---
id: MAN-12
family: GR-MAN
level: core
profiles: [storage-api]
posture: normative-target
added: "1.0"
changed: "1.0"
source: https://flowdrop.io/spec/rules/gr-man/man-12
specification: FlowDrop Workflow Specification 1.0-draft
licence: CC BY 4.0
---

# MAN-12 — The node-keyed input shape is internal and unreachable from outside

*GR-MAN (Part I) · level: core · profiles: storage-api · added in 1.0*

Addressing a node and port directly bypasses the manifest entirely, which is the whole of the launch boundary. It stays available to the system's own callers and to nobody else.

## The rule

> **Normative.** This is the rule.
>
> 1. The node-keyed input shape, addressing a node identifier and port name directly, is an internal contract.
>
> 2. Every externally reachable launch door refuses it: a caller supplies declared input names, and nothing else.


## What it means

The node-keyed shape — addressing a node identifier and port name directly —
is how initial data is built once a value has already been resolved. It is a
real, working shape: read it back and it comes out unchanged, because nothing
about it needs the manifest to make sense. That is exactly why it has to be
walled off: a shape that "just works" internally is also a shape a caller
could send by hand, and if a launch door ever let it through, a caller who
had learned a workflow's internal node ids could seed initial data the author
never declared as an input at all. So every externally reachable launch door
treats a node-keyed key as unknown — not as a second, quieter way in.

## Example

```json title="A node-keyed body arriving where declared input names are expected" verdict="refused"
{ "chat_input.1": { "message": "injected" } }
```

```json title="The same shape read back where it belongs, unchanged"
{ "other.1": { "port_a": 1 } }
```

The first is what a caller gets for reaching a launch door with a node id
instead of a declared input name. The second is the identical shape, handled
by the implementation's own resolution of already-trusted, node-keyed data — the same
notation, admitted only on the side of the boundary that never sees an
outside caller.

## Related rules

- Names: MAN-10, MAN-13
- Referenced by: MAN-10, MAN-13

---

Rule identifiers are permanent and are never renumbered. This specification carries
no implementation status: each implementation publishes its own standing against
these rules. Licensed CC BY 4.0.