENY
  DEFER
  ESCALATE
  REFUSE
  SUPERSEDE

Failure/posture terms used by interop or downstream documentation:
  FAIL-CLOSED
  FAIL_CLOSED
  CONDITIONAL

Pages must identify which surface they are using and must not present local wiki, interop, or downstream status values as canonical runtime transition values.

Definition​

A decision record is a structured record explaining how a proposal was resolved, what authority class reviewed it, what evidence posture was available, and whether the page change had standing at the binding wiki commit moment.

Decision Outcomes​

ALLOW
ALLOW_AS_OVERLAP
DENY
DEFER
ESCALATE
REFUSE
SUPERSEDE

Outcome Classification​

ALLOW: wiki change accepted for the stated scope.
ALLOW_AS_OVERLAP: wiki change accepted as an overlap/mapping, not as full equivalence.
DENY: wiki change rejected for the stated scope.
DEFER: wiki change postponed pending required evidence, authority, or review.
ESCALATE: wiki change moved to a higher authority class or review path.
REFUSE: wiki change refused because the request itself is out of bounds.
SUPERSEDE: wiki change replaced by a newer or more authoritative record.

Required Decision Fields​

{
  "decision_id": "decision.example.001",
  "proposal_id": "proposal.example.001",
  "target_page": "docs/glossary/example.md",
  "decision_result": "ALLOW",
  "authority_class": "wiki_maintainer",
  "policy_ref": "policy.wiki.page-review.v1",
  "evidence_posture": "sufficient",
  "review_posture": "maintainer_reviewed",
  "commit_time_validity": true,
  "enum_surface": "wiki_governance_decision",
  "relationship_disposition": [
    {
      "external_term": "Example external term",
      "relationship": "equivalent",
      "disposition": "accepted | rejected | deferred",
      "notes": "Reason for disposition."
    }
  ],
  "issued_at": "2026-06-19T00:00:00Z"
}

Relationship Disposition​

When a proposal claims that an external term is equivalent, overlapping, adjacent, broader, narrower, or contradictory, the decision record should explicitly dispose of that claim.

Accepted equivalence claims should be placed directly under the StegVerse term on the target page.

Rejected or deferred equivalence claims should remain reconstructable through the proposal and decision records.

Replay Requirement​

A mature decision should link to a replay note or artifact explaining how a reviewer can reconstruct the decision path from the proposal, policy reference, evidence posture, and target page state.

If executable replay does not yet exist, the replay link may be marked not_applicable, but the reason should be stated.

Reconstruction Requirement​

A mature decision should identify the evidence folder or record needed to reconstruct why the decision appeared to have standing.

Evidence may include:

  • proposal text;
  • claimed equivalent or overlapping terms;
  • external references;
  • review notes;
  • ontology diffs;
  • page diffs;
  • policy references.
governance:
  proposal_link: "not_applicable"
  decision_link: "not_applicable"
  replay_link: "not_applicable"
  reconstruction_link: "not_applicable"

Limits​

A decision record explains wiki standing. It does not prove that the underlying governance concept is correct in every external domain.