A mandate should not survive only because it was announced, funded, or attached to status. The authority source may change. The proposed constraint may be disproved. The economics may no longer justify the intervention. The receiving institution may be unable or unwilling to own the system.
These are not delivery inconveniences to conceal. They are governance conditions to record. The brief should define evidence thresholds for continuing, transferring, reframing, and closing before sunk cost begins to distort judgment.
Reframing preserves the legitimate purpose while changing the claim, boundary, or intervention. Closure ends the mandate when the purpose, authority, or evidence no longer supports action. Both decisions require a named decider, rationale, consequences, and a record of what becomes true next.
A system that cannot stop is not sovereign. It is captive to its own ceremony.
This note is an operating framework, not a client account, legal advice, or a universal prescription.