Constable implements ZTG-4 on Zero Trust Governance by committing effect evidence to the Monotonic Logger before dispatching the effect through the ZTG-3 on Zero Trust Governance surface, and by holding on any effect whose coupling it cannot confirm.
Write-ahead to the Monotonic Logger. For every authorized effect, Constable
commits the ZTG-4 on Zero Trust Governance evidence record durably to the Monotonic Logger before the effect is
dispatched. The record carries the decision provenance, the ZTG-5 on Zero Trust Governance harm class and
liability ceiling, and the ZTG-3 on Zero Trust Governance surface routing and reversal strategy. Only after
the evidence is durably committed is the effect dispatched through the registered
surface; the dispatch and its result are then recorded (EVIDENCE_APPENDED,
EFFECT_DISPATCHED). The agent runtime has no path to dispatch an effect that
bypasses this ordering.
Critical-class records for high harm class. Irreversible-class and over-threshold effects (ZTG-5 on Zero Trust Governance) are written as the highest-criticality records the Logger supports, with the durability and integrity guarantees those classes require, before dispatch. The narrowness of the write-ahead window is most rigorously enforced where harm class is highest.
Indeterminate-effect handling. If Constable cannot confirm that an effect's evidence was committed and the effect dispatched as a coupled pair — a failure in the write-ahead window, or a detected effect without a committed record — it marks the effect indeterminate and enters Stasis (ZTG-2 on Zero Trust Governance). Resolution runs as governed reconciliation: the disposition of the effect is established, often by querying the target surface, and recorded; or an authorized principal ratifies acceptance of the indeterminate state via HumanSeal. Normal operation resumes only after reconciliation or ratified acceptance.
Coupling path isolation. The evidence-commit-then-dispatch sequence executes in the gate and surface mechanism, structurally separated from the agent runtime, so the agent can neither dispatch an effect while suppressing its evidence nor emit evidence for an effect it did not dispatch. The coupling is a property of the architecture, not of agent cooperation.
Conformance tests. Constable's internal testing for ZTG-4 on Zero Trust Governance includes: ordering tests confirming no effect dispatches before durable evidence commit; orphan tests confirming no effect-evidence exists without a dispatch; crash-injection tests in the write-ahead window confirming the result is a recorded indeterminate effect and Stasis, never a silent gap; evidence-record tests confirming all prerequisite, ZTG-5 on Zero Trust Governance, and ZTG-3 on Zero Trust Governance fields are present; reconciliation tests confirming indeterminate effects are resolved as governed, recorded activity; division tests confirming ZTG-4 on Zero Trust Governance coupling and ZTG-0a on Zero Trust Governance integrity are independently satisfied; and isolation tests confirming the agent cannot sever the coupling. The protocol is documented in the conformance verification specification referenced in §22.