Governance

Governance SPEC-07

Draft v1.0 docs/Specification/07 Governance.md

Purpose

This chapter defines how the OCOM Specification itself evolves over time — not how Objects within an OCOM model are governed (that is Policy, Ownership, and Constraint, defined in Chapter 4).

Note on terminology. Chapter 4 uses "Governance" for a different, unrelated sense: the oversight and accountability applied to an individual Object. The two are not connected.

Objectives

Governance ensures that the specification remains consistent, stable, extensible, and implementation-independent.

Change Principles

Changes to the specification shall:

• preserve conceptual consistency;
• avoid unnecessary complexity;
• maintain backward compatibility whenever practical.

Proposal Process

Proposed changes should include motivation, rationale, expected impact, and a compatibility assessment.

Approval

Normative changes require review before becoming part of the specification. Architectural decisions are recorded and their context, alternatives, and consequences preserved — not left to reside only in discussion.

Operational Governance

The principles above are carried out through a dedicated Governance process, maintained independently of the normative Core:

• a documentation debt register separates real problems from consciously deferred decisions;
• architectural observations are recorded, not resolved, by whoever notices them — resolution is a separate, accountable step;
• proposed decisions are queued and explicitly decided, not made informally;
• a knowledge map keeps the relationships between sections traceable;
• documentation standards, release readiness, and architecture health are tracked continuously rather than assessed only at release time.

Governance Principles

Ten principles govern how the specification is maintained: Specification First; Architecture Before Implementation; Documentation Before Development; Traceability by Design; Decision Transparency; Continuous Quality; No Hidden Knowledge; Minimal Technical Debt; Version Integrity; Governance is Part of the Architecture.

Constitution and Architecture Freeze

Core/Constitution.md (Core-00), adopted through CAND-006 on 26 July 2026, recorded in Core/Constitution.md on 27 July 2026 and at version 1.0.1 since 11 September 2026, is the highest-authority document of the specification; it changes only by amendment recorded through the process above. Under the Architecture Freeze recorded as CAND-007 on the same day, no new Core concept, Canonical Principle or Domains subdomain enters the specification except through the pipeline of Governance/Standard Evolution Methodology.md: Reference Case, Observation, Repeated Pattern, ADR Candidate, Decision. Decisions on the candidates and observations already open on 27 July 2026, within their recorded scope, transcription of recorded decisions, and the work of Governance/Master-Architecture-Backlog.md remain permitted, as CAND-007 Section 3 lists.

Conformance

A change to this specification conforms to this chapter only if it has been proposed, reviewed, and approved through the process defined above, and its record is preserved.

Revision History

Source: compiled from Core/Governance.md (specification-evolution charter) and docs/Governance/Governance-Manifest.md (operational realization of that charter, established alongside this revision). (Committee Review, 22 July 2026: added a terminology note disambiguating "Governance" from Chapter 4's unrelated use of the same word; citing docs/Governance/ alongside Core/Governance.md was reviewed and confirmed acceptable, since docs/Governance/ is itself an approved Baseline.) (16 September 2026: added Constitution and Architecture Freeze, compiled from Core/Constitution.md, CAND-006 and CAND-007, per Master-Architecture-Backlog.md EPIC-F; no requirement changed) (16 September 2026, later the same day: adoption date stated as 26 July 2026 per CAND-006, recording date 27 July 2026) (17 September 2026: recompiled as v1.0 against the canonical documents as of this date; see Revision History)