Governance and upgrades

Governance objectives

Governance exists to balance adaptability with trust stability. Infrastructure must evolve, but counterparties need confidence that rules will not change unpredictably.

A strong governance model defines who can change what, under which process, with what visibility.

Three governance layers

Durable systems separate governance into code, runtime configuration, and public policy layers. Combining these layers creates avoidable blast radius and opaque accountability.

• Code governance controls executable logic and upgrade authority.
• Runtime governance controls bounded protocol parameters.
• Policy governance controls disclosures, commitments, and operations.

Code governance discipline

Executable changes are high-impact and should follow explicit gates: design review, risk classification, test evidence, and staged rollout planning.

• Pre-merge review against lifecycle and economics invariants.
• Mandatory test coverage for changed transition paths.
• Rollback plan defined before deployment authorization.

Runtime configuration governance

Config-level changes should be possible without code redeployments, but only inside validated boundaries. Parameter flexibility without controls becomes silent policy drift.

• Schema validation and owner checks on config accounts.
• Range limits for economically sensitive parameters.
• Change audit trails linked to decision context.

Policy and communications governance

Public commitments, legal framing, and user-facing policy should map to real protocol behavior. Misalignment between policy and mechanism erodes trust quickly.

Release notes and governance updates should be concise, explicit, and technically accurate.

Emergency controls

Abnormal conditions require predefined emergency posture. Governance should specify who can invoke emergency actions, what scope they have, and how restoration occurs.

• Clear trigger criteria for emergency action.
• Bounded authority and duration of emergency posture.
• Post-event review with corrective control updates.

Compatibility and migration

Upgrades should preserve deterministic interpretation of historical states. Migration planning must include indexer impacts, API compatibility notes, and rollback-safe sequencing.

• Version lifecycle transitions explicitly.
• Document data-shape impacts to consumers.
• Provide fallback behavior for mixed-version windows.