Placement

PreFlight — Deterministic Upstream Data Ingestion Gate

System Position

PreFlight operates between dataset acquisition and downstream execution.

It executes:

• After data production or export
• Before ingestion into storage, analytics, or model systems

Execution does not occur inside downstream platforms.

PreFlight defines the deterministic ingestion boundary.

Admission Boundary

Each evaluation reduces mechanically to one of four outcomes:

• PASS — Downstream execution permitted
• WARN — Downstream execution permitted with exposure
• BLOCK — Downstream execution not recommended
• ANALYSIS_INCOMPLETE — Admission not proven

No partial acceptance.

No corrective mutation.

No downstream interaction prior to verdict issuance.

Enforcement Surface

Evaluation is limited to mechanically observable ingestion properties:

• Schema structural integrity
• Row traversal viability
• Numeric type stability
• Representation consistency
• Null density behavior
• Record continuity
• Encoding determinism

No semantic interpretation.

No business context evaluation.

Inputs

Accepted inputs:

• Structured tabular datasets
• Declared parsing configuration
• Deterministic execution parameters

Datasets are evaluated exactly as received.

No inference.

No structural compensation.

Outputs

Produces:

• Deterministic ingestion verdict
• Structured, machine-readable enforcement artifact
• Failure evidence when deterministic violation is established

Outputs reflect enforcement state only.

Failure Handling

When ingestion safety cannot be mechanically verified:

• BLOCK or ANALYSIS_INCOMPLETE is issued
• Downstream execution does not proceed within enforcement scope

PreFlight does not remediate datasets.

Responsibility returns to the data producer.

Responsibility Boundary

PreFlight assumes responsibility for:

• Declaring ingestion acceptance state
• Enforcing deterministic rejection when criteria are not met

It does not assume responsibility for:

• Data correction
• Schema evolution
• Business validation
• Downstream behavior

Responsibility transfers after verdict issuance.

Scope Constraint

Placement governs ingestion enforcement only.

It does not:

• Modify data
• Soften enforcement decisions
• Learn from historical inputs
• Perform probabilistic validation
• Replace downstream quality controls

Function is enforcement — not transformation, orchestration, or governance.

Operational Posture

• Upstream
• Deterministic
• Mechanical
• Auditable
• Non-interactive
• Enforcement-only