Decision Classes

The following decision classes consistently create non-revocable exposure under unresolved uncertainty:

• Commitment / Non-Commitment
• Site / Location
• Sequence / Order of Operations
• Permanence / Duration
• Authority Transfer
• Access & Corridor Control
• Coupling & Dependency Creation
• Automation & Autonomy Permissioning
• Disclosure & Signaling
• Standard & Precedent Setting
   

These classes are invariant across domains. Decision Screens are structured evaluations applied to these classes within specific physical and institutional environments. Courts of Irreversibility describe where these decision classes manifest. Decision Screens govern whether they are admissible.

The catalog is organized by the Courts of Irreversibility:

1. Subsurface Court: what lies beneath and cannot be directly seen
2. Placement Court: where infrastructure fixes future access
3. Topology Court: how networks create dependency
4. Authority Court: when capital, regulation, and delegation harden
5. Precedent Court: when early exceptions become permanent norms  

Each screen governs a specific decision class within one of these courts.

Subsurface systems embed ignorance at the moment learning requires disturbance. These screens govern whether drilling, stimulation, injection, extraction, excavation, or subsurface access remains admissible before geological uncertainty hardens into irreversible exposure.

Determination: Determines whether exploratory disturbance remains admissible when the act of learning itself alters the system being studied.

Contexts include: Planetary drilling, lunar volatile trenching, seabed sampling, subglacial exploration, exploratory wells

Determination: Determines whether a subsurface reservoir may be disturbed under unresolved geological uncertainty.

Contexts include: Carbon storage, geothermal systems, hydrogen storage, fluid-bearing reservoirs
 

Determination: Determines whether injection into a subsurface reservoir remains admissible before pressure regimes, plume migration, or containment assumptions become irreversible.

Contexts include: Offshore carbon storage, onshore carbon storage, subsurface gas storage, long-horizon containment systems

Determination: Determines whether reservoir stimulation remains admissible before induced seismicity, fracture pathway evolution, or stress transfer creates irreversible exposure.

Contexts include: Geothermal energy, enhanced geothermal systems, subsurface stimulation programs

Determination: Determines whether an extraction pathway may be initiated before basin-scale uncertainty, lock-in, or path dependence becomes governance-dominant.

Contexts include: Critical minerals, subsurface resource basins, frontier extraction systems

Determination: Determines whether monitoring systems can detect relevant failure conditions before irreversible propagation occurs.

Contexts include: Carbon storage monitoring, induced seismicity monitoring, leakage detection, subsurface containment validation

Determination: Determines whether pre-existing wellbores or legacy penetrations create inadmissible leakage, pressure, or containment exposure.

Contexts include: Mature basins, storage reservoirs, carbon injection systems, depleted fields

Determination: Determines whether a proposed activity risks shifting a subsurface pressure regime into a state that cannot be responsibly governed once initiated.

Contexts include: Injection systems, geothermal reservoirs, pressure-sensitive basins

Placement decisions often determine future access, exclusion, control, and development sequence before systems are fully built. These screens govern whether infrastructure placement remains admissible before location itself becomes a one-way door.

Determination: Determines whether a proposed infrastructure location remains admissible given lock-in, exclusion effects, and future path dependence.

Contexts include: Energy infrastructure, marine systems, logistics systems, long-lived physical assets

Determination: Determines whether an offshore route or corridor may be fixed without creating premature physical, ecological, or jurisdictional lock-in.

Contexts include: Subsea cables, export routes, offshore pipelines, marine infrastructure corridors

Determination: Determines whether a landing point decision fixes downstream system architecture, dependency, or exclusion before uncertainty is adequately resolved.

Contexts include: Export cable landfalls, pipeline terminals, coastal infrastructure interfaces
 

Determination: Determines whether a transmission route remains admissible before corridor fixation hardens capital, regulatory, and land-use commitments.

Contexts include: Utility-scale transmission, grid expansion, interconnection-driven routing

Determination: Determines whether an access path into a subsurface environment remains admissible before disturbance pathways themselves create irreversible exposure.

Contexts include: drilling corridors, exploration access pathways, excavation access sequencing

Determination: Determines whether a landing-site decision fixes future access, infrastructure logic, exclusion zones, or governance posture prematurely.

Contexts include: Lunar surface systems, planetary logistics architecture, frontier exploration infrastructure

Determination: Determines whether infrastructure sequencing creates irreversible lock-in before system architecture and dependencies are understood.

Contexts include: Renewable energy build-out, offshore wind zones, hydrogen networks, frontier infrastructure systems
 

Once topology stabilizes, systems become dependent on pathways that are difficult to unwind. These screens govern whether network architecture remains admissible before dependency structures become irreversible.

Determination: Determines whether a system’s architecture creates dependency relationships that eliminate future flexibility or amplify failure propagation.

Contexts include: power infrastructure, marine logistics, industrial systems, orbital coordination networks

Determination: Determines whether grid entry, queue participation, or upgrade dependence creates inadmissible lock-in before broader system exposure is visible.

Contexts include: utility-scale generation, storage projects, transmission access, grid-linked infrastructure

Determination: Determines whether reliance on shared infrastructure creates correlated exposure or structural dependence that cannot later be unwound.

Contexts include: Export systems, marine infrastructure, grid capacity, logistics hubs

Determination: Determines whether a proposed system architecture creates concentrated nodes whose failure or capture would govern downstream system behavior.

Typical contexts: Infrastructure hubs, coordination hubs, export bottlenecks, strategic chokepoints

Determination: Determines whether coupling between physical systems creates hidden escalation pathways, non-linear failure propagation, or dependence beyond local project boundaries.

