Enterprise Context
1. What Enterprise Means
Enterprise is NOT:
- More users
- Bigger machines
- Premium features
Enterprise is:
- Longer lifecycles — Systems must remain auditable for years
- Organizational accountability — Someone is always responsible
- Mandatory governance — Judgment is not optional
- Change ownership — Every mutation has an authority
2. Enterprise vs. Conformance
| Aspect | Conformance (16-conformance) | Enterprise (17-enterprise) |
|---|---|---|
| Question | Can this system be judged? | Must this system be judged? |
| Scope | Technical evaluation | Organizational accountability |
| Evidence | Evidence Pack structure | Evidence chain ownership |
| Approval | Binary outcome | Authority hierarchy |
| Timeline | Point-in-time evaluation | Longitudinal auditability |
Key Insight:
- Conformance = Technical capability to be evaluated
- Enterprise = Organizational requirement to be evaluated
3. Enterprise Constraints ↔ Kernel Duties Mapping
[!NOTE] The Enterprise context does not introduce new protocol obligations. It activates existing kernel duties under non-negotiable organizational constraints.
3.1 Full Mapping (11 Kernel Duties)
| Enterprise Constraint | Kernel Duty | Required Evidence | Conformance Dimension |
|---|---|---|---|
| Authority chain | confirm + security | Confirm record links to approver identity | Governance Gating |
| Long lifecycle | protocol-version + trace | Version binding, change log, replayability | Version Declaration |
| Audit & liability | trace + transaction | Deterministic evidence pack + integrity chain | Trace Integrity |
| Cross-team concurrency | state-sync + transaction | Conflict decisions, rollback/snapshot evidence | Lifecycle Completeness |
| Cost control | performance | Budget events, throttling decisions | (Informative) |
| Failure ownership | error-handling | Recovery events, root cause records | Failure Bounding |
| Coordination accountability | coordination | Module interaction trace | Lifecycle Completeness |
| Execution audit | orchestration | Step execution sequence | Trace Integrity |
| Event durability | event-bus | Event log persistence | Trace Integrity |
| Action isolation | AEL | Execution boundary records | Schema Validity |
| State persistence | VSL | Snapshot/restore evidence | (Informative) |
3.2 Key Insight
Every cell in this table answers one question:
"When Enterprise constraint X is active, what evidence MUST exist to be conformant?"
This is not a guide. This is a protocol-to-constraint projection.
4. Enterprise Constraints
When MPLP enters enterprise environments, these constraints become mandatory:
4.1 Authority Chains
Every governance decision (Confirm) must trace to a human authority:
| Role | Responsibility |
|---|---|
| Plan Approver | Authorizes execution scope |
| Risk Owner | Accepts liability for high-risk actions |
| Change Authority | Approves protocol/schema changes |
| Audit Authority | Reviews evidence chains |
4.2 Longitudinal Auditability
Enterprise systems must answer questions years after execution:
- "Who approved this plan on 2024-03-15?"
- "What was the agent's context when it made this decision?"
- "Can we reconstruct the execution from evidence alone?"
MPLP's evidence model enables this, but enterprise environments make it mandatory.
4.3 Organizational Governance
Single-user projects don't need:
- Role separation
- Approval workflows
- Change control boards
- Audit committees
Enterprise environments always need these. MPLP provides the protocol hooks (Confirm, Role, Trace), but enterprise contexts activate them.
4.4 Failure Ownership
In enterprise:
- Failures have real consequences
- Someone is always accountable
- Recovery must be documented
- Root cause is required
MPLP's bounded failure model maps directly to enterprise incident management.
5. What This Section Provides
| Document | Purpose |
|---|---|
| This Index | Defines Enterprise scope + Kernel mapping |
| Enterprise Scenarios | Constraint → Evidence → Conformance cards |
| Non-Goals | What MPLP does NOT provide for enterprise |
6. What This Section Does NOT Provide
To prevent scope creep and maintain MPLP's positioning:
| We Do NOT Provide | Reason |
|---|---|
| Enterprise certification | Not a certification body |
| Compliance guarantees | Not a legal authority |
| Deployment architectures | Implementation-specific |
| SaaS or managed services | Vendor-specific |
| Enterprise pricing | Not a commercial product |
| Vendor integrations | Vendor-neutral by design |
MPLP provides the protocol substrate. Enterprise vendors build products on top.
7. Relationship to Other Sections
| Section | Relationship |
|---|---|
| 08-guides | How to implement (Guides) vs. Why you cannot avoid (Enterprise) |
| 12-governance | Protocol governance vs. Organizational governance |
| 16-conformance | Technical judgment vs. Mandatory judgment |
8. Related Documentation
- Conformance & Evaluation — Technical conformance model
- Governance Overview — Protocol governance
- Confirm Module — Human-in-the-loop gating
- 11 Kernel Duties — Duty specifications
Document Status: Informative (Scope Definition + Kernel Mapping)
Key Insight: Enterprise = "must be accountable for the future"
Kernel Mapping: 11 duties → 6 conformance dimensions
Exclusions: Certification, compliance guarantees, commercial offerings