Definition
A decision that changes someone's access, money, obligations, safety, or status, and that the institution would have to answer for. The consequential decision is the unit of governance in Ethotechnics: each one is a link in the chain from evidence to authority to consequence to correction.
Naming the unit matters because it fixes where the governance load sits. Systems governed at the level of the model leave the decisions themselves unaccounted for, which is where unowned harm collects and where prospective auditability has to be designed in.
AgencyStructural
Tests that show it is in place
- The system declares which of its outputs are consequential decisions and which are not.
- Each consequential decision emits a record naming the evidence, the grant, and the responsible holder.
- The person it is about can obtain that record without filing a formal request.
Evidence to keep
- Artifact: A decision record schema listing evidence refs, grant id, holder, and consequence class.
- Behavior: A decision reconstructed months later from its record alone, without asking the team.
- Metric: Share of consequential decisions that emit a complete record, sampled monthly.
References
- The method · Doctrine