Textbook 03 Architecture And Open Core Design

Architecture And Open-Core Design

CAVRA uses an open-core architecture. The public repository contains the Community Edition, public contracts, sample policy packs, API and CLI surfaces, sandbox UI, public-safe AISPM surfaces, and documentation. Enterprise source code lives outside the public repository.

Core Components

Component	Purpose
CLI	Local and automation-facing command interface for policy, decisions, approvals, evidence, registry, release, runtime, and demos.
API	HTTP surface for decisions, policy packs, agents, approvals, evidence, integrations, AISPM samples, and sandbox workflows.
Policy engine	Evaluates action requests against policy packs and runtime context.
Approval store	Tracks pending, approved, denied, expired, and break-glass decisions.
Evidence hub	Generates, signs, verifies, indexes, searches, exports, and retains decision evidence.
Agent registry	Tracks governed agent identities and capabilities.
MCP trust registry	Tracks MCP servers, trust tiers, approval states, capabilities, and tool classifications.
Sandbox GUI	Static public portal that demonstrates runtime governance, evidence, AISPM, reports, and trial flows.
AISPM	AI Security Posture Management surfaces for posture, findings, coverage, reports, trial readiness, and production gates.

Open-Core Boundary

Community Edition includes local governance and public-safe workflows. Enterprise features include organization-wide identity, live connectors, tenant isolation, private policy packs, central dashboards, compliance reporting, production report delivery, and live AISPM ingestion.

See Edition Boundaries and Private Enterprise Repo Plan for detailed separation.

Runtime Planes

CAVRA can be understood through four planes:

• Decision plane: policy evaluation, runtime decisions, command checks, MCP checks, and high-risk action handling.
• Identity and trust plane: agents, MCP trust, OIDC, RBAC, tenant context, and entitlement state.
• Evidence plane: signed evidence, trust roots, attestation, metadata, search, retention, SIEM export, and report packaging.
• Posture plane: AISPM dashboards, findings, control coverage, report center, trial readiness, and production readiness gates.

Decision Request Flow

Every CAVRA integration should preserve the same logical flow:

1. Capture the attempted action from a CLI call, agent hook, MCP tool, CI runner, API request, or Enterprise connector.
2. Normalize the action into a decision request with actor, action type, resource, repository, policy pack, policy mode, and tenant context when applicable.
3. Load policy, registry, approval, identity, and evidence context.
4. Return a decision: allow, deny/block, requires approval, shadow, or break glass.
5. Enforce the decision at the caller.
6. Generate evidence and make it available for search, report, attestation, or AISPM ingestion.

The architecture is intentionally caller-neutral. A local CLI, a GitHub Actions runner, a Claude Code wrapper, and an Enterprise runtime workflow should all be able to ask the same control question: should this action proceed?

Data Boundaries

Data type	Community handling	Enterprise handling
Policy packs	Public and local policy YAML.	Private policy registry, signed packs, tenant assignment.
Agent identity	Local agent/profile records.	SSO/RBAC, tenant-bound identity, audit records.
MCP trust	Public-safe registry examples.	Organization trust registry and connector-backed validation.
Evidence	Local bundles, sample exports, public-safe packets.	Tenant audit store, retention, immutable storage, SIEM/export connectors.
AISPM	Static samples and schemas.	Live ingestion, streaming, report delivery, tenant posture.

Why Open-Core Matters

The public repository must teach the control model without leaking private enterprise implementation, customer evidence, connector credentials, tenant secrets, or paid policy packs. That is why the Community Edition exposes the shape of decisions, policy, evidence, GUI, and public-safe AISPM while Enterprise adds production data plane integrations and commercial operating controls.

Community To Enterprise Path

CAVRA Community Edition lets a team learn the operating model locally. A typical path is:

1. Run local evaluations with starter policies.
2. Generate evidence bundles and verify attestations.
3. Use the sandbox GUI to understand decisions and AISPM.
4. Add CI/CD enforcement and required evidence.
5. Move into Enterprise evaluation when SSO, RBAC, tenant isolation, live connectors, and production reporting are required.

Check Your Understanding

1. Which plane produces signed proof for audit and reporting?
2. Why does the public repository avoid private connector and tenant implementation details?
3. What changes when a team moves from Community to Enterprise?

What's Next

Read Editions, Licensing, And Feature Boundaries to choose the right operating model.