0003: The decision is the strictest severity among the reasons

• Status: accepted
• Date: 2026-09-30

Context

An invoice can trip several checks at once: a rounding difference, a price variance, and an overbilled quantity. The pipeline needs one decision that a person or a script can act on, and the person needs to see every finding, not only the one that decided.

Decision

Every check emits Reason objects with a code from reasons.CODES and a severity of info, review, or reject. pipeline.decide() returns reject if any reason rejects, needs_review if any reason needs review, and auto_approve otherwise. info reasons never block approval.

Consequences

• Adding a rule means adding a code and a severity; the decision logic doesn't change.
• Results always list every reason, so a reviewer sees the full picture.
• Weighting or scoring reasons isn't possible without a new decision; tune thresholds in the policy instead.