# The governance ladder (/docs/governance-ladder)

---
type: Document
title: The governance ladder
description: Level 0 works immediately; a project climbs only as far as its domain needs.
status: stable
order: 3
generated: { by: "ksor-starter/0.0.58", at: 2026-08-25T00:00:00Z }
ksor:
  audience: [public]
  approval: { by: "ksor-starter/0.0.58", at: 2026-08-25T00:00:00Z }
trust_tier: unverified
build_id: sha256:8e3ef2c75bf5146da5f46f5914ca9585e0716d77fab4e14c1c86d298d9c7ea20
source_commit: b5f2836ccc2b82ceb6eb0c693d4faf14e057871c
dirty: true
ksor_version: 0.0.58
---

Governance here is a ladder, not a gate. Demanding the top rung of a project on
the bottom one is a bug, not rigour.

## Where every record starts

A document needs a title and a status. That is the whole requirement, and a
record of such documents is already publishable, searchable and citable.

## The rungs above it

Each rung is worth climbing when the domain asks for it, and not before.

> [!TIP]
> Climb one rung at a time, and only when something has gone wrong without it.
> A record that adds owners before anyone disputes a document spends review
> effort buying nothing.

### Owners and sources

An owner names who stands behind a document. Provenance names where its claims
came from, one entry per source.

### Effective dates and supersession

An effective date says when a document began to apply. A replaced document is
marked and points at its successor rather than being deleted, so the history
stays readable.

### A measured floor for abstention

The served rung answers questions from the record and declines the ones it does
not cover. The threshold for declining is measured against this corpus, never
copied from another one, and it is recorded beside the number with its date.