Governance Scope Model

This document defines the concept of governance scope used during governance evaluation flows in Janus systems.

A governance scope defines the bounded context within which evidence is evaluated and governance conclusions are produced.

Governance scopes ensure that evaluation remains deterministic, traceable, and reproducible.

Scope definition

A governance scope represents a defined subset of observable system state used during governance evaluation.

A scope typically includes:

• a defined time window
• a defined set of domain records
• relevant schema context
• a defined evaluation boundary

Temporal scope

Governance evaluations may operate over a defined time interval.

Example:

• start_time
• end_time

Temporal scope ensures that evaluations remain reproducible and that observations correspond to a clearly defined period.

Record scope

A governance scope may restrict the set of domain records considered during evaluation.

Example:

• records belonging to a specific project
• records associated with a particular workflow
• records matching a defined query boundary

This constraint ensures that evaluation operates over a well-defined subset of MANAGEMENT_LOG.

Schema scope

Governance evaluations may depend on schema definitions that interpret records.

A governance scope SHOULD reference the relevant schema context from SCHEMA_LOG.

This ensures that evaluations remain interpretable even as schemas evolve over time.

Deterministic search scope

When omission evidence (E−) is produced, the search scope used to verify the absence of an expected record MUST be deterministic.

The scope must define:

• where the system searched
• what records were considered
• the schema context used during interpretation

This requirement ensures that omission evidence remains verifiable.

Purpose

Governance scopes ensure that governance evaluation remains:

• deterministic
• reproducible
• auditable

without constraining implementation technologies.