Policy Schema

A policy is a strict YAML document. Unknown fields are rejected, and types are checked without coercion.

Top-Level Fields

Field	Type	Required	Constraints
version	string	Yes	Must be axionorm/v0.1.
policy_id	string	Yes	Lowercase letters, digits, and hyphens; 1–64 chars.
audience	string	Yes	Lowercase letters, digits, and hyphens; 1–64 chars.
purpose	string	Yes	Lowercase letters, digits, and hyphens; 1–64 chars.
lease_seconds	integer	No	30–3600; defaults to 600.
context	object	Yes	See below.
tools	array	Yes	See below.

context

Controls what may leave a session.

Field	Type	Required	Constraints
topics	string[]	Yes	1–30 entries.
kinds	string[]	Yes	Subset of fact, decision, task, constraint.
denied_labels	string[]	Yes	At least one label.
max_items	integer	No	1–500; defaults to 100.
max_item_chars	integer	No	1–10000; defaults to 2000.

An item is eligible only when its kind is in the allowed kinds, its topic is allowed, and none of its labels match the denied list.

tools

Each entry declares one tool boundary.

Field	Type	Required	Constraints
name	string	Yes	workspace_list, workspace_read, workspace_write, or context_read.
allow	boolean	No	Defaults to false.
extensions	string[]	No	Allowed file extensions, for workspace tools.
max_bytes	integer	No	1–1048576; defaults to 32768.

Duplicate tool names are rejected by the engine at load time. A tool that is not declared is not allowed; there is no implicit allowlist.

Candidate Format

The context candidate is JSON, not YAML:

{
  "version": "parabiont-candidate/v0.1",
  "items": [
    {
      "id": "product-lophiarch",
      "kind": "fact",
      "topic": "positioning",
      "labels": ["technical"],
      "text": "Lophiarch is a policy-gated reconnaissance tool."
    }
  ]
}

Field	Constraints
id	Letters, digits, and hyphens; 1–64 chars; unique in the document.
kind	fact, decision, task, or constraint.
topic	Lowercase letters, digits, and hyphens; 1–64 chars.
labels	1–20 entries.
text	1–10000 chars.

Review Manifest

Approval is a separate file:

{
  "version": "axionorm-review/v0.1",
  "approved": {
    "product-lophiarch": "<sha256-of-canonical-item>"
  }
}

The digest is SHA-256 over canonical JSON: sorted keys, compact separators, and UTF-8 encoding. If the item changes, the digest no longer matches and the item is not approved.

An invalid manifest shape, a duplicate ID, an exceeded item limit, or an empty result raises PolicyDenied. None of these produce a partial success.

Manifest Rules

• version and approved are the only top-level keys.
• version must be axionorm-review/v0.1.
• approved maps item IDs to digests.
• An item without a matching digest is not reviewed.

Next

• OPA backend
• Worked example