{
  "_intent": "The CI/CD pipeline is the approver. A human approval is required ONLY for changes that alter what the pipeline itself verifies, or the security posture it rests on -- because those are the changes CI cannot honestly gate: a PR that weakens the gate would be approved by the weakened gate.",
  "_rule": "If a PR touches any sensitive_paths glob, it needs an APPROVED review from someone who is not its author. Everything else merges on a green gate alone.",
  "_on_failure_to_evaluate": "BLOCK. Unlike gitea-settings, a skip here is a bypass, not a gap.",
  "sensitive_paths": [
    "ci/**",
    ".gitea/**",
    "conformance/**",
    "clusters/**",
    "bootstrap/**",
    "infra/gitea/**",
    "platform/kyverno/**",
    "platform-config/kustomization.yaml",
    ".sops.yaml",
    "**/*.sops.yaml",
    "**/rbac.yaml",
    "CLAUDE.md"
  ],
  "_why_each": {
    "ci/**, .gitea/**": "the pipeline itself -- the thing doing the approving",
    "conformance/**": "the tests and the harness; changing them changes what green MEANS",
    "clusters/**, bootstrap/**": "Flux wiring -- what reconciles, in what order, with what substitution",
    "infra/gitea/**, platform-config/kustomization.yaml": "branch protection, the drift detector, and the list that decides which admission policies are actually applied",
    "platform/kyverno/**": "the admission policy engine",
    ".sops.yaml, **/*.sops.yaml, **/rbac.yaml": "encryption recipients, secrets, and cluster authority",
    "CLAUDE.md": "the delivery contract agents follow"
  }
}