Versioned Constitution Governance NEW

Problem

When an agent rewrites its own "constitution," it may accidentally violate safety or regress on alignment objectives if changes aren't reviewed.

Solution

Store the constitution in a version-controlled, signed repository:

• YAML/TOML rules live in Git.
• Each commit is signed (e.g., Sigstore); CI runs automated policy checks.
• Only commits signed by approved reviewers or automated tests are merged.
• The agent can propose changes, but a gatekeeper merges them.

How to use it

• Require git commit -S or similar.
• Run diff-based linting to flag deletions of critical rules.
• Expose constitution HEAD as read-only context in every agent episode.

References

• Hiveism, Self-Alignment by Constitutional AI
• Anthropic, Constitutional AI white-paper