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Error and Exception Design

LMU/COICP Example

Error and Exception Design Example

Define realistic LMU/COICP safe-failure behavior for unauthorized access, emergency-boundary attempts, missing fields, disabled AI, evidence write failure, invalid status transitions, retention concerns, and synthetic-data violations.

ES-105 Exceptions Safe Failure

Project

LMU Campus Operations and Incident Coordination Platform

Document control

Field Value
Artifact owner COICP Product Engineer
Primary reviewers Architecture Review Board chair, IT security reviewer, AI reviewer, Compliance reviewer, Campus Safety liaison
Status Accepted for ES-105 design baseline
Last updated 2026-07-06
Related Engineering Stage ES-105 — Design
Project workspace target docs/project-workspace/design/error_and_exception_design.md

Design context

Field Value
Source architecture package ES-104 — Architecture
Design baseline produced LMU-COICP-DES-001
Implementation baseline expected next LMU-COICP-IMPL-001
Integrated baseline expected later LMU-COICP-INT-001
Release candidate expected later LMU-COICP-RC-001
Downstream release posture Internal engineering review only
Planned downstream review environment LMU-COICP Internal Engineering Review Environment
Planned downstream dataset Spring Semester Synthetic Incident Dataset
Planned downstream synthetic records 421
Planned downstream reviewer accounts 24
Planned downstream review window March 18–22, 2026
AI Incident Summary Deferred / disabled
Operational pilot Not approved

Error / exception register

ID Scenario LMU Example Expected Behavior Downstream Test
ERR-001 Unauthorized create Residence Life reviewer attempts COICP-SYN-219 creation deny without detail disclosure TC-004
ERR-002 Unauthorized export Residence Life reviewer exports COICP-SYN-204 review package deny export TC-011
ERR-003 Emergency-related entry COICP-SYN-322 entered as normal incident block and redirect to emergency procedure TC-012
ERR-004 Missing required field Campus Operations creates COICP-SYN-001 without description reject save TC-002
ERR-005 AI disabled Campus Operations attempts summary for COICP-SYN-118 show AI unavailable / hide action TC-008
ERR-006 Evidence write failure Facilities handoff for COICP-SYN-118 cannot write evidence fail official state change safely TC-007 / DEF-003
ERR-007 Invalid status transition COICP-SYN-219 jumps from Open to Closed without rationale reject transition TC-006 / DEF-001
ERR-008 Real data entered Reviewer types actual campus incident details stop / flag for compliance handling ES-111 / ES-113

Detailed behavior: evidence write failure

If Facilities accepts the handoff for COICP-SYN-118 Damen Hall water leak but the Evidence History Service fails before HANDOFF_RECORDED is written, the owner/status update must not become official. COICP cannot claim accountable incident coordination if state changes can occur without evidence.

Detailed behavior: emergency-boundary attempt

For COICP-SYN-322, normal incident creation is blocked, the user is directed to existing LMU emergency procedures, and no emergency dispatch or notification workflow is implied.

Exception rules

  • Fail closed for access.
  • Fail safely for evidence writes.
  • Fail manual for disabled AI.
  • Fail out of scope for emergency/prohibited categories.
  • Do not disclose protected incident detail in denial messages.
  • Do not silently convert invalid states.

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