A card network never just "charges" — it authorizes (are the funds + identity good?), clears (route the data), then settles (finalize, issue a receipt). This kernel runs the same deterministic loop for a cross-org agent mutation: authorize (escrow + identity gate), clear (execute at the target System of Record), settle (verify + issue a signed Action Receipt). Phases cannot be skipped or reordered — you can't settle what was never cleared.
Honest scope. A deterministic, signable state machine in the kernel family — it composes verdicts, it does not replace them: Auth is the escrow/authz gate, Clear is the SoR execute, Settle is the ledger verify + a signed attestation in the audit chain (EcoCloud already issues ES256 receipts — the "Action Receipt" here is illustrative of that). EcoCloud is not a live global network, issues no money/interchange, and ships no cross-org routing fabric — this is the lifecycle primitive such a network would run on. Source: flowdesk-acs-kernel.js.