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19. Governance and Compliance

This section defines how architectural integrity, risk management, and regulatory obligations are maintained without introducing excessive process overhead.

19.1 Architectural Compliance​

Architectural compliance is enforced through design-time and runtime controls, not manual review alone.

Compliance mechanisms include:

  • Capability contract validation
  • Policy enforcement at the gateway
  • Automated checks in delivery pipelines

Principles:

  • Compliance is continuous, not episodic
  • Non-compliance is visible and actionable
  • Exceptions are explicit and time-bound

This ensures adherence without slowing delivery.

19.2 Capability Review Process​

Capabilities undergo a lightweight review process.

Review focuses on:

  • Clarity and stability of the capability outcome
  • Contract completeness and correctness
  • Security, data sensitivity, and AI usage boundaries
  • Risk assessment results and mitigation plans

The review process:

  • Is proportional to risk and impact
  • Occurs early and iteratively
  • Includes an explicit deprecation and versioning plan for breaking changes
  • Establishes review cadence (e.g. quarterly for AI-involved capabilities)

This balances control with momentum.

19.3 Audit Readiness​

Audit readiness is built in.

Audit artefacts include:

  • Capability definitions and versions
  • Invocation logs and provenance
  • Policy configurations and changes
  • Sample audit report snippets (invocation sequence, confidence distribution, reviewer actions)
  • Example audit queries and retention policies (what to keep and for how long)

Audit readiness:

  • Does not require special preparation
  • Supports internal and external audits
  • Preserves traceability over time

This reduces operational disruption during audits.

19.4 Regulatory Alignment​

The architecture supports alignment with regulatory obligations.

Alignment includes:

  • Data handling and classification controls
  • Explicit AI governance mechanisms
  • Traceable decision and execution paths

Regulatory requirements:

  • Are mapped to policies and controls
  • Are enforced consistently
  • Do not require bespoke implementations per capability

This enables compliance across jurisdictions and domains.