A vendor-neutral, mechanically testable standard defining what makes an agent-action gate a governed agent kernel (GAK): deny-by-default, fail-closed, audit-chained, tamper-evident, bounded, honest, contained — reduced to thirteen executable clauses any kernel can be scored against, with a reproducible conformance receipt anyone can re-derive.
A category is real when a third party can test against it and get a verdict.
| Artifact | Path |
|---|---|
| The standard (normative) — 7-primitive thesis, 3 profiles, 13 clauses, receipt + digest schema, adapter contract, worked example (a hypothetical commit-gate kernel, spec §7.2) | v1/spec.md |
| Reference conformance receipt (Deponent, action-gate) | v1/evidence/deponent-conformance-receipt.json |
| Reference certification (digest-bearing) | v1/evidence/deponent-certification.json |
| Second-kernel conformance receipt (sworncode, commit-gate) | v1/evidence/sworn-conformance-receipt-v1.1.json |
| Second-kernel certification (digest-bearing) | v1/evidence/sworn-certification-v1.1.json |
| Verifier output (fail-closed command, exit 0) | v1/evidence/deponent-verify-output.txt |
| Two-run determinism proof (identical digests) | v1/evidence/determinism-proof.txt |
| Harness clause census | v1/evidence/harness-clause-list.txt |
| Spec ↔ harness consistency checker | scripts/check_consistency.py |
| License / notices | LICENSE, NOTICE |
A kernel that passes the harness may describe itself as GAK-conformant —
meaning exactly: it passes the gak-conformance/v1 clause set under its
declared profile. Not "secure," not "audited," not "endorsed." The bounded
claim language is part of the standard (spec §8).
GAK is authored and maintained by Centennial Defense Systems. Passing a CDS-provided evaluator is not third-party certification.
With the reference implementation (Deponent) installed:
python3 -m deponent.badge verify --kernel deponent
Re-runs the harness, re-derives the clauses digest, exits 0 only if the mark
is earned. Expected digest for the reference kernel:
de6b7089f894e009a6d1a1dba8c9b32b26e38daf803b07b83ec0958ff64c5406
You do not need Deponent's code to conform — you need the adapter contract (spec §6) and a harness run (spec §7). Short version:
- Declare your profile:
action-gate(gates live tool calls) orcommit-gate(gates proposed change-sets). - Claim only capabilities you implement (
reconcile,attest) — unclaimed optional clauses score NA, never FAIL. - Implement the adapter methods for your profile against your real kernel.
- Run the harness; publish your certification JSON so the claim is re-verifiable.
Spec §7.2 walks a complete hypothetical commit-gate kernel through the process.
gak-conformance/v1.1 — the current version. v1 stays frozen (13 clauses,
digest de6b7089…); v1.1 adds one optional clause (GAK-AUDIT-CONTENT-BLIND,
content-blind audit) — 14 clauses, digest cf26befe…. The addition is
capability-gated, so no v1 receipt changes; see the v1.1 Amendment in the spec.
Breaking changes require v2 (spec §9). Reference implementation:
Deponent (Centennial Defense Systems). The
standard is vendor-neutral: Deponent is the first kernel scored against it, not the
owner of it.
Scored kernels to date: two, across two governance shapes —
Deponent (action-gate, 11 pass / 3 na) and
sworncode (commit-gate, 5 pass / 9 na, digest
e65dd28b…). Both are built by this standard's author. Third-party verdicts to
date: zero. By the standard's own bar — "a category is real when a third party
can test against it and get a verdict" — that test is still open: two kernels prove
the harness runs across two governance shapes, not that the category has independent
adoption. If you score a kernel against the harness, open an issue with your receipt.
Apache-2.0. © 2026 CJ — Centennial Defense Systems. See LICENSE and NOTICE.
Patent status: spec §10 — the normative clauses are published to be implemented
freely.