Abstract: The transition to agentic software production necessitates a shift from passive documentation to active **Living Governance**. This paper defines the governance layer of the contract-style-comments (CSC) framework, establishing the protocols for artifact ownership, maintenance triggers, and the "Agentic Handshake"—authorizing AI agents as proactive stewards of the system’s architectural truth.

Jeffrey Sabarese ( @ajaxstardust )

Part IV of the contract-style-comments Series

I. Introduction: The Necessity of Governance

The implementation of a CONTRACT.md artifact (The Law) and a QUICKSTART.md artifact (The Map) provides the essential grounding for stateless AI agents. However, without a formal governance protocol, these artifacts are subject to relevance decay .…