Constraints
Programmable rules applied to what a system may accept or emit, enforced in code rather than stated in policy, and capable of halting execution.
Why it matters
The category where kill criteria become real. A constraint that halts execution is enforceable in a way a policy document is not, and the distinction between the two is the difference between an authority grant and an authority envelope. This is the youngest category in the stack and the one with the most governance leverage per unit of engineering.
Relationships
Typed edges into the rest of the ontology. These are what make the canon traversable rather than merely readable.
| Verb | Target | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
relatedTo | Kill Criteria | An association too weak or too general for a stronger verb. |
relatedTo | Authority Envelope | An association too weak or too general for a stronger verb. |
addresses | Authority | The subject speaks to the object as a question or concern. |
Record
| Canonical identifier | QIS-TERM-00053 |
| Status | Canonical industry term |
| Adoption | Emerging |
| Domain · Layer | Stack categories · Governance |
| Origin | Emerging category covering programmatic validation of model inputs and outputs. |
| Semantic aliases | None recorded. |
| First published | 2026-08-02 |
| Last reviewed | 2026-08-02 · 180-day cycle |
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