Third-Party Runtime Boundaries#

Intended can govern third-party runtimes, but it does not inherit responsibility for every property of the upstream runtime. This page draws the shared-responsibility line so security reviewers know which guarantees are Intended's and which remain the customer's.

Intended is responsible for#

• normalizing requests into structured intent (the Open Intent representation)
• evaluating the customer's policy set
• minting Ed25519 Authority Decision Tokens for permitted actions
• approval and escalation workflows
• the immutable per-tenant SHA-256 audit hash chain inside Intended

The customer is responsible for#

• deploying and operating the third-party runtime
• reviewing generated policy before apply
• securing runtime credentials, hosts, and outbound destinations
• staging and change management for alpha or preview upstream software
• ensuring upstream runtime use complies with third-party terms

OpenShell / NemoClaw boundary#

For the current reference integration (@intended-inc/openshell-adapter):

• Intended compiles policy YAML (intended openshell-compile)
• the customer applies the YAML with upstream tooling
• Intended does not remotely administer the upstream runtime by default
• Intended does not warrant that upstream alpha software is production-ready

The enforcement guarantee at the boundary is the same as for any Intended adapter: BaseAdapter.execute() verifies the Authority Token (Ed25519 signature, kid pinning, tenant/adapter/target match, decision === "APPROVED", expiry, and single-use nonce) before the action runs, and fails closed on any check. See Fail-Closed Controls.

Security review checklist#

• validate allowed endpoints before rollout
• require operator review for production scope
• keep fail-closed token verification in downstream enforcement paths
• isolate runtime credentials from Intended API credentials
• test generated policy in staging first

Data handling boundary#

• customer-configured third-party runtimes are not Intended subprocessors merely because Intended compiles policy for them
• data processed directly by those runtimes remains subject to the customer's direct relationship with the upstream provider or target system
• Intended only processes the data required for its own authority evaluation, audit, and integration flows

Recommendation#

Treat reference integrations as governed entry points, not as a transfer of operational responsibility to Intended.

Related docs#

• OpenShell operations runbook
• OpenShell integration threat model