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PHASE 7 VISION — CONTROL PLANE & OPERATOR INTERACTION

Project: AeroDB Phase: Phase 7 — Control Plane, Admin UI, and Operator Tooling Status: AUTHORITATIVE · PRE-IMPLEMENTATION

1. Purpose of Phase 7

Phase 7 introduces explicit human-operated control surfaces for AeroDB.

The purpose of Phase 7 is not to make AeroDB smarter, faster, or more autonomous. The purpose is to make AeroDB:

  • Operable by humans
  • Observable in complex failure scenarios
  • Auditable after incidents
  • Controllable only through explicit, deliberate action

Phase 7 exists to give operators visibility and authority, not to give the system decision-making power.

Phase 7 is a control plane, not a brain.

2. Foundational Principle

AeroDB is correctness-first infrastructure software.

All correctness, safety, durability, and determinism guarantees are fully defined and enforced by Phases 0–6.

Phase 7:

  • MUST NOT weaken those guarantees
  • MUST NOT reinterpret them
  • MUST NOT add alternative execution paths

Phase 7 is strictly downstream of the correctness kernel.

If Phase 7 is removed entirely, AeroDB must remain correct, deterministic, and crash-safe.

3. Explicit Non-Goals (Critical)

Phase 7 MUST NOT:

  1. Automate decisions

  2. No automatic failover

  3. No automatic promotion

  4. No automatic remediation

  5. Introduce heuristics

  6. No thresholds that trigger actions

  7. No background evaluators

  8. No “recommended actions” executed implicitly

  9. Create control loops

  10. No polling → decision → action cycles

  11. No retry loops that change state

  12. Act without human intent

  13. No implicit retries

  14. No hidden confirmations

  15. No background mutations

  16. Override invariants

  17. No bypassing durability

  18. No bypassing single-writer rules

  19. No bypassing fail-closed behavior

  20. Hide consequences

  21. No silent partial success

  22. No best-effort execution
  23. No “eventual” control-plane effects

Any of the above would violate AeroDB’s philosophy and are forbidden.

4. Human-in-the-Loop Model

Phase 7 is explicitly designed around a human-in-the-loop execution model.

This means:

  • Every mutating action requires an explicit operator request
  • Every request must be explainable before execution
  • Every action must be confirmable by the operator
  • Every outcome must be observable and auditable

The system does nothing unless a human asks it to.

5. Authority Separation

Phase 7 introduces no new authority over data correctness.

Authority boundaries:

  • Data plane authority: Phases 0–6
  • Control plane authority: Phase 7

The control plane:

  • May request actions
  • May observe system state
  • May surface explanations

The control plane:

  • May NOT decide correctness
  • May NOT infer safety
  • May NOT repair inconsistencies

If the control plane requests an invalid action, the request MUST be rejected explicitly.

6. Determinism Guarantee

All Phase 7 behavior MUST be deterministic.

Given identical:

  • System state
  • Operator input
  • Configuration

Phase 7 MUST:

  • Present identical information
  • Produce identical explanations
  • Accept or reject actions identically

No Phase 7 behavior may depend on:

  • Timing
  • Ordering of UI events
  • Retry timing
  • UI refresh behavior

7. Failure Philosophy

Phase 7 MUST fail closed and loudly.

Failure rules:

  • If an action cannot be proven safe → it is rejected
  • If system state is ambiguous → no action is taken
  • If the control plane crashes → no partial action occurs

The control plane MUST NEVER attempt:

  • Partial execution
  • Roll-forward repair
  • Automatic retry

Operator re-issuance is the only recovery mechanism.

8. Idempotence and Replay

Phase 7 actions are not implicitly idempotent.

An operator action:

  • Is either executed exactly once
  • Or not executed at all

If a client retries a request:

  • The system must detect duplicates
  • Or explicitly reject the retry

Silent re-execution is forbidden.

9. Observability as a First-Class Requirement

Phase 7 is the primary interface through which humans understand AeroDB.

Therefore:

  • All state transitions must be observable
  • All decisions must have explanations
  • All rejections must reference violated invariants
  • All actions must leave an audit trail

Observability is passive.

It must never influence control flow.

10. Auditability and Accountability

Phase 7 MUST make post-incident analysis possible.

This includes:

  • Who requested an action
  • When it was requested
  • What state existed at the time
  • Why the action was accepted or rejected
  • What invariants were relied upon

If a past action cannot be reconstructed, Phase 7 has failed its purpose.

11. Security Boundary (Conceptual)

Phase 7 defines security boundaries, even if enforcement is deferred.

This includes:

  • What actions are considered privileged
  • What information is considered sensitive
  • What boundaries exist between observers and actors

Actual authentication and authorization mechanisms may be implemented in later phases, but boundaries must be explicit now.

12. Compatibility with Future Phases

Phase 7 MUST NOT pre-commit AeroDB to:

  • Any specific UI framework
  • Any specific deployment model
  • Any specific auth system
  • Any cloud-provider assumptions

Phase 7 defines behavioral contracts, not implementation choices.

13. Freeze Criteria

Phase 7 may be frozen only when:

  1. All operator actions are explicitly specified
  2. All failure modes are documented
  3. No automation exists
  4. All actions are explainable
  5. All invariants are preserved
  6. Auditability is demonstrably complete

14. Final Statement

Phase 7 exists to make AeroDB usable by humans without making it dangerous.

It is intentionally conservative.

It prefers:

  • Rejection over ambiguity
  • Explicit failure over silent action
  • Human responsibility over system autonomy

If Phase 7 ever makes a decision on behalf of an operator, it is wrong.

This vision is non-negotiable.

END OF PHASE 7 VISION