# GOVERNANCE.md The NAV standard (Network Attached Verification) Version 2.0 — Supersedes v1.0 (retained, hashed, see Amendment Log CA-001) Author and decision authority: Thirty Seven Inc. ## 1. Purpose This document defines how the NAV standard and its constitutional artifacts change: who decides, what the artifact lifecycle is, what review and amendment mean, and what adopters may rely on. It governs process only. Mission lives in the Charter. Semantics live in VERDICT_TAXONOMY.md. Technical requirements live in the specifications. ## 2. Authority The NAV standard is authored and maintained by Thirty Seven Inc. Decisions rest with the author. There is no committee. Proposals from any party are welcome as issues against the public repository; every accepted or rejected proposal of consequence receives a recorded disposition with rationale. This arrangement is stated plainly because adopters deserve to know how decisions are made, and a named accountable author is a stronger promise than an imagined committee. ## 3. Constitutional artifacts and the registry The constitutional set is enumerated in ARCHITECTURE_REGISTRY.md, which records each artifact's name, version, lifecycle state, and hash. The registry is the single source of truth for what governs. An artifact not in the registry is not constitutional. Conflicts between artifacts are resolved by the precedence order stated in the registry; where the registry is silent, the more specific artifact governs the more general, and later frozen artifacts govern earlier ones. ## 4. Artifact lifecycle Every constitutional artifact is in exactly one state: - DRAFT: under construction; carries no authority; may change freely. - APPROVED: accepted by the author as correct; citable; may still receive editorial correction without ceremony, but no change of meaning. - FROZEN: fixed and hashed; the artifact's meaning and text may not change. Any change of meaning requires an Architectural Amendment producing a new version; the frozen predecessor is never edited. - SUPERSEDED: replaced by a newer version. The artifact remains in the registry with its hash. Superseded artifacts are never deleted; history is append-only. - RETIRED: withdrawn without a successor. Retained and hashed like superseded artifacts. Transitions: DRAFT to APPROVED by author acceptance; APPROVED to FROZEN by author freeze declaration together with hash recording in the registry, both required, effective when both complete; FROZEN to SUPERSEDED only by an Architectural Amendment; any state to RETIRED by author declaration with recorded rationale. ## 5. Architectural Reviews (CR-nnn) An Architectural Review is a documented examination of one or more constitutional artifacts, conducted or commissioned by the author, producing a numbered record (CR-001, CR-002, ...) and a disposition: ready to freeze, not ready with reasons, or amendment required. Reviews may be performed by the author, by engaged architects, or by automated agents; the disposition is always the author's. Review records are retained in the repository. ## 6. Architectural Amendments (CA-nnn) An Architectural Amendment is the only mechanism by which a FROZEN artifact's meaning changes. An amendment is a numbered record (CA-001, CA-002, ...) stating: the artifact and version amended, the change and its rationale, the new version produced, the new hash, and the disposition of the predecessor (superseded). Amendments are approved solely by the author. The amendment log is append-only and lives beside the registry. ## 7. Versioning Specifications and constitutional documents use semantic versioning. A MAJOR version signals a breaking change: any change that could cause a previously conforming artifact or implementation to become nonconforming, or that changes the meaning of an existing field, term, or requirement. A MINOR version signals an additive change: new optional fields, new non-governing supporting documents, or clarifications that cannot change a conforming implementation's status. The introduction of a new constitutional artifact is not a versioning event at all: governing documents enter the constitutional set only through the Architectural Amendment process and registration in ARCHITECTURE_REGISTRY.md. Editorial corrections that change no meaning may be issued without a version change while an artifact is APPROVED, and never while FROZEN. ## 8. Compatibility guarantees Certificates valid under a published major version of the NAV certificate format remain valid under that version forever. Validators must ignore unknown fields rather than reject them. No future version of the standard will retroactively invalidate artifacts produced in conformance with an earlier published version. Backward compatibility is the default; breaking changes require a MAJOR version and an explicit migration note. ## 9. Release artifacts and hashing Every release of every constitutional artifact and specification is published with its SHA-256 hash. Hashes are recorded in the registry and in release tags. The standard's own paper trail is expected to meet the evidentiary discipline the standard prescribes for others. ## 10. Reference implementation VARI, by Thirty Seven Inc., is the reference implementation of the NAV standard. Reference status means the implementation tracks the standard and demonstrates its practicability; it does not mean the standard is defined by the implementation's behavior. Where implementation and specification disagree, the specification governs, and the disagreement is resolved by correction or by amendment, recorded either way. Conformance of any implementation, including the reference, is established by the conformance specification when it exists, not by this document. ## 11. What this document does not do It does not define verification semantics, certificate structure, or conformance requirements. It does not describe roadmaps or planned features; governance governs what exists. It does not create obligations for implementers beyond the compatibility guarantees stated here. ## 12. Status Version 2.0. APPROVED upon author acceptance. FROZEN only when both conditions are met: the author's freeze declaration, and the artifact's hash recorded in ARCHITECTURE_REGISTRY.md. Neither alone freezes an artifact; the freeze is effective at whichever of the two completes last. ## Amendment Log CA-001 (2026-07-16): GOVERNANCE.md v1.0 superseded by v2.0. Change: v1 defined versioning and authority only; v2 adds the artifact lifecycle, Architectural Reviews, Architectural Amendments, compatibility guarantees, release hashing, and the reference-implementation relationship, codifying the constitutional machinery already in practice. v1 retained with its hash in the registry. Approved: Thirty Seven Inc. This amendment is the founding entry of the process it defines.