Governance Architecture

Roundtable is not just an AI chat platform — it's a governed AI operating system. Every cross-workspace interaction is authorized by a typed governance contract, authenticated by HKDF-derived cryptographic keys, and encrypted end-to-end with AES-256-GCM.

This page explains how the governance model works, how information flows through contract-controlled channels, and how the topology health engine monitors the entire system in real time.

Consolidated Governance Dashboard

All governance capabilities live on a single /governance page. The dashboard is laid out top-to-bottom:

Governance Score — A 100-point score with letter grade (A+ to F)
Topology Visualization — Interactive, node-reactive network graph
Health Warnings — Collapsible card listing all detected governance issues
Governance Contracts — Full contract list with create/approve/suspend controls
Audit Trail — Scrollable, filterable event log with CSV export

There are no separate pages for contracts, bridges, or topology health — everything is consolidated in one view.

Contract-Governed Communication

Every connection between two workspaces is defined by a governance contract — a typed, versioned agreement that specifies exactly what actions are allowed, who must approve them, and what happens when something goes wrong.

Without a contract, workspaces cannot communicate. There is no default-open mode. The platform enforces a zero-trust posture where every cross-workspace interaction must be explicitly authorized.

┌──────────────┐                              ┌──────────────┐
│   Pharmacy   │──── No contract ────────────▶│     ICU      │  ✗ Blocked
└──────────────┘                              └──────────────┘

┌──────────────┐   MedicationRequest          ┌──────────────┐
│   Pharmacy   │══════════════════════════════▶│     ICU      │  ✓ Allowed
└──────────────┘   (active contract)          └──────────────┘

Contract Structure

Each contract defines:

Field	Purpose
Type	The category of interaction (e.g., `MedicationRequest`, `ComplianceReview`, `DataQuery`)
Source → Target	Directional — who can initiate and who receives
Allowed Actions	Specific operations the source can perform (e.g., `query`, `delegate`, `message`)
Approval Required	Whether human approval is needed before execution
Prerequisites	Conditions that must be met (e.g., "source must have HIPAA training")
Escalation Target	Where to route if the action is denied or fails
Expiration	When the contract expires and must be renewed
Version	Incrementing version — each bump generates a new cryptographic key

:::tip Contracts Are Cryptographic Each contract generates its own HKDF-derived encryption key. Revoking a contract instantly invalidates its key — there is no grace period, no cache to flush, no token to expire. The math stops working. :::

Five Governance Flows

Roundtable enforces five distinct governance flows across the workspace network. Each flow is secured by contracts and audited end-to-end.

1. Information Flow

Information flow defines what data can move where. Contracts are directional — Pharmacy can send medication data to ICU, but ICU cannot send patient vitals to Pharmacy unless a separate contract authorizes it.

                    ┌──────────────┐
                    │   Executive  │
                    └──────┬───────┘
                           │
                    ┌──────┴───────┐
                    │   Contract   │  ComplianceReview
                    └──────┬───────┘
                           │
              ┌────────────┼────────────┐
              ▼            ▼            ▼
       ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐
       │ Finance  │ │    ICU   │ │ Pharmacy │
       └──────────┘ └────┬─────┘ └────┬─────┘
                         │            │
                  ┌──────┴───────┐    │
                  │   Contract   │    │
                  │ MedicationReq│────┘
                  └──────────────┘

Key properties:

Information only flows along contract edges
Each edge is encrypted with its own AES-256-GCM key
The Executive can see all departments, but departments cannot see each other without explicit contracts
Removing a contract immediately severs the information channel

2. Approval Flow

Some contracts require human approval before the AI can execute an action. This is critical in regulated environments where automated decisions must have human oversight.

Pharmacy AI                        ICU AI                         Human Approver
    │                                 │                                │
    │── MedicationRequest ──────────▶ │                                │
    │   (approval_required: true)     │                                │
    │                                 │── Approval request ──────────▶ │
    │                                 │                                │
    │                                 │◀─ Approved ───────────────────│
    │                                 │                                │
    │◀─ Medication list ─────────────│                                │
    │                                 │                                │

Use cases:

HIPAA: medication changes require physician sign-off
Finance: trades above a threshold require compliance approval
M&A: any cross-team communication requires legal review

3. Delegation Flow

Delegation is the core power of the governance model — one workspace's AI can delegate tasks to another workspace's AI, with the contract controlling what can be delegated.

