governance-constraint-designlisted

# Governance Constraint Design A governance constraint encodes operational meaning, not governance language. The phrase "ensure human oversight" is governance language — it sounds precise but means different things to different people. A governance constraint translates that language into a verification slot with defined pass/fail criteria, evidence requirements, and failure actions. This skill teaches how to make that translation. It is referenced by the `/governance-constrain` command for guided authoring and by the `harness-enforcer` agent when validating governance constraint quality. ## The Core Problem Governance language carries meaning in one reference frame but is implemented in another. The regulator writes "meaningful human oversight." The engineer implements a boolean approval gate. The compliance team audits the approval log. All three frames are satisfied syntactically while governance fails semantically — the approval happens, but the oversight is absent. A governance constraint must make this translation explicit. ## The Falsifiability Test Every governance constraint must answer three questions: 1. **What do you verify?** — the specific observable condition 2. **What counts as evidence?** — what artefacts demonstrate compliance 3. **What happens on failure?** — the response when verification fails If the constraint cannot answer all three, it is governance language pretending to be a constraint. It belongs in a policy document, not in HARNESS.md. ##