Definition
The authorization decision that precedes any grant: whether the system should act at all. An admission gate records the evidence reviewed, the scope considered, and the outcome — including deliberate non-use, which is a decision with reasons and a date, not an absence. A system refused admission has not failed; the refusal is the gate working.
It matters because capability without authority is Law I's object, but the law has a step before the grant that is easy to skip: the evaluation of whether the delegation should exist. Skipping the gate converts a governance question into a momentum question, where the system runs because someone built it and stopping now is more expensive than starting was.
Tests that show it is in place
- A consequential deployment has a recorded admission decision with evidence and a named decider.
- Deliberate non-use is a recorded outcome with reasons, revisitable on a clock.
- "Not yet" and "never" are distinguishable in the record, with different review conditions.
Evidence to keep
- Artifact: An admission decision record: evidence reviewed, scope considered, outcome, and reasons.
- Behavior: A deployment refused admission with the refusal basis recorded and a review condition named.
- Metric: Share of consequential deployments with a recorded admission decision.
References
- What does not convert · Theory
- Laws · Doctrine