Process Axis (AX-PROCESS) — Full Operating Manual

2026-06-04 · companion to the governed-officialization closeout. Live-evidence grounded.

1. What the Process Axis is

AX-PROCESS is a governance axis that lets the organisation see, classify, own, and canonise processes (workflows / activation chains) the same way AX-TOPIC governs topics. Today it exists as a CANDIDATE axis in axis_registry (status not yet ACTIVE, approval_ref NULL). It is not yet official: official AX-PROCESS RP = 0/453.

2. The layered model

1. Universe — every process-definition source (453 known: 373 DB + 80 host-unmanaged).
2. Candidate layer — wf_process_candidate (19 candidates) + wf_process_candidate_member (143 members). This is where un-owned processes live before officialization.
3. AI review — process_axis_ai_review (36 rows); each subject is reviewed before any approval. Candidates carry ai_review_state (14 AI_REVIEWED_PASS / 5 NEEDS_MORE_EVIDENCE).
4. Owner gate — a process cannot become official without a recorded owner (governance_object_ownership, currently 0) and the president/council authority.
5. Canon — registration into axis_assignment with a real approval_ref.

3. Actions, not checkboxes

The action vocabulary (process_axis_action_vocabulary, 12 actions) is deliberate:

• Safe / AI-delegatable (8): REVIEW_BY_AI, CONFIRM_AS_PROCESS, REJECT_AS_NOT_PROCESS, REQUEST_MORE_EVIDENCE, REQUEST_SPLIT, SEND_TO_GOVERNANCE, REGISTER_SOURCE_ADAPTER, REQUEST_MERGE.
• President-gated (4): APPROVE_BIRTH_ADMISSION, APPROVE_OWNER_ASSIGNMENT, EXECUTE_GUARDED_ACTION, DELEGATE_BATCH_TO_AI — all requires_president=true, mutates_canon where applicable. There are no checkboxes (is_checkbox=false everywhere). Every mutation is an explicit, logged, fail-closed action.

4. Fail-closed by construction

fn_process_axis_execute_guarded_action enforces three gates:

• Gate A: a president-required action can never be executed by a non-human actor.
• Gate B: the underlying APR handler must not be unimplemented.
• Gate C: a real human-president approve vote must exist in apr_approvals. Even when all gates pass it writes no canon itself — it defers to a domain handler.

The 2026-06-04 macro added the missing post-vote domain handlers (fn_pa_handler_assign_axis_owner, _register_axis, _register_process, _assign_governance_owner, _activate_event_type) plus the readiness view v_process_axis_post_vote_handler_readiness. They are inert until a real president vote exists (all 5 currently BLOCKED_NO_PRESIDENT_VOTE) and never auto-write canon.

5. How to officialize a process (sequence)

PROC-OWN-01 (assign axis owner) → PROC-OWN-02 (canon AX-PROCESS active) → PROC-OWN-03 (register first process: job:cut) → PROC-OWN-04 (dot:kg family owner, post REAL_RUN) → PROC-OWN-05 (activate 7 process.* event types). Each step requires a human-president approve vote on the corresponding approval_requests row. No vote ⇒ no officialization.

6. What is safe vs what needs authority

• Safe (done by AI/engineering): census, candidate creation, AI review, fail-closed handlers, previews, read-only views, residual hardening, content.
• Authority-only (never faked): president vote, owner assignment, canon, birth, event activation, REAL_RUN. These are blocked today and correctly so.

7. Where to look (live)

v_process_axis_owner_decision_flow (12), v_rp_process_canon_gate_summary (verdict CANON_BLOCKED_OWNER_ONLY), v_wf_candidate_action_handler_status (11), v_process_axis_post_vote_handler_readiness (5 PROC-OWN gate rows), v_ax_process_rp_visibility_after_candidate_stage (coverage).