Govern Specv0.1
Open governance standard

Govern Connector Spec

Govern is the open governance standard for AI in legal. It defines how AI agents declare intent, earn capability envelopes, and produce tamper-evident evidence records auditable by courts, insurers, and bar associations.

What’s here

Connector guide
How to build a connector against the v1 spec — port contract, capability tiers, intent declaration, and conformance.
Slot vocabulary
The canonical slot taxonomy with per-slot semantic contracts across 4 entity types (106 slots).
Identity contract
IDP-agnostic JWT shape and attorney_oid semantics — how any IDP plugs into the Govern policy engine.
Audit-pack signing
Ed25519 signing protocol, key management, public-key discovery, and the offline verifier algorithm.
Conformance suite
@govern/conformance — run the 8 golden test cases against your connector implementation.

Spec version

v0.1 — pre-v1.0, partner preview. Expect breaking changes through v1.0.

Versioning policy

  • core.* slot keys are append-only after v1.0. Renames are breaking and require a major version bump.
  • Breaking changes to the connector port (port signatures, required claims, storage contract) require a major version bump with a 6-month deprecation window.
  • connector.<id>.* slots are versioned by the connector author’s own semver. Govern’s policy engine treats them as opaque.
  • firm.custom.* slots carry no portability guarantee across connectors.
  • Adding a new optional claim to the identity contract is non-breaking. Adding a new required claim is breaking.

License

  • Spec documentation — CC BY 4.0. You may reproduce, adapt, and build on this specification with attribution.
  • Reference implementation code — Apache 2.0. @govern/conformance and related packages are open source.

Stewardship

Centerbase stewards this spec. The canonical repository is github.com/big6media/Govern. File issues and feedback via GitHub Issues. The spec is open; the Centerbase hosted implementation of Govern is a separate proprietary product.

The three-tier namespace (core.* / connector.<id>.* / firm.custom.*) is maintained by the spec working group. Connector authors own their connector.<id>.* namespace without WG involvement.