Deterministic governance for first changes that can do real damage.
Litmus exists to answer one question, and only one:
What would be irresponsible to touch right now?
If you think that question can be answered safely by automation, this system is not for you.
Litmus is a deterministic governance engine that binds explicit human judgment to a specific repository state.
It does not analyze code.
It does not infer intent.
It does not discover truth.
It enforces responsibility.
Most serious failures in unfamiliar systems are not caused by missing tools.
They are caused by confidence surviving longer than evidence.
The most dangerous moment is the first change — when understanding is weakest and consequences are largest.
Litmus exists to make unjustified action mechanically impossible.
Litmus operates under a fixed contract:
- Input: an immutable repository snapshot
- Input: an explicit set of claims required to act
- Output: version-bound decision artifacts
Any change to the inputs invalidates all prior conclusions.
There is no carry-over trust.
Litmus does not verify reality.
It verifies that someone has explicitly taken responsibility for a claim.
A claim marked known is not “true”.
It is owned.
Changing unknown → known is an act of accountability, not computation.
If required claims are unknown, Litmus refuses to proceed.
Refusal is a successful outcome.
Silence is acceptable.
Action without justification is not.
Identical inputs must produce identical outputs.
Any deviation is a hard failure.
Governance that cannot be reproduced is indistinguishable from opinion.
Litmus is not:
- a scanner
- a static analyzer
- a linter
- a risk score
- a quality signal
If you want automated assurance, use other tools.
Litmus exists precisely where automation is unsafe.
- Engineers accountable for irreversible change
- Leads inheriting systems they do not yet understand
- Organizations that care who said “ready”
If failure carries no personal or organizational cost, Litmus is unnecessary.
This repository is intentionally small.
Its value is not in features, but in constraints that cannot be bypassed.
If the system feels clever, extensible, or impressive, it is incorrect.
Apache 2.0