The VCDesign core

Decisions

A human closes each Δ with one of six words. No other vocabulary is used. Every decision passes one judgment gate.

Norms: core.yaml decision and closure_loop; policies.yaml judgment_gate, enforcement, temporal_governance. Record format: schema_log.yaml.

1. A human closes the decision

The final decider of every decision is human. Whatever an AI produces about a case is a proposal until a human closes the decision (axiom A3).
A closed decision authorizes a scope of execution through its declaration. No execution may exceed the scope authorized by a decision closed by a human. Execution within that scope needs no further decision; a change that would exceed it is observed as a Δ and re-decided (axiom A2).
A guard verdict at a boundary (pass / deny / unknown) checks one crossing; it is not a decision. Unknown stops and escalates and is never treated as pass.

2. The six words

The six words are the canonical Decision. VCDesign maps each to a handling of the declaration and a next state (implementation.md §3).

Decision	Meaning	Declaration	Next state
Proceed	Continue with the current structure and declaration	Kept as is, including corrections that do not change the chapter	active
Expand	Widen target, scale or connections based on an observed Positive Δ	Widen `blast_radius` (before / after). Requires an observed Positive Δ and confirmed recovery capability	active
Limit	There is value but the spread is too wide; narrow target, authority, scale or period	Narrow `blast_radius` (before / after)	active
Reframe	Redefine value, target, boundary or premises	Define a new chapter: premises, boundary, owner and declaration	reframed
Defer	Hold with responsibility until the material for judgment is ready	Set a temporary owner and the next review time	deferred
Retire	End it because it does not lead to the next value	Release responsibility and hand over what remains to a new holder. Includes deciding not to start	retired

A confirmed Δ stays under responsibility until a decision closes it. Defer is a closure path with an owner and a review time, not an escape.

3. The judgment gate

Every decision is closed by a human through this single gate. Its checks follow the canonical Review Output (Upside / Downside / Continuity / Asymmetry / Decision) in the order of the five principles. Long-term and short-term decisions differ only in the depth of the check; there is no separate gate.

Principle	What is checked
Keep	value_intent is declared; residual_assets are declared with holders
Find	spread_signals.expected is declared; a Positive Δ is recorded separately from the average outcome
Close	blast_radius is declared; failure_domain is declared if shared; upstream conclusions are revalidated
Try	reversibility is declared; the halt path is confirmed
Pass on	the decision basis is recorded; the re-derivation basis is recorded for long-lived cases

4. What each decision requires

Decision	Requires (`judgment_gate.per_decision`)
Proceed	Nothing beyond the gate's checks
Expand	An observed Positive Δ (spread_signals observed or unexpected) / recovery capability confirmed for the widened scope / blast_radius before and after
Limit	blast_radius narrowed, before and after
Reframe	The existing chapter is not sustainable / new premises and boundary / a new owner / supervisor approval if structural
Defer	A reason / a temporary owner / the next review time (default ceiling 7 days, after which the supervisor forces closure)
Retire	No hidden dependency / responsibility released / related chapters notified / what remains handed over

5. Expand and Limit update the declaration

Expand and Limit are decisions that update the blast_radius declaration without changing the chapter, recorded as before and after. Expand widens the declaration; Limit narrows it.

A "small trial" without a narrowed declaration is not Limit. It is a trial without a ceiling and is stopped at the judgment gate.
An average effect alone never justifies Expand.

An Expand record from a fictional parts factory (excerpt from point-vs-line-improvement.md; values translated):

decision:
  value: expand
  positive_delta_refs: [reuse_cost_decline, unsolicited_pull]
  declaration_update:
    before:
      scope: data collection on lines 1–3 only (never writes to control systems)
      max_loss: {unit: hours_data_gap, value: 8}
    after:
      scope: data collection on lines 1–4 and read-only feed to quality control (never writes to control systems)
      max_loss: {unit: hours_data_gap, value: 8}
      approved_by: {role: plant_manager}
  decided_by: {role: plant_manager}

6. Positive Δ and Expand

"Propagable" does not mean "spread automatically".

Observing a Positive Δ and holding it with a named holder are never stopped, quarantined or blocked.
Spreading it is the decision Expand, which requires an observed Positive Δ and confirmation that the widened scope can still be recovered.
When preconditions are missing, what is stopped is the Expand decision, not the observation or holding.
An upside whose cause is unknown is marked unknown by the boundary guard and never justifies widening.

7. Hard stops

The judgment gate stops the propagation of a Negative Δ and an Expand decision that lacks its preconditions (judgment_gate.hard_stops). It never stops observing or holding a Positive Δ.

A fatal downside (regardless of whether an owner exists)
No owner
No human final decider
Irreversible without a declared max loss
Expand without an observed Positive Δ
Expand beyond recovery capability

Blocking applies only to a Negative Δ and to the decision Expand. Findings about observing or holding a Positive Δ are at most a warning (policies.yaml enforcement).

8. Recording decisions

Each decision records its basis from the Upside / Downside / Continuity / Asymmetry viewpoints (decision.basis). A decision without a basis is detected by the metric decision_without_basis.
System state can be rolled back; responsibility records are append-only. The proposal, the decision and its basis, the owner, the evidence at the time, the guard verdict and the reason for a rollback are never deleted. A correction adds a new record; it never erases one (temporal_governance).

9. Anti-patterns

Expand on average success only
A trial without a declaration (an "experiment" without a ceiling)
Defer without an owner or a review time
Retire that hides active dependencies