APRF-RFC-0005: Demote reliability-continuity REL-M4 to recommended (REL-R3)

Field	Value
Status	accepted
Author(s)	StackRail (working-draft publisher)
Created	2026-08-01
SemVer impact	MINOR
Index summary	Demotes REL-M4→REL-R3 (process continuity options with owners); pre-release ID-removal exception.
Related	APRF-RFC-0002, APRF-RFC-0003 (pre-release M→R pattern)

Problem

REL-M4 required every process marked critical-AI-dependent to have ≥1 documented continuity option with a named owner as a catalog mandatory (must). That over-weights process-level continuity documentation relative to production-blocking reliability gates already covered elsewhere:

Stronger / adjacent control	What it already proves
REL-M2	Critical journeys define degraded mode when AI is unavailable, with failover-test evidence
REL-M6	Business-critical AI services have numeric RTO/RPO linked to tested restore/failover
REL-M5	Backups include AI control-plane artifacts needed to restore service
REL-M7 / REL-M8	Chaos and continuity drills for higher-tier / regulated workloads

Documented continuity options with owners remain valuable operator maturity, but failing a catalog mandatory for missing a process register when journeys already degrade safely (REL-M2) and services have RTO/RPO (REL-M6) blocks assessments for the wrong reason. REL-M4 was never on Core or Regulated mandatoryCheckIds; keeping it as a catalog must still forces full-catalog and custom-gate consumers to treat documentation as a hard fail.

Proposal

Demote REL-M4 → REL-R3 (recommended should language; hybrid detection via repo-ai-continuity-options unchanged in substance).
Remove REL-M4 from the reliability-continuity mandatoryChecks list in aprf-spec.json; add REL-R3 under recommendedChecks.
Do not change Core (38) or Regulated (54) profile counts — REL-M4 was never listed there.
Pass condition unchanged in substance: 100% of critical-AI-dependent processes have ≥1 documented continuity option with a named owner; attest measuredAt ≤90d.
Keep REL-M1–M3, REL-M5–M8 as the reliability-continuity mandatory spine (timeouts, degraded mode, partial-failure outcome, backups, RTO/RPO, chaos/continuity drills as applicable).

Alternatives considered

Soften passCondition but keep mandatory — rejected; still treats documentation coverage as a hard gate overlapping REL-M2/REL-M6.
Demote in place (gate: recommended on REL-M4) — rejected; recommended Checks use the *-R* namespace.
Merge into REL-M2 — rejected; journey degraded-mode + failover tests are not the same as a process-level owned continuity-options register.
Merge into REL-M6 — rejected; RTO/RPO service objectives are not process continuity-option docs with owners.

Compatibility

Change	Impact
REL-M4 removed; REL-R3 added	Catalog mandatory −1; recommended +1; total Checks unchanged (178)
Core / Regulated mandatories	Unchanged (38 / 54)
Crosswalk / relatedRules	Remapped REL-M4 → REL-R3
Collector / plugin	`ai-continuity-options` maps to REL-R3

SemVer: MINOR — M→R remapping while still on working-draft 0.10.x.

Pre-release exception: no tagged release yet — REL-M4 YAML removed rather than deprecated stub. Recorded in `id-gaps.md`. After first tagged release, future demotions must use deprecated + replacedBy.

Security considerations

No weakening of runtime degraded mode (REL-M2), partial-failure outcome tests (REL-M3), backups (REL-M5), or RTO/RPO (REL-M6). Residual risk is thinner process-level ownership documentation; mitigated by keeping REL-R3 high-severity recommended with hybrid collectors and by retaining REL-M2/REL-M6 as mandatories where applicable.

Open questions

Should Regulated later re-include process continuity-option documentation as an additional mandatory once Level-5 ops maturity is ratified?
Should REL-R3 require periodic review of owners (≤90d) beyond documentation freshness?

Checklist

Problem and affected parties
Proposed change stated
SemVer impact justified
Compatibility / deprecation plan
Checks remain measurable
Crosswalk impact noted
Security / safety considered
Open questions listed

Comment window: 14 days from Created (working-draft quorum applies). Interim contact: see /aprf/rfc/.