Society · Governance
DocumentedOverride
Supervised bypass of a failed acceptance gate, cryptographically logged
Definition
Mechanism
The override-with-documentation safety valve at hard seams. Accepts a failed AcceptSpec evaluation plus a textual rationale and scoped override authority; composes_with TimeWarpLog to cryptographically log the override event (forward action + override + rationale + signing identity). Yields a forced Decision that bypasses the failed gate. The override is a first-class, audit-trailed coordination act — every bypass carries non-repudiable evidence of who overrode what and why. Preserves fail-closed discipline by making the bypass explicit, named, signed, and logged rather than silent.
Invariants
- Every override event must be signed by an identity holding scoped override authority.
- Forward action, override, rationale, and signing identity are all logged to TimeWarpLog — no partial records.
- Rationale field must be non-empty: a DocumentedOverride with no documentation is not a DocumentedOverride.
Risks
Failure modes
Override authority is over-scoped — any agent can bypass any gate, defeating the fail-closed discipline.
Compromised signing key enables silent override with valid-looking log entries.
Rationale accepts low-information text ('legitimate business reason') that defeats the audit purpose while technically satisfying non-empty.
Caution
Overrides a failed acceptance gate. The cryptographic log is the only post-hoc accountability; ensure override authority is scoped and auditable before composing.
Relationships
Builds on
Accepts
Infrastructure
Non-compensatory acceptance contract; consumer Verify yields Solution or FrameError
Composes with
Infrastructure
Handling relativistic event ordering
Yields
Infrastructure
Irrevocable selection from a set of options
Nothing in this library builds on this pattern yet.