EGAF Defense profile: L2 assurance for CUI programs

2026-08-30 · Assurance

The Defense profile is L2. It extends Core for teams in the defense industrial base. Local-first evidence storage is an attestation surface this profile supports. It is not a CUI scoping determination. Whether a given repository actually contains CUI is a classification decision the adopter's security office makes; no EGAF control can substitute for it.

Pre-release, founder-operated system; current capability labels describe the evidence boundary.

How the Evidence-Gated Assurance Framework works

The Evidence-Gated Assurance Framework (EGAF) is a spec-first assurance bar. It is in flight. A project claims conformance to EGAF L1, L2, or L3 at a given commit, with evidence attached. It is not a certification, an accreditation, or an authorization. Independent assessment of any organization remains a separate question.

Three parts make a run:

1. A control catalog. Each control is either a machine check (an artifact an independent tool produced) or an evidence: attestation (a signed statement by a named principal). A named check with no backing artifact is DRIFT, never PROVEN. An empty-but-parsable file is not a verdict.
2. A deterministic evaluator. Same inputs produce a byte-identical conformance report. The evaluator does not run tests or scanners. It reads artifacts other tools already produced and records their digests. An agent cannot manufacture PROVEN without producing the artifact the check names.
3. A committed profile. .egaf/profile.yaml in the consumer repo is what CI evaluates. If that file is absent, the evaluator uses the bundled core profile, so L1 mandatory controls always apply. Profiles may only tighten a threshold; a loosening override is rejected at validation time.

Three levels. L1 Core is mandatory to claim any EGAF conformance: traceability, complexity and duplication caps, whole-codebase statement and branch coverage, mutation on changed files, verifier integrity, signed evidence, supply-chain hygiene. An EXCEPTION never satisfies an L1 control. L2 Regulated adds industry-profile controls (evidence packs, retention, model-risk records). L3 Safety-critical adds independence, structural coverage, tool-qualification inputs, and hazard linkage. Fail one applicable L1 control and the report's first line is L0.

Control status is derived from the seven check outcomes already used in Koinessa evidence bundles:

A level is achieved only when every applicable control at that level and below is PROVEN or NOT-APPLICABLE (L2/L3 may also count an unexpired EXCEPTION with an independent approver). The report always shows two honesty lists: Not proven (FAILED and DRIFT) and Accepted without proof (NOT-APPLICABLE and EXCEPTION). A clean badge over an empty honesty block is the failure the framework exists to prevent.

Frameworks are guidance. Controls are behavior. Evidence proves the behavior occurred. Organizational burdens — training, physical security, BAAs, a C3PAO assessment, DO-330 tool qualification, a SOC 2 Type II engagement — stay with the organization. The catalog cites clause identifiers and paraphrases; it does not reproduce normative text.

The catalog this series describes is a measured snapshot: 109 controls, vendored into Koinessa at pin 0.0.0-dev+98d08ef on 2026-08-30. The public specification repository is planned; until the operator creates its GitLab group, treat EGAF as a labeled pre-1.0 draft with publication pending. Koinessa's own first mainline conformance report is planned.

Read the Koinessa whitepaper for the surrounding Evidence-Gated Agentic Development thesis, and the verified-delivery report for what this system already publishes about itself.

The Defense profile (id defense, L2)

In flight. Source: vendor/egaf/catalog/profiles/defense.yaml. Extends core.

Added frameworks:

• CMMC 2.0 Level 2 / NIST SP 800-171 Rev 3
• NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 (SDLC-relevant families)
• NIST SP 800-161 Rev 1 (supply chain)
• CISA Secure Software Development Attestation Form

Applicability: agentic, services, and data_store. Releases and deploys declared.

Retention is 12 months, and that default is illustrative only. NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 AU-11 and NIST SP 800-171 Rev 3 03.03.01 / 03.03.05 set no fixed retention period — both are organization-defined parameters. AU-11's discussion points to the NARA General Records Schedules as the controlling authority for federal records. An adopter must replace the 12-month placeholder with the period its own applicable NARA schedule or contract sets.

What the organization must still do: physical security (PE), personnel (PS), media (MP), incident response as a process (IR), and the CMMC assessment itself (C3PAO). The profile maps AC, AU, CM, and SI-style evidence a pipeline can produce. It does not walk a C3PAO through a facility.

If your program is government software without a CUI overlay, start from the Public Sector profile instead. If your program is airborne or automotive, the L3 pages apply.

What this page does not claim

EGAF conformance is a per-commit statement a project makes about itself with evidence attached. It does not confer a certification, a SLSA level, or an authorization to operate. Citing a framework in a profile is a crosswalk, not a state the adopter has reached. Planned items carry no dates.

This article is one of ten in a series. Each page keeps the same mechanics and changes the profile.

• Core (L1)
• OSS Maintainer (L1)
• Financial (L2)
• Health (L2)
• Defense (L2)
• Public Sector (L2)
• AI-Regulated (L2)
• Aerospace (L3)
• Automotive (L3)
• Industrial (L3)

The rest of the engineering blog covers the verification loop that EGAF sits on. The Koinessa home page states the product position.