Guardian defines the constitutional governance layer that preserves sovereign integrity when independently governed AI systems coordinate.
Core structural gap Guardian addresses:
Independently governed systems can each satisfy their own admissibility and authority requirements — yet still produce decisions that remain formally non-equivalent or unreconcilable across governance boundaries.
Guardian formalizes the conditions under which this gap can be resolved without collapsing sovereign governance structures into one another.
Cross-governance comparability without cross-governance authority inheritance.
Equivalence determinations under Guardian carry explicit constitutional prohibitions:
- Equivalence does not transfer admissibility
- Equivalence does not transfer authority
- Equivalence does not create inheritance obligations
- Acceptance remains sovereign
- Equivalence cannot launder legitimacy
See: specs/guardian-v0.2-decision-equivalence.md — Section 10
Defines decision identity and the invariant boundary that determines canonical equivalence across independently governed systems.
→ specs/guardian-v0.2-decision-equivalence.md
Defines the minimal deterministic conditions under which a decision is accepted within or across governance domains.
Equivalence does not imply acceptance.
→ specs/guardian-v0.3-mini-acceptance.md
Defines cross-system acceptance, authority translation, and governance-valid interoperability. Formalizes sovereign discontinuity rights and constitutional anti-normalization boundaries.
Persistent interoperability does not constitute implicit acceptance.
→ specs/guardian-v0.3-acceptance.md
Intent → Policy → Decision → Evidence
| Layer | Responsibility |
|---|---|
| Decision Identity | What makes a decision canonically itself |
| Decision Equivalence | When two decisions are formally the same |
| Acceptance | Under what authority context a decision is valid |
| Constitutional Prohibitions | What equivalence is permanently prohibited from becoming |
Current AI governance frameworks address:
- Identity (who is authorized)
- Execution receipts (what happened)
- Compliance (did the system follow its rules)
What remains undefined:
When independently governed systems each produce a valid decision, what determines whether those decisions are equivalent — and which should be accepted when governance boundaries interact?
Without decision equivalence, cross-system governance remains in its adjectival phase: “interoperable,” “coordinated,” “aligned” — without the structural basis to verify what those adjectives mean when sovereign boundaries interact.
Guardian’s constitutional architecture has been operationalized in a live governance environment since 2026-02-11.
| Layer | Guardian Mapping |
|---|---|
| Decision Layer | V0.2 Decision Equivalence |
| Acceptance Layer | V0.3 Acceptance |
| Execution Layer | Runtime governance bridge |
| Lifecycle Layer | V0.4+ Behavioral Governance |
Evidence anchoring: RFC3161 (DigiCert)
Audit chain: Append-only, hash-verified
See: guardian_layers/
guardian/
├── specs/ # Formal specifications
│ ├── guardian-v0.2-decision-equivalence.md
│ ├── guardian-v0.3-mini-acceptance.md
│ ├── guardian-v0.3-acceptance.md
│ └── guardian-v0.4-candidate.md
├── drafts/ # In-development specifications
├── guardian_layers/ # Empirical implementation mapping
├── docs/ # Architecture and conceptual documents
├── guardian/ # Reference implementation
├── schemas/ # JSON schemas
├── examples/ # Example scripts
└── tests/ # Validation and test suites→ Decifact — Decision verification for governed AI systems
→ xsa520/decifact — Source code
See LICENSE.