Governance is how a nest keeps its AI-readable surface trustworthy. Every document moves through a review lifecycle, and only approved content is ever readable by an agent. Stewards review submissions within a defined scope, prime documents force steward approval regardless of author, and deletions run through their own authority-gated queue. This page covers the lifecycle, steward scoping, the review and deletion queues, and self-serve drafts.

## Lifecycle

Documents move through a defined status lifecycle:

```
draft → pending_review → approved / rejected
```

Only **approved** content is AI-readable. Drafts and pending documents are invisible to agents until a steward approves them. See [Status Lifecycle](https://nest.promptowl.ai/d/promptowl-documents/protocol/concepts/status-lifecycle) for the underlying model.

## Prime documents

Prime documents force steward review no matter who authored them:

- A `prime` flag can be set by an **owner or admin** on a document.
- A nest can define `prime_tags`; any document carrying one of those tags is treated as prime.

Prime content always requires steward approval, closing the gap where a trusted author might otherwise self-approve high-stakes content.

## Steward scoping

Stewards are assigned by scope, and precedence runs from most specific to least specific:

```
document → tag → nest → owner
```

| Scope | Applies to |
| --- | --- |
| Document | A single document |
| Tag | All documents carrying a tag |
| Nest | The whole nest |
| Owner | Fallback authority |

A document-scoped steward takes precedence over a tag-scoped one, which takes precedence over a nest-scoped one, which takes precedence over the owner as final fallback.

## Review queue

Submissions land in a review queue that stewards work from:

| Action | Tool / endpoint |
| --- | --- |
| List the queue | `context_review_queue` |
| Submit for review | `context_submit_review` |
| Approve | `context_approve` |
| Reject | `context_reject` (requires a note) |

A rejection must carry a note, so authors always get a reason.

## Request-deletion

Deletion is authority-gated and separate from the review queue:

- Flagging a document for deletion was tightened from anyone-flags to **EDITOR+ authority**.
- Folder-level and nest-level deletion flags require a **nest-scope steward row**.
- The **owner or admin** decides on deletion requests.

| Action | Tool / endpoint |
| --- | --- |
| Deletion queue | `context_deletion_queue` |
| Resolve a deletion request | `context_resolve_deletion` |

## Self-serve drafts

Authors can see their own in-flight drafts without steward tooling:

| Surface | Tool / endpoint |
| --- | --- |
| My drafts (UI) | `/me/drafts` |
| My drafts (MCP) | `context_my_drafts` |

## Related

- [Status Lifecycle](https://nest.promptowl.ai/d/promptowl-documents/protocol/concepts/status-lifecycle) — the status model behind approval.
- [Folders](https://nest.promptowl.ai/d/promptowl-documents/platform/folders/folders) — folder-scoped stewardship and deletion.

## Sources

- PromptOwl/contextnest-community PRs: #195, #192 (plus the v1.17 tightening), #107-governance; `STEWARDSHIP.md`.