Cerbi.MEL.Governance

✅ Now working with CerbiSuite — Fully integrated with CerbiShield scoring, governance dashboards, and end-to-end traceability across all Cerbi logging SDKs.

Real-time logging governance enforcement for Microsoft.Extensions.Logging (MEL) using the Cerbi validation engine.

Cerbi.MEL.Governance is part of the Cerbi suite. It enables runtime validation of log fields based on structured governance profiles. Built for ASP.NET Core, Worker Services, Azure Functions, and any .NET app using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.

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🚀 Features

• ✅ Enforce required and forbidden fields
• ✅ Strict mode suppresses raw forbidden values — violating messages are replaced by a redacted governance-annotated JSON payload that never reaches the sink
• ✅ Drop or tag logs with governance violations
• ✅ Allow relaxed logs (Relax() mode)
• ✅ Supports structured logging and BeginScope
• ✅ Supports [CerbiTopic("...")] profile routing via caller class detection (using injected CerbiTopic field)
• ✅ Compatible with any MEL-compatible sink (Console, File, Seq, etc.)
• ✅ Score shipping always fires — fallback scoring (100 − 10 × violations, floor 0) applied when GovernanceScoreImpact is absent

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📆 Installation

dotnet add package Cerbi.MEL.Governance

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🛠 Setup

1. Add a governance config file

{
  "EnforcementMode": "Strict",
  "LoggingProfiles": {
    "Orders": {
      "name": "Orders",
      "version": "2026.07",
      "requiredFields": ["requestId"],
      "disallowedFields": ["password"],
      "fieldSeverities": {}
    }
  }
}

Root canonical governance files are also supported when LoggingProfiles is absent:

{
  "name": "Orders",
  "version": "2026.07",
  "requiredFields": ["requestId"],
  "disallowedFields": ["password"],
  "fieldSeverities": {}
}

Save this as cerbi_governance.json in your project root.

2. Configure MEL to use Cerbi governance

using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging;
using Cerbi.MEL.Governance;

builder.Logging.AddCerbiGovernance(options =>
{
    options.Profile = "Orders"; // default fallback
    options.ConfigPath = "cerbi_governance.json";
});

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🔹 Optional: Use [CerbiTopic("...")] to route logs to specific profiles

[CerbiTopic("Orders")]
public class OrderService
{
    private readonly ILogger<OrderService> _logger;

    public OrderService(ILogger<OrderService> logger)
    {
        _logger = logger;
    }

    public void Process()
    {
        _logger.LogInformation("Order processed for {userId}", "abc123");
    }
}

✅ This works via automatic injection of the topic into the log fields. The logger sets the CerbiTopic field at runtime if the caller class has the [CerbiTopic("...")] attribute.

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✍️ Example Logging

logger.LogInformation("User info: {userId} {email}", "abc123", "test@example.com");

// Violates governance (missing userId)
logger.LogInformation("Only email provided: {email}", "test@example.com");

// Forbidden field — in Strict mode the raw message is suppressed;
// a redacted governance JSON payload is emitted instead
logger.LogInformation("Password in log: {userId} {email} {password}", "abc123", "test@example.com", "secret");

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🧐 Governance Output

Non-Strict / no violations

The original log message passes through unchanged, with an optional governance-annotated JSON side-channel attached.

Strict mode + violations (NEW in v1.1)

The original message is suppressed. A redacted JSON payload is emitted to the sink instead, ensuring forbidden field values never leave the application boundary:

{
  "userId": "abc123",
  "email": "test@example.com",
  "GovernanceProfileUsed": "Orders",
  "GovernanceViolations": ["ForbiddenField:password"],
  "GovernanceRelaxed": false,
  "GovernanceMode": "Strict"
}

Note: the forbidden field value (password) is absent from the output — it is stripped during redaction.

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📊 CerbiShield Scoring Integration (v1.1)

The MEL governance SDK ships scoring identity metadata with every governance event, enabling end-to-end traceability in CerbiShield dashboards.

Score shipping guarantees

Scenario	Behaviour
GovernanceScoreImpact present in validated fields	Used directly
GovernanceScoreImpact absent (validator did not compute it)	Computed as max(0, 100 − 10 × violationCount)
Relaxed log	Score impact forced to 0

Score events are always enqueued regardless of enforcement mode, so the portal always receives telemetry even for blocked events.

Identity Fields

Field	Source	Purpose
ServiceName	CerbiGovernanceMELSettings.ServiceName	Logical service name (e.g., OrderService)
AppVersion	CerbiGovernanceMELSettings.AppVersion	Deployed version (e.g., 1.2.3)
InstanceId	CerbiGovernanceMELSettings.InstanceId	Container/pod instance identifier
DeploymentId	CerbiGovernanceMELSettings.DeploymentId	Release/deployment tracking ID
ProfileName	Governance profile name (topic)	Stamped onto every ViolationDto
AppName	CerbiGovernanceMELSettings.AppName	Stamped onto every ViolationDto

Configuration

builder.Logging.AddCerbiGovernance(options =>
{
    options.Profile = "Orders";
    options.ConfigPath = "cerbi_governance.json";
    options.AppName = "OrderService";
    options.Environment = "Production";
    options.ServiceName = "order-api";
    options.AppVersion = "1.2.3";
    options.InstanceId = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("HOSTNAME");
    options.DeploymentId = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("DEPLOYMENT_ID");
    options.ScoreShipping = new ScoreShippingOptions
    {
        Enabled = true,
        LicenseAllowsScoring = true
    };
});

All identity fields flow through:

1. CerbiGovernanceMELSettings → ScoringEventDto → ScoringEnvelopeFactory
2. Each ViolationDto is stamped with ProfileName and AppName for downstream linkage.

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🔗 Related Projects

• 🌐 CerbiStream — Core logging library
• ⚙️ Cerbi.Serilog.Governance
• 🔧 Cerbi.Governance.Runtime
• 📘 Cerbi Docs