Mechanism MEC-21

Halt tier register

Tier halt authority by blast radius so the power to stop scales with the size of what is being stopped, and the smallest tiers stay cheap enough to use.

Safeguards and terms

  1. 1 Evidence
  2. 2 Authority
  3. 3 Decision
  4. 4 Consequence
  5. 5 Challenge
  6. 6 Reconsideration
  7. 7 Correction acts here

Where it acts

At Correction, one of the seven stages every consequential decision passes through. It sizes the power to halt by what a halt would stop, so the smallest pauses and halts stay cheap enough to use.

Serves

Terms used

Steps

Put the mechanism in motion

3 steps, in order. Check each one off as it is done; the records below show the work was done.

Records this mechanism keeps

What a team running this mechanism keeps, and what each record is for.

Halt tier register

Tiers, authorized roles, blast radius, recovery paths, and notification duties per tier.

Tier drill log

Evidence that low tiers fire and recover without escalation, dated and signed.

Escalation map

What happens when a tier is insufficient, and who holds the next tier up.

Reuse-ready snippets

Copy policy, audit, and incident language

Use these snippets in requirements, audits, and postmortems with the mechanism permalink.

Policy requirement

Policy requirement (MEC-21 Halt tier register)
- Halt authority is tiered by blast radius, with authorized roles, recovery paths, and notification duties recorded per tier.
- The lowest tier is reachable by exposed parties and frontline operators without escalation.
Reference: https://ethotechnics.org/mechanisms/patterns/halt-tier-register

Product requirement

Product requirement (MEC-21)
- Each tier exposes only the controls that tier's blast radius justifies.
- Halt events record the tier that fired, the recovery path taken, and everyone notified.

Audit evidence checklist

Audit evidence checklist (MEC-21)
[ ] The tier register exists and names roles, blast radius, recovery, and notification per tier.
[ ] Drills demonstrate pauses and halts at the lowest tiers, not only the system-wide halt.
[ ] Recovery capacity is evidenced at each tier, not only at the top.

Postmortem trigger

Postmortem trigger (MEC-21)
Trigger review when a halt had to escalate two or more tiers to take effect, or when a tier's recovery path was exercised without provision behind it.

Example usage

One caseworker, one paused claim

One scenario with each part of the mechanism in place.

How it plays out

A caseworker pauses a single claim the system is about to mispay, using a tier-1 control that needs no approval. The queue keeps moving; the claim routes to a human; the register records the pause and the recovery, and nobody outside the office is paged.

Anti-patterns

Common failure cases and counterfactuals

Each case passes on paper and fails in operation. The counterfactual shows what would have worked.

One halt authority for every tier

Every halt requires the same senior authority, so low-tier problems either wait or fire the system-wide halt.

Counterfactual: Tiers match blast radius: small halts are cheap and local; big halts are deliberate.

Exception: A small authorized tier is not a governance gap; the gap is a big tier with no rehearsed recovery.

Tier theater

Tiers exist on paper, but the low tiers route through the same approver as the top, so blast radius never changes who decides.

Counterfactual: Authorized roles differ per tier, and drill logs show low-tier halts completing without escalation.

Exception: Shared approval across tiers is legitimate when coverage is explicit, not when it is an accident of hierarchy.

Diagnostics for this mechanism

Tools that size the risk this mechanism addresses.

Diagnostic

Delegation audit

Walks a team through one workflow against six questions and returns an exposure score, the permissions nobody can justify, and whether its decisions can be undone. Start here when the system keeps no decision records yet; use the record conformance checker once it does.

Cite this page · v1.2.1 · updated Oct 6, 2026 · CC BY-SA 4.0

APA

Ethotechnics Institute. (2026). Halt tier register (MEC-21). Ethotechnics Institute. https://ethotechnics.org/mechanisms/patterns/halt-tier-register

MLA

Ethotechnics Institute. "Halt tier register (MEC-21)." Ethotechnics Institute, 2026, https://ethotechnics.org/mechanisms/patterns/halt-tier-register.

Chicago

Ethotechnics Institute. "Halt tier register (MEC-21)." Ethotechnics Institute. Oct 6, 2026. https://ethotechnics.org/mechanisms/patterns/halt-tier-register.

BibTeX

@misc{mechanism_halt-tier-register,
  title={Halt tier register (MEC-21)},
  author={Ethotechnics Institute},
  year={2026},
  howpublished={Ethotechnics Institute},
  url={https://ethotechnics.org/mechanisms/patterns/halt-tier-register},
  version={v1.2.1}
}

RIS

TY  - WEB
TI  - Halt tier register (MEC-21)
AU  - Ethotechnics Institute
PY  - 2026
UR  - https://ethotechnics.org/mechanisms/patterns/halt-tier-register
ER  -

Authorship

Contact: hello@ethotechnics.org

Publication details

  • Published: Dec 3, 2025
  • Last updated: Oct 6, 2026
  • Version: v1.2.1

License: CC BY-SA 4.0

Credit Ethotechnics Institute, include the page title and version, and link to the canonical permalink.

Archive: Wayback Machine history

Latest change

v1.2.1 · Oct 6, 2026 — Rewrote the copy of MEC-01 to MEC-12 in plain sentences. A halt is described as containment while the rule is fixed and people are restored, upheld appeals are counted against the rule in MEC-06 and MEC-08, and MEC-04 is renamed Hard clock.

Earlier versions (3)
  • v1.2.0 · Oct 1, 2026 — Filed every mechanism under the six safeguards, led the starters and role paths with challenges that reach the rule, and added that obligation to MEC-06.
  • v1.1.0 · Jan 9, 2026 — Added citation metadata, mechanisms-level authorship details, and structured usage guidance.
  • v1.0.0 · Dec 3, 2025 — Initial public mechanisms release.