Consequence Governance: Governing the Transition from Proposed Action to Real-World Effect
A public, citable paper defining Consequence Governance around a single operational question: may this exact proposed consequence legitimately become real now?
Open published record →Canonical category definitionGovern the consequence, not the worker.
The paper separates the proposer from the governed object. Models, agents, people, workflows, APIs and devices may propose actions; the governing question remains whether the exact proposed consequence is legitimate under current authority, evidence and conditions.
- Consequence Governance — the top-level governance category.
- Governed Effect Path — the architecture through which consequence-bearing effects must pass.
- Consequence-time authorization — fresh exact-action authorization immediately before effect.
- NO_DIRECT_EFFECT_PATH — the invariant prohibiting bypass of the governed effect path.
From proposal to evidenced consequence.
The public architecture separates evaluation, authorization, deterministic decision binding, mechanical enforcement and evidence. REHT provides consequence-time authorization semantics; RACS binds deterministic governance decisions; the Gateway/PEP controls the effect boundary; receipts preserve evidence of what was evaluated, decided and executed.
The paper deliberately describes architecture, boundaries and falsifiable properties without publishing proprietary production algorithms, internal policy resolution logic or deployment-specific implementation details.