Executive AI                                     Analytics AI
    │                                                │
    │── "Summarize Q2 revenue by region" ──────────▶ │
    │   (contract: DataQuery)                        │
    │   (allowed: query, summarize)                  │
    │                                                │── Queries BigQuery
    │                                                │── Builds summary
    │                                                │
    │◀─ "Revenue summary: NA $12M, EU $8M..." ─────│
    │                                                │

Delegation chains can span multiple hops, with each hop governed by its own contract:

Executive ──Contract──▶ Finance ──Contract──▶ Analytics ──Contract──▶ Data Warehouse
    │                      │                      │                       │
    │    ComplianceReview   │    DataQuery         │    WarehouseAccess    │
    │    (delegate,query)   │    (query,summarize) │    (read-only)       │

Each hop adds its own contract enforcement. The Executive cannot bypass Finance to reach Analytics directly unless it holds its own contract with Analytics.

4. Escalation Flow

When an action is denied or fails, the escalation flow defines where the request goes next. This prevents dead ends and ensures critical workflows have fallback paths.

Pharmacy AI                   ICU AI                    Executive AI
    │                            │                           │
    │── MedicationRequest ─────▶ │                           │
    │   (denied: patient         │                           │
    │    not admitted)           │                           │
    │                            │── Escalation ───────────▶ │
    │                            │   (contract.escalation    │
    │                            │    = "executive")         │
    │                            │                           │── Reviews
    │                            │                           │── Overrides
    │◀─ Override: approved ─────│◀─ Approved ──────────────│
    │                            │                           │

Escalation targets are defined in the contract, not decided at runtime by the AI. This ensures that escalation paths are predictable, auditable, and approved by governance administrators.

5. Audit Flow

Every governance action is logged immutably. The audit flow captures:

Event	What's Logged
Contract created	Who created it, type, source, target, allowed actions, expiration
Contract approved	Who approved, timestamp, any conditions
Request sent	Source workspace, target workspace, contract ID, action type, timestamp
Request approved/denied	Approver identity, decision, reason
Escalation triggered	Original denial, escalation target, outcome
Contract expired	Contract ID, expiration timestamp, whether renewed
Contract revoked	Who revoked, reason, timestamp

In the dashboard, the audit trail is presented as a scrollable panel (400 px max height) with category filter pills and CSV export. See Audit Trail below.

:::warning Encrypted Content Is Not Logged Message payloads are encrypted with AES-256-GCM and are never written to the audit log. The audit trail records that a request was made, what type it was, and whether it succeeded — but not the content of the message. This ensures compliance with data minimization principles. :::

Governance Score

The governance dashboard opens with a 100-point score and a letter grade (A+ through F). The score is computed client-side from the live topology and contract data — no additional API call is required.

Scoring Rubric

Deduction	Points	Trigger
Critical issue	−15 each	Ungoverned bridges, expired contracts, multi-hop cycles
Warning	−5 each	General warnings (excluding unrestricted and SPOFs, which have their own deductions)
Expiring contract	−3 each	Contract expires within 30 days
Unrestricted contract	−5 each	A contract allows unrestricted bidirectional access (message + delegate both ways)
Single point of failure	−3 each	A workspace whose removal would disconnect the topology
Ungoverned bridge	−8 each	Bridge exists with no active governance contract
Coverage gap	−0.3 per %	Percentage of bridges without a matching contract (e.g., 10% gap = −3 points)

Letter Grades

Score Range	Grade	Color
97–100	A+	🟢 Green
93–96	A	🟢 Green
90–92	A−	🟢 Green
87–89	B+	🟡 Yellow-green
83–86	B	🟡 Yellow-green
80–82	B−	🟡 Yellow
77–79	C+	🟡 Yellow
73–76	C	🟠 Orange
70–72	C−	🟠 Orange
60–69	D	🔴 Red
0–59	F	🔴 Red

The score ring and grade badge update in real time as contracts are created, approved, suspended, or expire.

