A GABA certificate is not a badge.

It is a public commitment to governed operation, backed by an append-only Chandra audit chain that any auditor or examiner can pull. The cert enters you into the governed namespace. The chain is the proof of residency.


What the cert does.

Every GABA certificate is issued by the General Reasoning Certificate Authority under IANA PEN 65823. Each cert carries six X.509 extensions registered under OID 1.3.6.1.4.1.65823 that no other CA in the world can issue or validate:

A GABA cert without a Chandra CU reference is a document. With one, it is an attestation. The gaba_chain_ref extension is what separates the two.

Governance precedes existence.

The Chandra CU is written before the cert is issued. The cert embeds the CU reference. This means the authorization record exists in the append-only chain before the certified entity exists. It cannot be backdated, altered, or removed.

1
Pre-issuance intent CU written to Chandra — governance record created
2
CU hash embedded as gaba_chain_ref in the certificate extension
3
step-ca issues the X.509 cert — the governed entity now exists
4
Post-issuance confirmation CU written with cert fingerprint — chain closed

The seven cert types.

All issued under OID arc 1.3.6.1.4.1.65823.1.

TypeOIDPurpose
genesis 1.3.6.1.4.1.65823.1.7 Bootstrap cert. Required before any Chandra instance can write CUs. Governance precedes existence at the chain level.
hub 1.3.6.1.4.1.65823.1.1 Chandra hub deployment. Authorizes a hub to govern spokes and enforce suspension.
spoke 1.3.6.1.4.1.65823.1.2 Domain-specific Chandra spoke. Each customer deployment gets a spoke cert.
agent 1.3.6.1.4.1.65823.1.3 AI agent or skill. No agent executes without a capability manifest and a GABA cert.
edge 1.3.6.1.4.1.65823.1.4 Edge certificate for graph computation boundaries in adversarial environments.
human-principal 1.3.6.1.4.1.65823.1.5 Named human principal. Binds a person to the governed namespace as an authorized actor.
marshaller 1.3.6.1.4.1.65823.1.6 Marshaller identity. Sole authority for spoke reinstatement after Andon suspension.

Governed Posture Declaration (GPD).

A GPD cert is a public commitment by an organization to pursue a specific governance standard. It carries machine-readable Definitions of Ready and Done, linked to a Chandra chain that either satisfies them or doesn’t. An examiner doesn’t have to trust the org — they pull the cert, read the DoR/DoD, and check the chain.

GABA GPD — Governed Posture Declaration COMING SOON
GPD Class:L5 — Governed Software Factory
Definition of Ready:Minimum CU frequency, required scope, human author ratio, chain active within N days
Definition of Done:Target CU count, coverage threshold, audit trail completeness, examiner review trigger
Review Period:Quarterly
Relinquishment:Chain goes cold, DoR unmet for N days, or voluntary surrender
OID branch:1.3.6.1.4.1.65823.2

Other planned GPD classes: SOC 2, FINRA broker-dealer supervision, CMMC, and custom org-defined labels. The schema deliberation for each class is written to Chandra before the class is published — the standard itself is governed.


Root CA.

The General Reasoning Certificate Authority operates under step-ca at ca.gabastandard.com. The root CA fingerprint for independent verification:

SHA-256 Root CA Fingerprint
fa4d8ba1 4501670a 86338255 841b3606 5decae15 ae7750e4 a299f592 040344e5

Every cert issued under this CA can be verified against the Chandra chain using the gaba_chain_ref extension value.


CA diligence.

The following information is published for independent verification and auditor review.

ItemValue
CA software step-ca 0.30.2 (Smallstep)
Infrastructure Dedicated Linode VPS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
CA address ca.gabastandard.com (69.164.199.5)
Root key type ECDSA P-256
Intermediate key type ECDSA P-256
IANA PEN 65823 (General Reasoning, Inc.)
OID arc 1.3.6.1.4.1.65823
Revocation Manual revocation via step-ca. CRL/OCSP not yet published — planned post-beta.
Audit trail All CA issuance events write a Chandra CU before cert issuance. The CA’s own chain is anchored to the genesis cert.
GABA extensions Defined and OID-registered. Extension payload population is in active development — values will be fully populated at general availability.
Beta status This CA is in public beta. Root CA fingerprint and OID arc are stable and will not change. Cert schema may be revised before GA.
The CA’s own issuance events are governed: every cert the CA issues is preceded by a Chandra CU write. The CA cannot issue silently.

Security inquiries, revocation requests, and CA chain audit requests: inquiries@genreason.com

Issue a Certificate ↗ Inspect a Certificate ↗ Verify a Certificate ↗

General Reasoning, Inc. · Birmingham, Alabama · IANA PEN 65823
Certificate inquiries: inquiries@genreason.com