# File-Based Configuration Lets Governance Policy Travel With the Codebase ## Claim Expressing governance policy as files rather than per-site database settings lets one policy definition move across every site in a fleet instead of being re-entered site by site. <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> ## Scope & conditions - Holds when the same policy is meant to apply identically across many installs (a fleet, a multisite network, a template used for client sites). - The portability benefit depends on the files actually being copied/deployed consistently (e.g., via a plugin, a build step, or version control) — dropping a file into one site does nothing for the rest of the fleet on its own. - Does not by itself address who can write those files or how enforcement is verified at runtime; file-based governance still needs a file-integrity and write-permission story. ## Evidence Malcolm Peralty's Governance Guardrails plugin v1 controls WordPress feature availability through files specifically so the policy is "easy to persist across a bunch of WordPress sites" — the stated design goal is fleet-wide consistency, achieved because a file (unlike a database row) can be copied, diffed, and version-controlled. ## Links - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Default-Off Feature Flags Decouple Shipping Speed From Production Risk]] — because contrasts; that note covers a runtime-toggle mechanism for the same feature-governance goal, this one covers a file-based mechanism aimed at fleet-wide consistency rather than per-deploy risk control. - [[3. Resources/MOCs/Open Source Governance MOC]] — because applies-in; config-as-code is a governance-infrastructure pattern, not just a plugin feature. - [[WordPress Platform Design MOC]] — the same declarative property carrying policy rather than interface ## Tests / falsifiers - Check whether sites running Governance Guardrails actually show lower policy-drift (features enabled/disabled inconsistently) than sites managed by per-site admin toggles, once adoption data exists. - Check whether the plugin's file format is protected against unauthorized edits — if any site admin (or a compromised plugin) can rewrite the governance file, the "governance" property is weaker than the portability property. ## Maintenance - Last tended: 2026-08-16 - Next review: 2026-11-16 ## Source - [[3. Resources/Literature Notes/Governance Guardrails plugin v1 (Malcolm Peralty)]] — reports the v1 release and its stated file-based persistence goal.