CoSAI · OASIS Open Project · V1.0

Independent companion to the CoSAI Shared Responsibility Framework. Maintained by Bill Stout. Content CC BY 4.0; code Apache-2.0.

Make responsibility clear before you scale AI.

The CoSAI SRF maps every obligation and control to exactly one accountable party per activity, across each layer and operating model. It complements NIST AI RMF, ISO/IEC 42001, and the EU AI Act by naming who is accountable.

Finish with a signed Accountability Decision Record: name one accountable party (persona) per layer for this deployment, record residual gaps, and capture attestation (sign-off).

Create a Decision Record

Autonomy level (L0 to L5) and override tier (T1 to T5) say how independently a system may act and how it can be stopped. They do not change the accountable party. That party remains one named persona per activity.

SRF Stress Test

Describe your AI deployment.
Get an accountability analysis.

The SRF Stress Test takes a plain-language description of your AI scenario (the model, platform, deployment model, and use case) and builds an analysis prompt you copy into your own chat or model. The site does not run an LLM for you.

Open the SRF Stress Test →

Other frameworks define what. SRF assigns accountability.

The SRF sits alongside your existing frameworks and assigns one accountable party per activity. NIST AI RMF defines what governance outcomes to achieve. ISO/IEC 42001 defines how to manage AI within your organization. EU AI Act defines which regulatory obligations apply by risk tier and assigns legal roles (provider, deployer, importer, distributor), but it provides no operational model for who owns each layer when an incident crosses vendor boundaries.

  • NIST AI RMF → CoSAI SRF

    What to achieve → Who achieves it

    NIST AI RMF defines the governance outcomes to achieve: Govern, Map, Measure, Manage. SRF adds which party in a multi-vendor deployment is accountable for each outcome.

  • EU AI Act → CoSAI SRF

    Which obligations apply → Who at which layer

    The EU AI Act defines which regulatory obligations apply by risk tier. SRF maps those obligations to specific layers and operating models: the implementation detail the regulation intentionally leaves to practitioners.

  • ISO 42001 → CoSAI SRF

    How to manage AI → Who manages which part

    ISO/IEC 42001 defines how to manage AI within a single organization's boundary (Clause 5.3 roles; Annex A.10 for third-party and customer relationships). Those clauses leave multi-party cloud AI roles underspecified. SRF names who owns each activity across vendors and layers.

Five layers. One accountable party per activity.

Governance requirements cascade from L1 downward. Exactly one accountable party must own each activity; that party can change with the operating model. Where a matrix cell is shared, create a Decision Record that names the persona. That name is the attestation.

Accountability shifts by operating model. In AI-SaaS, the provider owns L3–L5. In IaaS, you own nearly the entire enforcement path. See the full operating model matrix → How this applies across the AI security lifecycle →