'Correct Is Not Governed': a deterministic provenance layer for agent workflows, and an honest report of where it over-blocked

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This paper (arXiv 2608.12761, 2026-08-13) defines governed execution — work whose decisions, completion and response to change are backed by inspectable provenance — and presents Matrix, a deterministic causal-state layer recording authority and fact dependencies, verifying completion evidence, and selectively invalidating downstream work when an upstream fact changes. In controlled comparisons governed and direct workflows often reached the same outcomes, but only the governed path preserved governing evidence, refused unsupported closure, and limited recovery to dependent tasks. Notably the authors report a failure: a deterministically enforced completeness contract severely over-blocked synthetic packets authored outside its context, so they position Matrix as an auditability layer, not an accuracy booster.