Authority Research Note

EXEC CICS Without RESP: Error Paths Are Implicit

EXEC CICS commands without RESP/RESP2 handling make error paths implicit. Behavior becomes environment-dependent and can vary by configuration and runtime conditions. Deterministic guarantees terminate where error handling is not explicit in source.

What this construct does

CICS operations can return many outcomes (not found, I/O error, invalid request, and more). Without RESP/RESP2, the source code does not explicitly capture the full branching behavior.

Why provability terminates

If error routing is implicit, the deterministic control-flow graph is incomplete. Two runtime environments can legally produce different outcomes while the source remains identical.

Governance consequence

Under strict regulated contexts, missing explicit error handling terminates deterministic guarantees. Proceeding requires explicit RESP/RESP2 handling or a narrowed authority scope.

Authority boundary statement

Where provability terminates, authority terminates.

Evidence and verification

Legacy Lens records the presence of CICS calls without explicit RESP/RESP2 at the call site.
Legacy Lens does not infer the runtime outcome.
Evidence is bound to the bundle hash for replayable verification.

Verified authority record

View a verified bundle where CICS NO_RESP appears: Download authority record (PDF)