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Add policy simulation and change-impact analysis lab - #121

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cdcavell merged 11 commits into
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issue_work
Aug 21, 2026
Merged

Add policy simulation and change-impact analysis lab#121
cdcavell merged 11 commits into
mainfrom
issue_work

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Summary

Adds the Milestone 8 hands-on lab for policy simulation and change-impact analysis.

This change introduces an intermediate lab that teaches learners how to compare a baseline policy and a candidate policy against the same representative contexts before rollout.

The lab covers:

  • Baseline versus candidate policy evaluation.
  • Replaying identical deterministic contexts across both policy versions.
  • Structured comparison of outcomes, reason codes, and contributing policy identities.
  • Detection of newly denied operations.
  • Detection of newly allowed operations.
  • Detection of new acknowledgment requirements.
  • Detection of new escalation requirements.
  • Identification of unchanged cases and reason-only changes.
  • Expected-change plans versus unexpected regressions.
  • Boundary contexts and precedence effects.
  • Tenant-specific overlay simulation.
  • Historical versus synthetic simulation data.
  • Sensitive-data considerations for replay corpora.
  • Candidate policy identity and provenance.
  • Rollout and rollback reasoning.
  • Optional probabilistic-signal replay using captured observations.
  • Machine-readable difference reports and focused regression tests.
  • The limitations of simulation as evidence rather than proof of production safety.

The lab also establishes the required architectural invariant:

Simulation may evaluate policy and produce decision evidence, but it must never invoke protected execution.

The change also:

  • Adds the lab to intermediate lab navigation.
  • Updates the Labs index and lab counts.
  • Cross-links the lab from Practical Policy Testing and Decision-Table Strategies.
  • Cross-links the lab from Policy Versioning and Decision Provenance.
  • Marks Policy simulation complete under issue [Learning]: Add policy simulation and change-impact lab #116.
  • Marks Milestone 8 — Governance and Policy Architecture as complete.

The core distinction remains:

Testing asks whether a policy behaves as specified. Simulation additionally asks what would change if a candidate policy became authoritative.

The simulator exposes those changes but does not make the rollout decision or execute real-world side effects.

Closes#116

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cdcavell merged commit a88430a into mainAug 21, 2026
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cdcavell deleted the issue_work branch August 21, 2026 18:13
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[Learning]: Add policy simulation and change-impact lab

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