Visual schema
Where Layer 3 sits
Layer 3 sits between admissible authorities and the final response conditions.
Public web
What is visible and reused.
SSA-E / A2
Entity stability and admissible authorities.
EAC
External authority control.
Layer 3
Boundary of executable regime.
Q-Layer
Minimal response conditions.
Output
Response, clarification, or non-response.
Authority Governance (Layer 3)
Authority Governance (Layer 3) designates the adjacent governance regime that bounds executable authority when an interpretive output becomes an action-bearing input.
Layer 3 does not govern truth, nor simple source admissibility. It governs the right to act, trigger, modify, authorize, or commit in a closed, agentic, or transactional environment.
Layer 3 is not the next layer of open web governance. It becomes relevant only when an output no longer serves merely to respond, but to act.
Minimum distinctions
- EAC: governs which external authorities can constrain interpretation.
- Q-Layer: governs whether a response is legitimate to produce.
- Layer 3: governs whether an action can be authorized, delegated, or executed.
Canonical formula: EAC constrains interpretation. Q-Layer constrains response legitimacy. Layer 3 constrains executable authority.
Entry conditions
Layer 3 becomes relevant when three cumulative conditions are met:
- Exposure: an output is injected into a system, agent, workflow, or interface capable of acting.
- Impact: the action or decision has real effects (rights, money, access, status, compliance, reputation, state modification).
- Delegation: a portion of authority is effectively delegated to the system.
Non-implications
- An admissible authority via EAC never, by itself, obtains an executable right.
- A legitimate response via Q-Layer never, by itself, authorizes an action.
- No public signal from the open web suffices, by itself, to grant executable authority.