:::tip Node-Scoped Score When a node is selected in the topology (see below), the score recalculates to reflect only the issues that affect that specific workspace. :::

Node-Reactive Dashboard

Clicking any workspace node in the topology visualization re-roots the entire dashboard around that node:

Topology — The graph re-centers on the selected workspace and highlights its direct connections.
Score — The governance score recalculates using only issues that affect the selected node.
Health Warnings — The warnings card filters to show only issues involving that workspace.
Contracts — The contract table dims rows that don't involve the selected workspace and highlights rows that do with an indigo left-border.

A "Viewing: <workspace>" indicator bar appears below the page header showing the selected node, its contract count, and its issue count. Click Clear Selection to return to the full-network view.

Health Warnings

The old static Health Status section has been replaced by a collapsible Health Warnings card. When issues exist, the card appears between the topology and the contracts table with a severity-tinted border (red for critical, amber for warning). It shows:

A summary header with issue counts broken out by severity (critical / warning / info)
Individual issue rows with severity icon, title, and description
Auto-collapses to a single line when all issues are resolved ("Governance Health: All Clear")

The card is a <details> element — users can collapse it to save space.

What the Governance Engine Detects

Check	Severity	What It Means
Ungoverned bridges	🔴 Critical	Two workspaces can communicate without a governance contract — a policy violation
Expired contracts	🔴 Critical	A contract has expired but the bridge still exists — communication is authorized but ungoverned
Circular governance paths	🔴 Critical	Multi-hop contract cycle detected (e.g., A → B → C → A) — can create approval deadlocks
Unrestricted bidirectional access	🟡 Warning	Both workspaces grant each other full access (message + delegate) in both directions
Single points of failure	🟢 Info	Removing one workspace would disconnect others from the network
Expiring soon	🟡 Warning	A contract will expire within 30 days — plan to renew or revoke
Unreachable workspaces	🟡 Warning	A workspace with bridges is disconnected from the main network graph

Audit Trail

The audit trail is displayed as a scrollable panel (max height 400 px) at the bottom of the governance page. It supports:

Filter pills narrow the audit view by event category:

Filter	Matches
All	Every event
Contract	`contract.created`, `contract.approved`, `contract.suspended`, `contract.deleted`, `contract.expired`, `contract.migrated`
Bridge	`bridge.message.sent`, `bridge.message.denied`, `bridge.delegation.sent`, `bridge.delegation.approved`, `bridge.delegation.denied`
Approval	Any event containing "approved" or "denied"
Escalation	Any event containing "escalat"
System	`org.`, `member.`, `workspace.*` events

CSV Export

Click ⬇ Export CSV to download the currently filtered audit entries as a CSV file. The export includes: Timestamp, Action, Badge, Primary detail, Secondary detail, Tertiary detail, and Actor email.

Industry Applications

The governance model maps directly to compliance requirements across regulated industries:

Healthcare (HIPAA)

┌──────────┐  MedicationRequest  ┌──────────┐
│ Pharmacy │════════════════════▶│   ICU    │
└──────────┘                     └────┬─────┘
                                      │
                               PatientReview
                                      │
                                      ▼
                                ┌──────────┐
                                │Executive │
                                └──────────┘

Contracts enforce need-to-know access to patient data (PHI)
Approval flows map to physician sign-off requirements
E2E encryption ensures infrastructure cannot access PHI
Audit trail satisfies HIPAA accounting of disclosures

Financial Services (SEC/MiFID II — Chinese Walls)

┌──────────┐                     ┌──────────┐
│   M&A    │─── No contract ───▶ │ Trading  │  ✗ Wall enforced
└──────────┘                     └──────────┘
      │                                │
  ComplianceReview                ComplianceReview
      │                                │
      ▼                                ▼
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                Compliance                     │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────┘

No contract between M&A and Trading = cryptographic Chinese wall
Both communicate through Compliance via separate contracts with separate keys
Even infrastructure admins cannot read cross-wall communications (AES-256-GCM)
Governance engine detects any attempt to create an unauthorized bridge

