BRICS Architecture — System Laws & Invariants
Version: 1.0
Last Updated: 2026-03-20
Status: Launch-ready (targeting April 27, 2026)
Core System Laws (Enforceable Invariants)
These are non-negotiable architectural constraints, enforced at compile time, deployment time, and runtime.
Law 1: Unidirectional Public Boundary
- Public layer (marketing website) is read-only output from approved sources.
- Inbound sensitive data flows are blocked at network and service layer.
- No authenticated administrative endpoints are reachable from the public internet.
- Enforcement: network ACLs, service-mesh policies, output validation firewall.
Law 2: Spine (Strategy) Does Not Store Customer Data
- Spine contains AI logic, policy, agent constraints, and governance rules.
- Spine may read minimal customer context needed for decision-making, but only as sanitized summaries.
- Spine must never store or persist PII, financial records, NDAs, or project files.
- Spine data is non-sensitive and can be replicated to Owners Room for auditing.
- Enforcement: schema validation, data classification tags, DLP scanning, audit logging.
Law 3: System B Does Not Store Bulk Sensitive Records Beyond Routing
- System B is the operational engine: onboarding, project flow, pricing, confirmations.
- System B may store a minimal “ assignment record” (contractor ID → state BRIC, project metadata).
- System B must never ingest state-level sensitive data (customer NDAs, payment logs, project files).
- System B routes work to correct State BRIC, which owns and stores sensitive data.
- Enforcement: role-based databasepermissions, schema constraints, inter-service call validation.
Law 4: State BRICs Are Fully Isolated and Key-Compartmented
- Each state BRIC operates independently within its boundary.
- State BRIC may serve multiple contractors assigned to that state, but data does not leave the state.
- Each state BRIC has separate encryption keys and separate IAM principals.
- Cross-state data flow is forbidden (architectural invariant).
- Enforcement: separate databases/KMS vaults per state, network routes, access control policies, automated scanning.
Law 5: Owners Room Is Restricted, MFA-Protected, and Non-Bulk-Export
- Owners Room is a low-traffic control plane for lifecycle management and strategic oversight.
- Owners Room can view read-only summaries (health, audit logs, compliance status) but cannot bulk-export raw sensitive data.
- Activation of new state BRICs requires dual-auth (owner + compliance agent signature).
- Owners Room endpoints are not indexed and require MFA (hardware token or strong authenticator).
- Enforcement: VPN-gating, IP allowlist, MFA enforcement, credential management vault, session timeouts.
Law 6: Compliance Gate Precedes Business-Calling Workflows
- Outbound sales calls, notifications, and contractual outreach are disabled by default.
- Business-calling workflows become active only after a signed Compliance OK artifact is present.
- Compliance Agent is the first automation to come online; all others wait.
- Enforcement: boolean flag gating, artifact signature verification, test suite validation.
Law 7: Stitch Brick Integrity Is Mandatory on All State-Level Micro-Bricks
- Every micro-brick (customer record, project file, payment log, NDA) is:
- SHA-256 hashed (content integrity),
- Append-only logged (Merkle tree, tamper-evident),
- Replicated via consensus (majority quorum, Raft/Paxos class),
- Periodically verified (recompute hash, compare), and
- Auto-healed on mismatch (checkpoint restore + log replay).
- Enforcement: immutable schema, Merkle commitment on every write, periodic verification jobs, quarantine+replace on persistent mismatch.
Law 8: No Implicit Network Trust Between BRICs
- Every BRIC-to-BRIC call is authenticated (service identity) and authorized (explicit policy).
- Deny-by-default; allow-list only approved calls.
- Internal communication uses mTLS where possible; service mesh can enforce policies.
- Enforcement: mTLS sidecar proxies, IAM policy, call-site validation, audit logging.
BRIC Boundary Contracts
Each BRIC exposes a strict interface: allowed inputs, outputs, and side effects.
