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Proposal-Only Steering Projection

Intent

Enforce proposal-only artifact emission during automated continuous architecture and steering projection generation, isolating changes from operational branches until validated and approved.

Context

Automated continuous architecture workflows, evaluation steps, and steering projection generators execute in CI/CD pipelines across repositories. Direct in-place modification of operational steering configurations risks trunk instability, unintended side effects, and merge collisions without review.

Agentic Profile

Autonomous agents and continuous architecture pipeline runners operate with non-destructive permissions, emitting structured candidate diffs and proposals into dedicated staging locations rather than directly mutating production baselines.

Forces

Balances continuous automation throughput with branch safety and mandatory human oversight.

Drivers

  • Trunk stability and operational branch protection in automated environments
  • Continuous delivery of architecture steering updates without manual drafting overhead
  • Auditability of machine-generated architectural changes prior to merge

Constraints

  • Automated projection pipelines must execute in read-only or proposal-only modes
  • No direct write access to operational branches from automated CI runners

Tradeoffs

  • Introduces an asynchronous review step before steering changes take effect
  • Requires downstream synchronization tooling or PR workflows to apply proposals

Solution

Decouple automated architecture evaluation and steering projection generation from target file mutations by writing candidate changes strictly as proposal artifacts in designated directories, requiring explicit human or PR approval before applying modifications to operational branches.

Operationalisation

Pipeline steps and runner orchestrations write outputs to designated proposal directories and trigger pull-request or review flows.

Workflow Implications

  • FlowRunner and steering steps write to designated proposal directories instead of executing direct in-place modifications to repository baselines
  • Downstream sync workflows inspect proposal diffs and open review pull requests to synchronize managed sections into target repositories

Automation Opportunities

  • Automated PR generation on detected projection diffs
  • Automated contract validation and CI health checks on proposal artifacts prior to supervisor review

Implementation Signals

Verified in production pipeline step src/cas_runner/steps/steering_projection.py and ratified Reference Architecture in ArchGov (ID 89).

Evidence

Ratified Reference Architecture in ArchGov and verified implementation in core execution pipelines.

Signals

  • Ratified Reference Architecture in ArchGov (ID 89)
  • Verified production implementation in src/cas_runner/steps/steering_projection.py

Confidence Basis

Demonstrated production stability in CI flows and accepted Architecture Forum review with high confidence.

Consequences

Eliminates unexpected branch drift and establishes a clear governance barrier, requiring lightweight review mechanics.

Benefits

  • Eliminates unintended trunk divergence and merge collisions from automated runs
  • Produces non-destructive, reviewable diffs suitable for standard pull request inspection
  • Preserves human oversight over architectural steerage

Risks

  • Proposal backlog accumulation if automated PRs or reviews are ignored
  • Steering lag if proposal synchronization workflows are not regularly executed

Governance Implications

  • Formalizes proposal artifacts as mandatory governance barriers before applying changes to operational steering configurations
  • Enforces separation between generation workflows and branch mutation permissions

Reuse Notes

Applicable enterprise-wide across all continuous architecture pipelines, automated evaluation steps, and steering projection generators interacting with version-controlled repositories.

Confidence

High confidence backed by ratified reference architecture and active production implementation.

Level: high

Rationale

Backed by ratified Reference Architecture in ArchGov (ID 89), high evidence strength, and verified production usage in continuous architecture runner steps.