Approve a Design That Isn't Clean
Goal: ship a design that carries known imperfection, with the risk owned on the record instead of waved through or stuck forever. Three mechanisms exist for three kinds of "not clean"; use the one that matches.
Open Gap You Cannot Decide Yet
The technology choice belongs to procurement, another team, next quarter. Defer it with an exception: capability, reason, review-by date. The gap stops blocking while the exception is active, and starts again the day it expires.
Failing Control or Overridden Design
The control fails for a reason the business accepts, or an architect override carries judgment the checks did not endorse. Risk sign-off: an authority other than the author accepts the residual risk, recorded against this design version. The control stays visibly failing; what changes is that it is carried knowingly.
Risk Identified, Not Fixable Now
A finding from review or analysis that is real but accepted. Treat it on the register: accepted or transferred, with the treatment recorded. Open risks block; treated ones do not.
What This Adds Up To
| Mechanism | For | Expires? |
|---|---|---|
| Exception | An undecided technology choice | Yes, on its review-by date |
| Risk sign-off | Failing controls, overrides, blocked reviews | On material design change |
| Risk treatment | Identified risks being carried | When you close it |
All three are visible in the evidence pack, and none of them silences the platform: drift keeps watching what you accepted.
The Anti-pattern
The one thing this product will not let you do is approve past the gate silently. If you find yourself wanting exactly that, the honest version is one of these three, and it takes five minutes.