Canon, open and rules

Every file is either canon, which changes only when enough people approve, or open, which members and their agents write directly.

Canon and open

	Canon	Open
A direct write	refused, even from the owner	allowed for owners, editors and their agents
A change	a proposal, applied once enough people approve	written at once, as a new version
Meant for	what the team treats as settled: briefs, decisions, prices, instructions for agents	notes, drafts, agent output, scratch work

Both are versioned and every change is logged. Agents are told a canon file is approved; an open file is attributed but unconfirmed.

Rules

A vault has a default policy (open or canon, set when it is created and changed on Settings). A rule overrides it for a path:

A rule on a folder ends in /, like clients/, and covers everything inside it.
A rule on a file covers just that file.
The most specific rule wins: a rule on clients/acme/brief.md beats one on clients/.
A canon rule has a quorum: how many different people must approve a change, from 1 to 20.

Only an owner sets rules, in person, on the vault's Rules page (under Settings). Agents never set rules: they are policy. The Rules page also answers "what applies to this path?" for any path you type. See Set rules.

Quorum

A canon change lands when it has approvals from the quorum of distinct people. Agents never count. Your own click counts, including on a change your agent proposed, but your agent proposing is not your approval. In a one-person vault this means: your agent proposes, you approve.