What this is

The institutional permission for this system to exist, and how bound the institution is to honor what it produces: from what source, at what formality, how binding, over what scope, released or still pending.

Why it matters

This is where a soft mandate hides as a firm one. A system can run for years on a pinky-promise that looks binding on paper, and the gap only shows the moment the institution dislikes a result, so making the softness legible here is the point.