Public Layer
Input: none (one-way publication only)
Output: sanitized marketing content, public pricing, onboarding entrypoint
Side-effects: none (read-only to published assets)
Dependencies: none on other BRICs; may read published assets from content store
Spine
Input: regulatory updates (official sources), AI risk telemetry (from Overseer)
Output: policy artifacts, system laws, agent constraints
Side-effects: none on customer data
Dependencies: none on System B or State BRICs; may publish to Owners Room audit log
System B
Input: lead contact info (from Public), contractor credentials (from onboarding)
Output: assignment record (contractor → state), confirmation status, pricing summary
Side-effects: routes work to State BRIC, logs assignment
Dependencies: reads from Public (state list), reads from own schema, writes to State BRIC (RPC call)
State BRIC (per-state)
Input: assignment (from System B), contractor calls
Output: project deliverables, payment/escrow confirmation
Side-effects: stores sensitive data (state-owned), replicates via Raft/consensus
Dependencies: trusts Spine for policy artifact verification, depends on System B for work routing
Owners Room
Input: admin actions (activate state, view logs)
Output: read-only summaries (health, audit, compliance status)
Side-effects: can trigger state activation (approval gate)
Dependencies: reads Spine (policy), reads State BRICs (audit logs), reads Overseer (risk telemetry)
Permission Matrix
| Role |
Allowed Actions |
Scope |
BRIC Access |
Network |
| Public (marketing) |
Read published assets |
Public layer only |
Public |
Internet-facing, CDN |
| Contractor |
Create project, submit work |
Assigned state scope |
System B → State BRIC (assigned) |
VPN-required, state-scoped |
| System B |
Route work, log assignments |
Cross-state coordination |
System B, Spine (read), State BRIC (write via RPC) |
Private network |
| State BRIC |
Store/manage state data |
Single state |
State BRIC (own state) |
Private network |
| Spine |
Enforce policy, govern AI |
System-wide |
Spine, Overseer (write telemetry) |
Private network |
| Owners Room |
Lifecycle mgmt, emergency controls |
System-wide |
All BRICs (read), Spine (read), State BRIC (read/approve) |
VPN + MFA |
| Overseer (governance) |
Monitor, gate, escalate |
System-wide |
All BRICs (observe), Compliance Agent (notify) |
Private network |
| Compliance Agent |
Ingest regs, approve workflows |
System-wide |
Spine (read/write), business-call gate (write) |
Offline initially, internet for reg sources only |
Deployment Model: Cloud + On-Prem Hybrid
Assumed topology (verification required with infrastructure team):
- Public layer: CDN + managed edge (AWS CloudFront, Fastly, or similar).
- Spine, System B, Owners Room: private cloud / managed Kubernetes cluster (isolated network).
- State BRICs: dedicated database + replication cluster per state (StatefulSet on k8s or managed DBaaS with state-scoped accounts).
- Compliance Agent: initially offline; ingests regs via manual upload or secure batch API; output is signed artifact.
- Overseer: sidecar on all BRICs; observes logs and metrics; coordinates governance responses.
Incident Response & Escalation
Prompt Injection Detected
- Overseer detects prompt in system logs (e.g., agent receives unexpected control sequences).
- Escalates to Spine; Spine logs as “AI risk incident.”
- Compliance Agent is notified; business-call gate remains closed until reviewed.
- Incident record is created (immutable audit log).
Data Corruption Detected (Stitch Brick Mismatch)
- State BRIC recomputes SHA-256; detects mismatch.
- Logs as “integrity incident”; quarantines node.
- Restores from last good checkpoint; replays log.
- If restoration fails, node is marked for replacement (provision fresh image from secure supply chain).
- Forensic image captured for post-mortem.
- Owners Room is alerted; escalates if necessary.
Credential Leak Detected
- Secret scanner (e.g., TruffleHog) detects key in repository or logs.
- Overseer creates incident ticket.
- Affected credential is rotated immediately (via key vault).
- Audit log shows timestamp and scope of exposure.
- Owners Room triggers compliance review.
Suspected AI Drift (Model Output Diverges from Policy)
- Overseer compares agent actions to declared policy constraints.
- If divergence exceeds threshold, escalates to Compliance Agent.
- Compliance Agent runs impact assessment (required tests, legal review).
- If risk is high, business-call gate is closed until remediated.
- Incident record is frozen until resolution.
Launch Readiness Checklist (Build to April 27, 2026)
References & Standards
- NIST Digital Identity Framework (for Owners Room MFA & authentication)
- NIST AI RMF & Generative AI Profile (for governance, monitoring, reliability)
- NIST Key Management Guidance (for per-state key compartmentalization)
- OWASP Top 10 for LLM (for prompt injection, insecure output, data poisoning prevention)
- RFC 6962 - Certificate Transparency (Merkle log design inspiration)
- Raft Consensus Algorithm (replicated state machine, leader election)
- SSDF & Secure Supply Chain (for secure build pipelines, trusted images)
- ATLAS (Adversarial ML) (for threat modeling)