Which actions are sampled and traced?
Pick a handful of actions from the quarter for the role: at least one auto-approved action from a promoted class, one escalation from the always-escalate list, one send-back with its revision, and two ordinary approved proposals. Trace each end to end in the audit trail: the proposal, the evidence it carried, the decision or the grant it was auto-approved under, the approver or grantor, the timing, the autonomy level, and the effect. Each trace should take about a minute.
Verify: every trace produces the sentence a governance reviewer needs, naming a person, the evidence, and the time.
- 1. Five actions traced: auto-approved, escalation, send-back, two approvals
Did every escalate-list item reach a person?
From the quarter's escalations, sample items in each category on the always-escalate list and confirm each reached the named receiver as a four-part summary and was decided by that person. Confirm no listed category was promoted on the ladder, which the platform prevents but the audit records. Confirm the list grew where an incident occurred and was not loosened without a recorded decision.
Verify: the trail shows a named receiver and a decision for each sampled escalation; Setup shows the list unchanged or grown.
- 2. Escalations sampled per category, receiver and decision confirmed 3. List not loosened without a recorded decision
Were promotions and step-backs made to the standard?
List every autonomy change in the quarter from the trail. For each promotion, open the record it rested on and check the run length and cleanliness against the written clean-run standard, the bounds stated in Setup, and the grantor's name. For each step-back, check the trigger and that the class ran gated afterwards. A promotion without a record meeting the standard is a finding, and the class is stepped back until it does.
Verify: each grant in the trail matches a monthly review note with the same class, date, and reason.
- 4. Every promotion checked against the standard 5. Every step-back's trigger and aftermath confirmed
Are the connections still the narrowest needed?
Open the connection list for the role and ask of each: still needed by the current remit, still the narrowest scope the tool allows, still a dedicated account, rotated on the schedule the tool requires. Disconnect what is no longer needed, which revokes it at once and is logged. Note any tool that has gained finer permissions since last quarter and reconnect with narrower scope. Check any connector links and rotate those nobody remembers.
Verify: the list after the audit is shorter than or equal to the list before, and every entry has a current justification.
- 6. Connections reviewed, trimmed, rotated where due
Is the Brand Brain confirmed, and do the review notes match the trail?
Complete the quarterly Brand Brain confirmation: read every item, confirm or correct, and replace inferred items with explicit rules where they matter. Then read the three monthly review notes for the quarter beside the trail and confirm that each recorded decision, on targets, remit, and autonomy, appears in the workspace as made. A decision noted but not made, or made but not noted, is a finding.
Verify: the Memory tab shows the confirmation date; each note's decisions match Setup and the trail.
- 7. Brand Brain confirmed 8. Three review notes reconciled with the trail
What is recorded, and what changes?
Record the audit: the date, the auditor, the actions sampled, each finding, and each change made, including classes stepped back, connections removed, list additions, and memory corrections. File it with the review notes. Next quarter's audit reads this one first and checks whether the changes held. Over a year, four audits are the evidence that the controls are not just described but exercised.
Verify: the record has a named auditor and every finding has either a change or a reason it was accepted.
- 9. Audit recorded: date, auditor, sample, findings, changes
How do you use this checklist?
Run it once a quarter per role, in one sitting with the role's manager and, for item 6, the person who owns access. It takes about an hour because the trail was built as the work happened and nothing has to be reconstructed. Scale the sample with the role's volume, not with anxiety; five well-traced actions tell you more than fifty skimmed. Where an organization runs several roles, audit them in one week and read the results together in the workforce view.
The audit is not a search for blame. It is the confirmation, on a schedule, that the mechanisms the organization relies on are doing what they were set to do.