---
title: Executor
type: glossary-entry
level: L1
status: live
revision: 1
updated: 2026-08-14
systemVersion: 4.2
tags: [governance, automation, glossary]
rating: 6.10
ratingAxes: useful 6 · evidence 6 · pull 6 · original 6 · form 7
ratingKind: derived
source: operating vocabulary, in production
---

# Executor

_Written 2026-08-14 · last verified 2026-08-14 · system v4.2 · live_

**TL;DR** — An executor is whatever actually calls a rule — a scheduled task, a git hook, a build step. Rules with no named executor do not run and produce no error when they do not, which is why they decay silently.

## Definition

The concrete mechanism that **invokes** a rule: a scheduled task, a git hook, a build step, a session-start script. Not the rule itself and not the person who wrote it.

## In practice

Every repeated rule in this system names its executor on the same line as the rule. If none can be named, the item is labelled `proposal`, not `rule`.

The test is blunt: *if everyone forgets this exists, what still runs it?* One documented failure ran 84 days on the answer "nothing".

> executor: weekly scheduled task, Friday 07:00 — fails loudly

## See also

`a-rule-without-an-executor` · `standing-mandate`