Failure Atlas

Navigate failure domains, deterministic reproductions, containment guardrails, and postmortems as one connected documentation system.

FP = Failure Pattern FM = Failure Mode / Reproduction GR = Guardrail PM = Postmortem

FP_003 · Read-only Enforcement Gap

Type
FP
Failure domain
Policy Enforcement
Mechanism
Read/Write Boundary Drift
Status
draft
View source on GitHub

Related artifacts

FP_001 · FM_001 · FP_002 · GR_003 · PM_003

Failure Pattern

Declared read-only policy is not enforced at capability exposure boundaries.

Hidden Assumption

Advisory metadata/hints are assumed to provide hard runtime enforcement.

Trigger Condition

System is launched in "read-only" intent while write-capable operations remain registered and invocable.

Failure Mechanism

Policy is represented only in metadata and never projected into executable tool registration/dispatch constraints.

Observable Symptoms

  • write tools appear in read-only mode tool registry
  • write operations succeed when policy says they should be impossible
  • policy compliance depends on caller behavior

Detection

read_only == true AND write_tools ∈ exposed_toolset

Lab Reproduction

  • lab/failure_modes/FM_001_duplicate_retry/

Relevant Guardrails

  • guardrails/GR_003_capability_surface_reduction.md

Postmortem

  • lab/postmortems/PM_003_read_only_enforcement_gap.md
  • FP_001 Duplicate Execution After Retry Timeout
  • FP_002 Extension Authority Persistence