| name | audit-decisions |
| description | Standardize remediation decisions, baseline-policy entries, and legal-review banners for accepted, deferred, or policy-blocked audit findings. |
Skill: Audit Decisions
Use this skill when an audit finding is accepted, deferred, converted to
policy baseline, or routed to legal review.
This skill provides the governance records that audit-loop uses to
decide whether a finding can count as resolved for convergence.
remediation-decisions.md Template
Create or update remediation-decisions.md with one entry per finding:
## <Finding ID> - <Finding title>
Severity: <Critical | High | Medium | Low>
Decision: <ACCEPT | REMEDIATE | DEFER>
Rationale: <why this decision is appropriate>
Owner: <person/team/role>
Review-by date: <YYYY-MM-DD>
Evidence: <report path and path:line citations>
Decision meanings:
REMEDIATE: fix in repo or required external system.
DEFER: acknowledged but scheduled for a later date with an owner.
ACCEPT: deliberate risk acceptance with baseline-policy entry.
baseline-policy.md Block
Any ACCEPT decision or BLOCKED-POLICY audit-loop item requires a
structured entry in baseline-policy.md:
## <Finding ID> - <Finding title>
Justification: <business/technical reason for exception>
Residual risk level: <Critical | High | Medium | Low>
Approval authority: <name/role or governance body>
Expiry date: <YYYY-MM-DD>
Review cadence: <monthly | quarterly | before launch | other>
Compensating controls: <controls currently reducing risk>
Evidence: <links or path:line citations>
An expired baseline entry does not count as resolved. A baseline entry
without approval authority does not count as resolved.
Legal-review Banner
Any finding touching PII, financial data, auth/authz, or data retention
MUST include this banner in remediation-decisions.md and any roadmap
entry:
WARNING LEGAL REVIEW REQUIRED - do not mark ACCEPT without legal sign-off
Do not mark these findings ACCEPT unless legal sign-off is recorded in
the decision entry and reflected in the baseline-policy approval
authority.
How audit-loop Uses This Skill
audit-loop must invoke this skill before it marks any finding
BLOCKED-POLICY.
Gate requirements for BLOCKED-POLICY:
remediation-decisions.md contains the finding with Decision ACCEPT
or DEFER and a review-by date.
baseline-policy.md contains a complete block for the finding.
- The baseline entry has approval authority and is not expired.
- If the finding touches PII, financial data, auth/authz, or data
retention, the legal-review banner is present and legal sign-off is
recorded.
If any gate requirement is missing, the item remains unresolved and the
audit loop must continue or report TERMINAL BLOCKED.
Failure Modes To Refuse
- Accepting PII, financial, auth/authz, or data-retention risk without
the legal-review banner and sign-off.
- Treating
DEFER as resolved without an owner and review-by date.
- Treating
ACCEPT as resolved without baseline-policy.md.
- Leaving baseline-policy entries without expiry dates.
[SECTION COMPLETE: audit-decisions]