Constraint

An explicit rule or limit the project must respect — budget ceiling, latency SLO, regulatory requirement, team capacity cap. Violations are LogEntries; constraints themselves do not change when violated.

ID prefix	CONST
State machine	none
MCP server	none
Skill	constraint-management (Layer 3)

Fields

Required

Field	Type	Description
name	string	Kebab-case identifier
description	string	One-sentence statement of the constraint
kind	enum	budget · slo · regulatory · capacity · dependency · policy · other
severity	enum	hard · soft · advisory

Optional

Field	Type	Description
measurement	string	How to determine if the constraint is met
target	string	Threshold or boundary value
source	string	Where the constraint comes from (contract, regulation, decision)
active	boolean	false = no longer in effect (default: true)
related_decisions	DEC-*[]	Decisions that established or relaxed the constraint

Severity levels

Level	Meaning
hard	Cannot violate — work stops until resolved
soft	Flagged and tracked; can be overridden with justification
advisory	Informational — violation noted but no process impact

Example

---
apiVersion: processkit.projectious.work/v1
kind: Constraint
metadata:
  id: CONST-20260411_0916-SteadyMoss-api-latency-slo
  created: '2026-04-11T09:16:00Z'
spec:
  name: api-latency-slo
  description: MCP tool round-trip p99 latency must stay below 200ms.
  kind: slo
  severity: hard
  target: "< 200ms p99"
  measurement: |
    Measured via the observability pipeline from tool-call dispatch to
    server response. Alert fires if exceeded for 5 minutes.
  source: Customer SLA — contract clause 4.2
  related_decisions:
    - DEC-20260409_latency-slo-accepted
---

Notes

• Constraint violations are logged via log_event with event_type: constraint.violated — the Constraint entity itself is not modified.
• A hard constraint violation should surface as a blocked WorkItem or an urgent Discussion.
• Bind a Constraint to a Scope via a constraint-scope Binding to make it scope-specific rather than project-wide.
• Set active: false when a constraint is no longer in effect (SLA renegotiated, regulatory exemption granted).