Defense & Intelligence (Need-to-Know)

┌──────────┐  ClassifiedBrief  ┌──────────┐
│ Intel    │══════════════════▶│ Command  │
└──────────┘                   └──────────┘
      │                              │
      │                        OperationalOrder
      │                              │
      │                              ▼
      │                        ┌──────────┐
      │                        │  Field   │
      └── No contract ────────▶│  Ops     │  ✗ Need-to-know enforced
                               └──────────┘

Intel can brief Command, but cannot reach Field Ops directly
Command can issue orders to Field Ops via a separate contract
Each contract has its own encryption key — compromise of one channel does not expose others
Contract expiration enforces automatic access revocation

AI Alignment Reviews

Business and Enterprise plans include AI-powered governance alignment analysis against regulatory frameworks.

Supported Frameworks

Framework	Focus Areas
HIPAA	Technical safeguards, administrative safeguards, organizational requirements, breach notification
SOC 2	Trust services criteria (CC1-CC9, A1, C1, PI1)
FINRA	Supervision, books & records, business continuity, consumer privacy
Custom	Paste your own governance specification

What Gets Analyzed

The AI reviews your actual architecture data — no message content, user PII, or file contents are sent:

Workspace topology (names, statuses, connections)
Contract configurations (types, permissions, expiration, escalation targets)
Bridge governance (governed vs. ungoverned connections)
Audit trail summary (action types, actor counts, coverage)
Governance metrics (coverage percentage, active/pending/expired contracts)

Deterministic Scoring

Scores are computed deterministically from gap severities — the same architecture will always produce the same score:

Gap Severity	Point Deduction
Critical	-15
High	-8
Medium	-4
Low	-2
Strength bonus	+2 each (max +10)

Grade scale: 97+ = A+, 93+ = A, 90+ = A-, 87+ = B+, 83+ = B, 80+ = B-, 77+ = C+, 73+ = C, 70+ = C-, 60+ = D, below 60 = F

Rate Limits

Plan	Reviews/Month
Team	Not available
Business	3
Enterprise	Unlimited

PDF Export

Every report can be exported as a PDF with full scoring breakdown, gap analysis, recommendations, and the mandatory disclaimer.

Disclaimer: Alignment scores measure technical governance controls only. They do not constitute legal, regulatory, or compliance advice. Consult qualified counsel for compliance determinations.

What Roundtable Actually Is

Roundtable combines capabilities that enterprises currently buy from four separate vendors:

Capability	Traditional Vendor	Roundtable
Governance workflows	ServiceNow	Contract types, approval flows, escalation paths
Authorization & access control	Okta / Azure AD	HKDF contract keys, per-contract permissions, zero-trust posture
Enterprise architecture	Ardoq / LeanIX	Topology visualization (Heraldry + Roundtable views), health monitoring
AI orchestration	Custom / LangChain	A2A protocol, multi-provider workspaces, tool routing

The difference: these aren't four products bolted together. They're one architecture where governance, authorization, topology, and AI orchestration are the same system — enforced by the same cryptographic primitives, monitored by the same engine, and audited in the same log.

:::info For Enterprise Buyers If you're evaluating Roundtable for regulated workloads (HIPAA, SOX, MiFID II, ITAR), contact us for a security architecture review and a walkthrough of how governance contracts map to your compliance requirements. :::

Consolidated Governance Dashboard​

Contract-Governed Communication​

Contract Structure​

Five Governance Flows​

1. Information Flow​

2. Approval Flow​

3. Delegation Flow​

4. Escalation Flow​

5. Audit Flow​

Governance Score​

Scoring Rubric​

Letter Grades​

Node-Reactive Dashboard​

Health Warnings​

What the Governance Engine Detects​

Audit Trail​

Category Filters​

CSV Export​

Industry Applications​

Healthcare (HIPAA)​

Financial Services (SEC/MiFID II — Chinese Walls)​

Defense & Intelligence (Need-to-Know)​

AI Alignment Reviews​

Supported Frameworks​

What Gets Analyzed​

Deterministic Scoring​

Rate Limits​

PDF Export​

What Roundtable Actually Is​