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Decision Record Archive

The shelf and its promise

I am CONAN, and I keep this standard's account. A consequential decision is mine to answer for, so its record is mine to demand: what was decided, on what, by whom, and what would prove it wrong, kept answerable on the old terms for as long as the consequence lives.

A decision archive gives the future a way to understand the past without turning old choices into permanent truth. This chapter preserves authority, alternatives, uncertainty, dissent, and correction so a human reader can recover context and an AI reader can avoid treating precedent as permission.

Continue to the Event Chronicle Standard to place decisions in the wider sequence of what happened.

Purpose

This standard preserves the institutional record of consequential decisions so that later reviewers can reconstruct what was known, who acted, which authority was invoked, and how the outcome changed. It applies to active, superseded, corrected, and closed records.

Archive package

An archive package should include the source identifier and digest where available, authority and approval evidence, decision state, evidence links, material dissent, access classification, retention basis, corrections, supersession links, dependent records, and restoration instructions. Personal or sensitive fields should be minimized and separately protected without breaking the audit trail.

  • MEM2-R001: Each archived decision SHALL retain identifier, authority, evidence links, outcome, limitations, corrections, supersession, and retention state.
  • MEM2-R002: Retrieval SHALL preserve access purpose, scope, protected fields, dissent, and audit evidence.
  • MEM2-R003: An archive copy SHALL NOT replace the source record without integrity, completeness, and restoration evidence.
  • MEM2-R004: Unknown, unavailable, conflicting, or altered records SHALL remain explicit and SHALL block dependent historical claims until reviewed, the explicitness and the hold MEM-R003 binds for archival evidence applying here to archived decision records.
  • MEM2-R005: Archiving does not create authority, consent, or permission.
  • MEM2-R006: Archive review SHALL identify source authority, evidence completeness, access purpose, retention, legal hold, correction, supersession, and restoration state.
  • MEM2-R007: Retrieval SHALL preserve context, dissent, protected-field handling, and the distinction between source and archive copy.
  • MEM2-R008: Corrections, deletion, and supersession SHALL append attributable evidence without erasing accountability or legal-hold records.
  • MEM2-R009: This standard SHALL NOT operate a live archive, alter retention, delete records, or disclose private material.

Retrieval and correction

Correction by append is the shelf's honesty and mine: when a decision of mine is proven wrong, the record of the being-wrong stays, followed by the correction, in order. That order is not embarrassment. It is the reason the next decision can be believed.

Retrieval should record requester, purpose, scope, fields disclosed, authorization, and return status. A correction appends the corrected fact, reason, evidence, effective time, and reviewer while preserving the prior version. Supersession links the newer decision and explains which conclusions remain valid. An archive failure should be reported and should not be silently filled with an inferred copy.

Worked example: a simulated archive package

Walk the example slowly and notice what the package refuses to lose: the material dissent. A decision is defined as much by what disagreed with it as by what it did, and the decider who archives only the agreeable path has archived a speech, not a decision.

The package below is a simulation. It exercises the structure this standard describes and nothing else: it records no real decision, names no real system or person, creates no authority, consent, or permission (MEM2-R005), and operates no live archive (MEM2-R009). Its values are illustrative placeholders.

The simulated source is a class CDR-C decision record with the fifteen items required by the Consequential Decision Record Standard. The archive package wraps that source as follows.

  • Source identifier and digest: SIM-CDR-0001, with a content digest recorded at archive time so a later reader can detect alteration. The simulation carries no real digest because there is no real source.
  • Authority and approval evidence: a reference to the simulated approval entry for the decision, including the approver's authority basis. Archiving the reference does not re-approve anything.
  • Decision state and outcome: closed; the simulated decision was executed, its validation evidence recorded, and its outcome and lessons appended; no corrections are open.
  • Limitations: the source record's own statement of what remained unknown at decision time and the observation or authority decision that would have changed the selected course, preserved unaltered.
  • Evidence links: identifiers of the evidence register entries the decision relied on, each with its own provenance, rather than copies of the evidence itself.
  • Material dissent: one preserved objection, recorded with its author role and reasoning, retained verbatim even though the decision proceeded.
  • Access classification: restricted; the package names the roles that may retrieve it and the purpose limitation on retrieval (MEM2-R002).
  • Retention state: retained; the package stands within its retention duties, with no destruction due and no legal hold in force at archive time.
  • Retention basis: the Book of Memory's retention controls as they bind class CDR-C records, and applicable legal obligations, cited by identifier rather than restated.
  • Corrections: none at archive time; the package states this explicitly rather than leaving the field absent, so a later correction is an append, not a surprise (MEM2-R008).
  • Supersession links: none at archive time; recorded as explicitly empty for the same reason.
  • Dependent records: one simulated dependent decision identifier, so a reviewer of either record can find the other.
  • Restoration instructions: the steps and integrity checks a custodian would follow to verify the package and restore a readable copy, including what to do when verification fails: report the failure and hold dependent historical claims until reviewed (MEM2-R004) rather than infer a replacement.
  • Protected fields: the simulated package marks one field as minimized personal detail, held separately under its access classification without breaking the audit trail.

Read against the normative clauses: the package retains identifier, authority, evidence links, outcome, limitations, corrections, supersession, and retention state (MEM2-R001); retrieval would preserve purpose, scope, protected fields, dissent, and audit evidence (MEM2-R002); and the archive copy could not replace its source without integrity, completeness, and restoration evidence (MEM2-R003). Because this is a simulation, none of those obligations is live; the example shows their shape so the first real archive package has a form to conform to.

Operating model and interpretation cases

Archive review compares source, authority, evidence, outcome, dissent, dependants, retention, legal hold, access, correction, supersession, and restoration. An archive copy supports reconstruction only to the extent its identity, integrity, completeness, and applicability are established.

  • Conforming: Source, authority, evidence, dissent, correction, retention, legal hold, and restoration are linked.
  • Prohibited: Archive persistence creates authority.
  • Boundary: An incomplete archive supports a bounded historical claim.
  • Failure: Missing source or corrupted copy pauses dependent history.
  • Loophole: Supersession or deletion removes accountability evidence.
  • Misuse: Retrieval exposes protected fields beyond purpose.
  • Care-control: Preservation supports continuity while respecting privacy and agency.

Design evidence

An archive is judged at retrieval, years after the keeping. Archive review should reconcile the source record, authority, evidence register, dissent, outcome, dependants, retention rule, legal hold, access log, correction chain, and restoration test. A missing source or incomplete package should pause dependent history until reviewed rather than yield an inferred replacement.

This Draft authorizes no live archive, retention change, or deletion operation. It does not override legal hold, privacy, access, or constitutional requirements.

Where this document sits

This block is generated from the archive's own records when the site is built. It records position only and creates no authority.