Machine Authority Failure Taxonomy (MAF)

MAF is a framework for evaluating machine-authority risk in infrastructure.

It classifies the authority boundary that made an outcome possible, not just the action that occurred.

Current taxonomy version: v0.1 (draft).

What MAF Evaluates

A MAF review asks:

• Which authority boundary made this outcome possible?
• Where did authority become broader, stale, ambiguous, bypassable, or compositionally unsafe?

Repository Layout

• taxonomy/: Source of truth taxonomy content (category and class Markdown files)
• schema/: JSON Schemas for taxonomy metadata
• tools/: Validation, build, and link-lint tooling
• guides/: Review and classification guidance
• examples/: Domain examples and case-study placeholders
• dist/: Generated distribution artifacts (MAF-taxonomy.md, MAF-taxonomy.json)

How To Read The Taxonomy

1. Start with taxonomy/maf.yaml for canonical ordering and status.
2. Read category README files for boundaries and intent.
3. Read class files (MAF-A1 ... MAF-F3) for definitions, review questions, and classification boundaries.

Validation

Install dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Run validation:

python tools/validate.py
python tools/lint-links.py

Build Generated Distribution

python tools/build.py

Dist Publication Model

• Pull requests should modify source files under taxonomy/ (and related tooling/docs), not dist/.
• After merge to main, GitHub Actions regenerates and commits dist artifacts automatically.
• dist remains in the repository as static, published output.

Contributing

Contribution process and change-type requirements are documented in CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

The Machine Authority Failure Taxonomy is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0)