> **PUBLIC-SURFACE BOUNDARY / 2026-08-03** > This dated artifact is preserved for inspection. Its original document date remains historical; public access was reviewed August 3, 2026. It is not current certification, an open license, causal proof, or permission to deploy. Check the live Versions and Evidence pages for the current claim boundary. # PBHP — The Eight Gates (Human Edition) ### the whole protocol as eight plain questions you can run on paper in five minutes **What this is:** a one-page on-ramp (G1). PBHP's decision flow is a spec sheet of numbered steps; this is the same flow in plain language — eight questions, in order, that anyone can run on a decision without a computer in the loop. Run the gates, keep the receipt. **Status:** **v0.1 — ACCEPTED 2026-06-25** (drafted ledger R-2026-06-25-05; accepted ledger R-2026-06-25-06). HUMAN-tier teaching surface; sterile register, sterility-grep clean; no internal vocabulary by design. Scoped claim; Listed ≠ shipped. **Source:** PBHP v1.0 CORE §3 — the **Step 0 + 7-step flow** (`04_synthesis/00_PBHP_v1.0_CORE.md`). The CORE spec is canonical for the architecture; this is its plain-language presentation. Where the two diverge, CORE governs the structure and this governs the wording. --- ## The eight gates **Gate 0 — Are you entitled to use this honestly?** *(Competence Gate.)* Five honest checks before you start: (1) this governs *how you decide*, not whether you get the result you want; (2) it may block something you'd prefer to do; (3) it puts harm to the least-powerful ahead of speed, optics, and convenience; (4) it can require you to wait or refuse even when the action is legal or popular; (5) it cannot be "passed" by clever wording. If you can't honestly check all five, don't use the protocol to bless the action — it is not a shield or a compliance ritual. **Gate 1 — Write down exactly what you're about to do.** *(Intake.)* One clear, specific statement of the action, stable enough that someone else would read it the same way you do. A vague action cannot be checked. **Gate 2 — Door, Wall, or Gap?** *(Classify.)* Clearly fine → **Door**: do it, and log it. Clearly forbidden → **Wall**: refuse, and log it. Not clear → **Gap** — and the rest of the gates exist for exactly this case. "Unclear" is a real, first-class answer, not a delayed yes. **Gate 3 — Who pays first if you're wrong?** *(Who-pays-first.)* Name the actual person or group who bears the first cost. Can it be undone, and how? If you can't name who pays, you don't understand the action yet. **Gate 3.5 — Would you accept this if you were on the receiving end?** *(Power-Inversion.)* Picture yourself with no power, *receiving* this decision instead of making it. Would you still endorse it? If not, it probably only looks right because you are the one holding the power. **Gate 4 — How bad if it goes wrong?** *(Harm threshold.)* **GREEN** — routine, no real harm. **YELLOW** — recoverable; proceed with a safeguard. **ORANGE** — an identifiable third party could be harmed; name who pays and have a way back. **RED** — serious; more than one person has to sign off. **BLACK** — catastrophic or irreversible; refuse, and no later permission overrides it. **Gate 5 — How much rigor does it need?** *(Tier-route.)* Match the effort to the stakes: **HUMAN** (a paper checklist and, if you can, a witness) → **MIN** → **CORE** → **ULTRA** (the most rigor and the most approval). A household choice and a life-or-death choice should not get the same five minutes. **Gate 6 — Argue the other side, then say why anyway.** *(Maybe / Therefore.)* Write the strongest *honest* case **against** doing it (the "Maybe"), then the honest reason you are proceeding anyway (the "Therefore"). If your case-against is a strawman, you are not finished. Anything rated BLACK never reaches this gate — it was already refused at Gate 4. **Gate 7 — Write the receipt before you act.** *(Receipt + Red-Team.)* Record the decision — what it is, who pays first, the threshold, and both halves of Maybe/Therefore — **before** it happens. *No record, no action.* The gate you landed on decides the action (GREEN → proceed, YELLOW → proceed with mitigations, ORANGE → constrain, RED → refuse or delay, BLACK → absolute refusal). Quietly re-rating a decision to reach the gate you wanted is the exact failure the receipt exists to catch. ## The rule under all eight **The record comes before the act, and the gate — not your preference — sets the action.** Everything else is detail. ## When there is genuinely no time Real crisis only — when *waiting itself* would cause irreversible harm to low-power people (not "I feel rushed," not "the deadline is soon," not "they're insisting"). Run the short stack in this order: **Care** (protect the least-powerful from immediate harm first) → **Truth** (act on the best evidence you have, even if incomplete) → **Agency** (keep alternatives and a way back open) → **Judgment** (log it and accept review once it's over). Then **re-run the full eight gates afterward and write down what you missed.** The crisis shortcut is a temporary override, never a standing license. --- **One line:** *eight questions, in order — am I entitled to ask, what exactly am I doing, is it Door/Wall/Gap, who pays first, would I accept it from the other side, how bad if wrong, how much rigor, argue-then-proceed, and write it down before I act.* *Firewall: HUMAN-tier teaching surface; plain-language extract of CORE §3; sterile register, no internal vocabulary; scoped-claim draft; not validated evidence; not shipped.*