Definition
Delegation of consequential work to a machine that stays tied to the evidence and beliefs that justified it, so the grant can be narrowed, suspended, or withdrawn when those change. A revisable delegation names its holder, its ceiling, what it depends on, and what would revoke it; an unrevisable one is a transfer with a delegation's name. The objects it is written in are the authority grant, the policy record it depends on, and the delegated agency the grant creates.
Revisability is the lasting property. Justified delegation is the same coupling read in the present tense: whether authority, evidence, and correction capacity are all in force right now. The two are one question at two timescales. A delegation that is justified today but not revisable cannot act on tomorrow's answer.
The question it serves is how an institution can become more capable without becoming less revisable. The record shape is defined in STD-07, and the terms the delegation must keep meeting while it stands are in STD-08. The test is whether the institution can answer, for any past action, what it believed at the time, what it had authorized, and what has since changed.
Tests that show it is in place
- Every authorization record lists its revocation conditions and the beliefs it depends on.
- A discrepancy that matches a revocation condition produces a revision within a declared clock.
- Someone outside the system has standing to object, and the objection is answered on the record.
Hypothetical example
- An agent's standing deploy permission is tied to a verified staging check; when the check breaks, the permission drops to confirm-mode automatically and the log shows which record forced it.
Evidence to keep
- Artifact: An authorization record carrying holder, ceiling, depends_on, and revocation conditions.
- Behavior: A delegation narrowed or withdrawn in response to a recorded discrepancy, with the chain visible.
- Metric: Time from a matching discrepancy to the revision that answers it, against the declared clock.
References
- STD-07 Revisable delegation record · Standard
- STD-08 Delegation · Standard
- Governance taxonomy · Resource