Policy record template
Version, assumptions, evidence, expiry, triggers, and dependent grants in one record.
Policy review triggers
Give every policy an expiry date and named triggers that send the authority grants that depend on it back to review when conditions change.
- 1 Evidence acts here
- 2 Authority
- 3 Decision
- 4 Consequence
- 5 Challenge
- 6 Reconsideration acts here
- 7 Correction
Where it acts
At Evidence and Reconsideration, two of the seven stages every consequential decision passes through. A policy is part of the evidence a grant rests on; when it expires or a trigger fires, every grant that cites it goes back for review.
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.
0 of 3 steps complete
Records this mechanism keeps
What a team running this mechanism keeps, and what each record is for.
Trigger catalog
The observations and thresholds that reopen a policy, with the owner of each.
Reconsideration log
What fired, which grants moved, who reviewed, and what was decided.
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-14 Policy review triggers) - Every policy record carries a version, stated assumptions, an expiry, and named review triggers. - A fired trigger or a passed expiry moves dependent authority grants to review_required. Reference: https://ethotechnics.org/mechanisms/patterns/policy-review-triggers
Product requirement
Product requirement (MEC-14) - Policy records expose the grants that depend on them and the triggers that reopen them. - Trigger events emit a reconsideration record with the observation that fired them.
Audit evidence checklist
Audit evidence checklist (MEC-14) [ ] Each policy states its assumptions, expiry, and review triggers. [ ] Grant-to-policy links are recorded and current. [ ] Fired triggers show the resulting grant state changes and reviewer decisions.
Postmortem trigger
Postmortem trigger (MEC-14) Trigger review when a material change in the evidence left the policy and its dependent grants untouched.
Example usage
Reopening an eligibility rule after a population shift
One scenario with each part of the mechanism in place.
How it plays out
A benefits team gives its eligibility policy a 12-month expiry and a trigger on a five-point shift in applicant mix; when the shift lands, the two grants that cite the policy move to review_required and the reviewer renews one and narrows the other.
Anti-patterns
Common failure cases and counterfactuals
Each case passes on paper and fails in operation. The counterfactual shows what would have worked.
Policy as ground truth
The policy is treated as a fixed input consumed at deployment, so changed facts never reach the authority that rests on it.
Counterfactual: Policy is a versioned state with assumptions, expiry, and triggers that can move grants.
Exception: A policy can be long-lived; what it may not be is unreviewable.
Triggers with no destination
Alerts fire on the metric but nothing in the authority state changes.
Counterfactual: A fired trigger moves the dependent grants and produces a reconsideration record.
Exception: A reviewer may leave the grant in place; the record of that decision is the point.
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). Policy review triggers (MEC-14). Ethotechnics Institute. https://ethotechnics.org/mechanisms/patterns/policy-review-triggers
MLA
Ethotechnics Institute. "Policy review triggers (MEC-14)." Ethotechnics Institute, 2026, https://ethotechnics.org/mechanisms/patterns/policy-review-triggers.
Chicago
Ethotechnics Institute. "Policy review triggers (MEC-14)." Ethotechnics Institute. Oct 6, 2026. https://ethotechnics.org/mechanisms/patterns/policy-review-triggers.
BibTeX
@misc{mechanism_policy-review-triggers,
title={Policy review triggers (MEC-14)},
author={Ethotechnics Institute},
year={2026},
howpublished={Ethotechnics Institute},
url={https://ethotechnics.org/mechanisms/patterns/policy-review-triggers},
version={v1.2.1}
}
RIS
TY - WEB TI - Policy review triggers (MEC-14) AU - Ethotechnics Institute PY - 2026 UR - https://ethotechnics.org/mechanisms/patterns/policy-review-triggers ER -