A Governed Contract defines what legitimate completion means independently of whichever human, model, agent or system performs the work.
The contract binds purpose, mandate, scope, constraints, required evidence, conformance criteria and completion criteria. Workers and models may change without changing the meaning of correct completion.
A proposed action may fully conform to its Governed Contract and still be denied or escalated if current authority, state or evidence does not permit the consequence now.
This separation prevents a correct workflow from becoming an unauthorized effect path.