8.7 Cross-Plane Relationships
Cross-plane relationships occur when an event, decision, message, record, or action in one Runtime Plane affects, references, constrains, or produces information in another Runtime Plane.
The Financial Systems Archetype separates Runtime Planes to preserve architectural clarity. That separation does not mean the planes operate in isolation. A Financial System often requires interactions across planes, but those interactions need to remain explicit, Traceable, and governed.
For example, a health event in the Health and Observability Plane may trigger a recovery command in the Control Plane. A Data Plane event may require a policy decision in the Policy and Release Plane before information leaves an internal environment. A Policy and Release Plane decision may generate an audit record in the Audit and Provenance Plane. A Control Plane replay command may cause a Node to republish Data Plane information from preserved Evidence or persisted records. Cross-plane relationships must not collapse the planes into one another. The architectural purpose of each plane remains distinct even when information flows between planes.
A cross-plane relationship can identify:
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Originating Runtime Plane
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Receiving or affected Runtime Plane
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Event, message, decision, or record causing the relationship
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Communication Endpoint or mechanism involved
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Data Structure Definition governing the exchanged information, where applicable
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The policy, rule, or condition authorizing the relationship, where applicable
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Traceability and Evidence record supporting later review
Examples of cross-plane relationships appear in Table 8.7-1.
Table 8.7-1: Examples of cross-plane relationships among Runtime Planes
| Originating plane | Affected plane | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Health and Observability Plane | Control Plane | A degraded Node status triggers a restart, retry, or recovery command. |
| Data Plane | Policy and Release Plane | A transaction result requires an evaluation for release before an external consumer receives it. |
| Policy and Release Plane | Audit and Provenance Plane | A release decision creates an audit and provenance record. |
| Control Plane | Data Plane | A replay command causes selected Data Plane records to be republished. |
| Data Plane | Audit and Provenance Plane | An analytical assertion creates provenance that links inputs, producing a Node, model version, and output. |
Cross-plane relationships support operational coordination, governed release, auditability, replay, recovery, and Evidence. They also help reviewers understand how the system behaves without losing the separation between runtime concerns.
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