Official Legal Document

Terms of Service

These Terms of Service govern your access to and use of the Material Governance Condition (MGC) platform, APIs, Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, documentation, and the Reference Monitor operated by Cognispace, LLC.

Document ID MGC-TERMS-001
Version 1.0
Effective Date October 2026
Governing Entity Cognispace, LLC
Standard Authority Cognispace Governance Architecture

01. Acceptance of Terms

By creating an account, registering an API key, interacting with the Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, or otherwise accessing the Material Governance Condition (MGC) services, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms"). If you access the Services on behalf of an enterprise, company, or other legal entity, you represent and warrant that you possess the authority to bind that entity to these Terms.

Binding Relationship: If you do not possess legal authority or do not agree with every provision of these Terms, you must not access or use the MGC platform, APIs, or Reference Monitor.

02. Scope of Services

MGC provides a portable semantic specification, a software development kit (SDK), and a cloud-hosted reference monitor for tracking digital lineage, inscribing material governance conditions, evaluating downward inheritance along provenance DAGs, and issuing cryptographically verified execution tokens.

Cognispace, LLC offers the Services across multiple subscription tiers: Trial, Developer, Professional, and Enterprise. Each tier provides distinct feature access, evaluation throughput, retention schedules, and administrative controls as detailed in our documentation and applicable order forms.

03. Accounts & API Credentials

Access to MGC APIs and dashboard consoles requires authentication. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your administrative credentials and secret API keys. Any activity performed using your API keys is attributed to your organization.

  • Key Security: You must not expose secret API keys in public code repositories, client-side web bundles, or unencrypted storage.
  • Compromise Notification: You must immediately notify Cognispace at security@cognispacehq.com if you suspect unauthorized access to or compromise of your credentials.
  • Credential Brokering: MGC utilizes short-lived, STS-vended execution tokens for runtime authorization. You agree not to attempt to extend, tamper with, or forge these tokens.

04. Acceptable Use Policy

You agree to use MGC strictly in accordance with applicable laws, industry standards, and these Terms. Prohibited activities include:

  • Attempting to bypass PostgreSQL Row-Level Security (RLS) boundaries or access another tenant's lineage graph.
  • Fabricating or injecting counterfeit W3C PROV-O derivation graphs intended to bypass security gates.
  • Circumventing KMS hardware role enforcement or submitting forged signature attestations.
  • Conducting denial-of-service attacks or generating traffic designed to impair the stability of shared infrastructure.
  • Reverse-engineering the internal reference monitor beyond the open-source specification licenses granted by Cognispace.

05. Customer Lineage & Intellectual Property

Your Lineage Data: You retain all ownership, intellectual property rights, and title to the software artifacts, model weights, datasets, and provenance graphs you register with the Services. Cognispace does not claim ownership over any customer metadata, entity hashes, or condition parameters.

Processing License: You grant Cognispace, LLC a limited, worldwide, non-exclusive license to store, parse, index, and evaluate your submitted lineage data solely to provide, operate, and maintain the Services for your benefit. Cognispace does not sell your lineage data or use customer graphs to train external AI models.

Cognispace Intellectual Property: The MGC specification, software implementations, semilattice algorithms, brand marks, and documentation are the exclusive property of Cognispace, LLC and its licensors.

06. Semilattice Evaluation & Boundaries

MGC executes condition evaluation using a deterministic, bounded meet-semilattice where DENY strictly dominates. Evaluations reflect the mathematical composition of local entity conditions and inherited ancestor conditions at the specific time of query execution.

Deterministic Guarantee: The MGC reference monitor does not use heuristic or generative models to guess compliance outcomes. Evaluations are verifiable mathematical results based entirely on the provenance graph and cryptographic signatures present in the store.

07. Hardware KMS Authorities & Emergency Procedures

Dispositions and waivers require cryptographic authorization from designated hardware KMS authorities. The BREAK_GLASS authority is strictly reserved for emergency production overrides and mandates dual-custody approval and immutable audit logging. Cognispace maintains hardware custody controls in certified AWS KMS modules adhering to FIPS 140-3 Level 3 standards.

08. Quotas & Commercial Terms

Subscription tiers dictate monthly evaluation quotas, condition inscription allowances, and API rate limits. Usage exceeding your plan entitlements may be subject to throttling or overage charges as defined in your service agreement.

  • Billing: Paid plans are billed in advance on a recurring monthly or annual basis.
  • Taxes: All fees are exclusive of applicable federal, state, or value-added taxes.
  • Plan Changes: Upgrades take effect immediately; downgrades take effect at the conclusion of the current billing cycle.

09. Availability & Support Commitments

Cognispace provides the Services using commercially reasonable efforts to ensure maximum uptime. For Enterprise customers, specific service level agreements (SLAs), including priority response windows and scheduled maintenance windows, are governed by an executed enterprise Master Services Agreement.

10. Warranties & Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. COGNISPACE, LLC DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL COGNISPACE, LLC BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, DATA, OR PIPELINE EXECUTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SERVICES.

11. Governing Law & Dispute Resolution

These Terms and any dispute arising out of or related to them shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Delaware, United States, without regard to its conflict of law principles. Any legal proceeding shall be instituted exclusively in the state or federal courts located within Delaware.

For questions regarding these Terms, please contact legal@cognispacehq.com.