Ideas · Builder Notes
Fail closed when the purpose list is missing
In Kognita alpha a missing or empty purpose list now denies every call, closing a Tier 0 defect where no list meant every purpose passed.
The purpose check passed everything when no purpose list was configured. An empty configuration was the most permissive one.
A missing or empty list now fails closed. The AI gateway takes a repeatable --purposes flag and the MCP proxy a purposes list in its root config.
With neither list set, kognita serve denies every call on PURPOSE. Safe defaults have to survive a lazy configuration.
One Tier 0 defect closed, and I wrote down the roadmap drift around it. This was a stop-gap. The use-case register in 0.4 later replaced the free-text purpose list.
What I'd do differently
I'd skip the free-text purpose list and go straight to a register with named owners. 0.4 replaced it within weeks anyway.
If you're building one
Test your empty configuration. It is the one most people will actually run.
Sources
Kognita is an open-source alpha. This note comes from Kognita PR #18 in the Kognita repository.