Contexts include: Energy-water coupling, shared export systems, interdependent industrial infrastructure
 

Determination: Determines whether orbital architecture creates inadmissible congestion, coordination dependence, or collision-risk normalization.

Contexts include: constellation design, orbital shell occupancy, traffic coordination systems, autonomous orbital operations

Irreversible commitment often occurs before physical action begins. These screens govern whether authority remains intact as capital, regulation, licensing posture, or delegated control begin to harden.

Determination: Formal determination on whether authority may be exercised at the irreversible threshold while retaining commitment integrity.

Contexts include: Capital-intensive or first-of-kind infrastructure, threshold authorizations, high-consequence execution decisions, irreversible operational activation, sovereign transitions 

Determination: Determines whether capital deployment, sequencing, or sunk-cost dynamics are already undermining refusal credibility.

Contexts include: Multi-phase infrastructure programs, energy development, major capital deployment sequences, portfolio concentration

Determination: Determines whether regulatory posture has already hardened commitment before physical exposure begins.

Contexts include: Permit sequencing, filing posture, public commitment structures, licensing pathways

Determination: Determines whether participation in a licensing pathway forecloses later refusal or structurally commits the institution before evidence stabilizes.

Contexts include: Infrastructure licensing, long-horizon industrial systems, regulated resource activity

Determination: Determines whether a system may be committed under multi-generational liability conditions without transferring unbounded future exposure.

Contexts include: Nuclear waste, permanent storage systems, long-life environmental liabilities, decommissioning-sensitive infrastructure

Determination: Determines whether authority is being transferred to institutions, procedures, or automated systems before uncertainty is sufficiently bounded.

Contexts include: Autonomous systems, operational delegation, escalation logic automation, institutional reliance on de facto authority layers

Determination: Determines whether capital or institutional commitment to a resource system is admissible before prospectivity models are sufficiently constrained.

Contexts include: critical mineral basins, geothermal exploration, planetary resource systems, frontier extraction environments

Determination: Determines whether a system may be committed under long-duration or effectively permanent liability conditions.

Contexts include: Carbon storage permanence, long-lived infrastructure, planetary installations, geological containment systems

Early actions often establish norms that govern everything that follows. These screens govern whether a proposed action creates precedent that later institutions may be unable to reverse.

Determination: Determines whether a proposed commitment establishes a norm that would govern future sector behavior.

Contexts include: Frontier governance, emerging infrastructure sectors, first-of-kind approvals, contested resource systems

Determination: Determines whether a pilot, demonstration, or exception effectively normalizes a future regime.

Contexts include: Pilot extraction, experimental deployment, test authorizations, first-wave infrastructure exceptions

Determination: Determines whether tolerating a current condition creates a future standard that cannot later be withdrawn.

Contexts include: Acceptable loss thresholds, environmental tolerance, congestion tolerance, debris or disturbance normalization

Determination: Determines whether autonomous or semi-autonomous action may be authorized without normalizing inadmissible delegation regimes.

Contexts include: Autonomous logistics, orbital maneuver automation, industrial autonomy, escalation-sensitive systems

Determination: Determines whether a proposed orbital activity establishes a precedent that contributes to irreversible congestion, dependence, or governance degradation.

Contexts include: Constellation scale, debris tolerance, maneuver coordination norms, orbital governance structures

Determination: Determines whether early seabed disturbance creates a precedent for future activity that cannot later be credibly contained.

Contexts include: Seafloor mining, marine pilot disturbance, marine extraction tests, frontier marine governance

Determination: Determines whether an early planetary action establishes a norm governing future access, extraction, infrastructure, or exclusion.

Contexts include: Planetary infrastructure, first-of-kind resource acces, frontier governance systems, lunar surface activity

Determination: Determines whether a proposed disturbance risks triggering environmental regime shifts that cannot later be reversed.

Contexts include: Seabed mining, polar ecosystems, subglacial lakes, planetary volatile environments

The Courts of Irreversibility describe distinct mechanisms through which systems lose optionality.

In many real-world decisions, however, exposure does not arise from a single mechanism. Instead, multiple courts interact simultaneously.

For example:

• a subsurface resource decision may fix infrastructure placement
• infrastructure placement may determine network topology
• network topology may harden capital and institutional commitments
   

When these interactions occur, evaluating each court independently can obscure system-level exposure.

Cross-court screens examine whether interacting irreversible thresholds create conditions that cannot be responsibly governed when assessed in isolation.

Determines whether interacting irreversible thresholds across multiple Courts of Irreversibility create exposure that cannot be responsibly governed when evaluated separately.

In some systems, the combination of subsurface uncertainty, infrastructure placement, network dependency, institutional commitment, and precedent formation produces structural exposure that does not appear within any single court.

This screen evaluates those interactions and determines whether the combined system remains admissible.

Contexts include: 

• integrated energy infrastructure systems
• offshore infrastructure networks
• large-scale energy transition architectures
• cross-border infrastructure corridors
• planetary logistics and exploration systems
• multi-layer infrastructure development programs

Typical court interactions examined: 

1. Subsurface + Placement: disturbance decisions that determine infrastructure location
2. Placement + Topology: corridor fixation that hardens network dependency
3. Topology + Authority: infrastructure architectures that eliminate institutional exit paths
4. Authority + Precedent: early commitments that normalize future system behavior
5. Multi-court interaction: systems where several irreversible thresholds emerge simultaneously

Where cross-court exposure exists, individual screens may no longer provide an adequate decision boundary.

The Coupled Irreversibility Interaction Screen evaluates whether the combined system remains governable before irreversible commitments occur.

When interactions produce structural exposure, the screen may determine that the system must be:

• deferred pending architectural revision
• re-sequenced across courts
• or refused until the interaction can be governed.