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Rick-Kirby
Rick-Kirby

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Execution Control Layer (ECL): An Execution-Time Architectural Standard for AI Systems

This post is a clarification, not an announcement.

The Execution Control Layer (ECL) is now fully formalised as an execution-time architectural standard for AI-driven systems.

ECL defines a non-bypassable control boundary at the point where AI reasoning transitions into real-world execution. It specifies the invariants that must hold at execution time: deterministic behaviour, fail-closed enforcement, auditability, and replayability.

ECL is not:

  • a governance framework
  • a policy system
  • an agent architecture
  • a product or service

It does not define what decisions should be allowed.
It defines how execution decisions are enforced at runtime.

The specification is intentionally implementation-agnostic and policy-agnostic. Different systems may realise the boundary differently, but the execution-time guarantees must hold.

The standard is complete, stable, and frozen.
Implementations may now treat ECL as a required execution-time layer in compliant stacks.

Specification and reference materials are available here:
👉 https://github.com/Rick-Kirby/execution-control-layer

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