Definition
The record that permits a named holder to take a bounded class of actions, for whom, under what conditions, and until when. A grant carries its scope, its evidence basis, its grant state, its expiry, and the policy records it depends on.
It matters because authority that is not written as a record cannot be reviewed, narrowed, or withdrawn. A grant that carries its dependencies and its revocation conditions is what makes the delegation a revisable delegation rather than a transfer. The grant is what makes authority drift detectable rather than merely regrettable after the fact.
AgencyStructural
Tests that show it is in place
- Every action class a system may perform maps to exactly one grant with a named holder.
- Each grant states an expiry and the conditions under which it is revoked.
- A grant with no revocation conditions is flagged as a transfer rather than a delegation.
Evidence to keep
- Artifact: An authority grant register with holder, scope, state, evidence basis, and expiry.
- Behavior: An attempted action outside grant scope refused and logged with the grant id.
- Metric: Count of live grants and share carrying a non-null expiry.
References
- STD-07 Revisable delegation record · Standard
- Authority taxonomy branch · Taxonomy