@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+---
+'@objectstack/service-settings': minor
+---
+
+fix(service-settings)!: the settings REST family refuses an anonymous caller with the shared 401
+
+Clause-②: no — it narrows the anonymous accept set to the ADR-0056 D2 floor; no published schema or export moves.
+
+<!-- adr-0087: not-required (no-migration-prescription) A runtime authorization narrowing at the routes registerSettingsRoutes mounts, not a metadata change. No spec key, export, option, config field, response field or stored shape is removed, renamed or re-shaped, and a signed-in caller receives the same answers as before, so there is no tombstone and nothing for `objectstack migrate meta` to rewrite. What narrows is which callers the family serves: a caller whose resolved context names no user is now refused with the shared anonymous-deny 401 before any settings logic runs. The other categories are closed on facts: the package publishes (not unpublished); no ADR-0087 id covers these routes and this diff adds none (not registered / already-registered); and no published interface or type changes (not runtime-interface-only / type-surface-only). -->
+
+**BREAKING** (an accept-set narrowing), shipped as `minor` under the launch-window convention for breaking changes.
+
+`registerSettingsRoutes` mounts the settings REST family. Until now it ran no anonymous floor: a caller with no session was answered by the family's own capability logic, with a status other than `401`. ADR-0056 D2 denies anonymous callers by default, and ADR-0138 D2 says a surface outside its door classes answers `401`.
+
+- **Refused now:** every route of the family answers a caller with no user `401` with code `UNAUTHENTICATED`, in the declared error envelope, before the settings service is consulted. The decision is the platform's shared one (`shouldDenyAnonymous`), mounted once for the whole family.
+- **Unchanged:** a signed-in caller is served exactly as before, and the per-namespace read and write capabilities still decide what it may see and change. An authorization-store outage still answers its `503`.
+
+What changes for you. Sign in before calling the settings routes. If you mount `registerSettingsRoutes` yourself with your own `contextFromRequest`, it must put the caller's `userId` on the context it returns: a context without one is anonymous now, whatever capabilities it carries.
@@ -547,18 +547,20 @@ describe('#8145 — an encrypted key never reaches the ledger in cleartext', ()
  * one layer down, where it actually exists, in the second case.
  */
 describe('#8145 — a refused write emits NO config_change row', () => {
-  it('an ANONYMOUS write over the plugin\'s own routes: 403, and BOTH ledgers untouched', async () => {
+  it('an ANONYMOUS write over the plugin\'s own routes: 401, and BOTH ledgers untouched', async () => {
     // The plugin's `verifiedContextFromRequest` fails closed with no auth
     // service resolvable (Finding-1), so this is the deny an unauthenticated
     // caller really meets on a running server — reached through the routes the
-    // plugin mounted itself, no context injected.
+    // plugin mounted itself, no context injected. That context names no user,
+    // so the family's anonymous floor (ADR-0056 D2) answers it before the
+    // capability check this case used to meet (`403 SETTINGS_FORBIDDEN`).
     const boot = await bootPlugin({ userId: 'usr_admin' });
     const { state } = await put(boot.http, { workspace_name: 'never-written' });
 
     // Both halves of the ADR-0112 envelope — a status-only assertion could not
     // tell this refusal from any other 4xx, and "it threw" is not a pin.
-    expect(state.status).toBe(403);
-    expect(state.body.error.code).toBe('SETTINGS_FORBIDDEN');
+    expect(state.status).toBe(401);
+    expect(state.body.error.code).toBe('UNAUTHENTICATED');
 
     expect(boot.ledgerRows()).toHaveLength(0);
     expect(boot.settingAuditRows()).toHaveLength(0);
 
@@ -60,10 +60,12 @@ interface Captured {
   body: any;
 }
 
-/** An authorized admin: verified, holding the branding manifest's capabilities. */
-const admin = () => ({ enforced: true, permissions: ['setup.access', 'setup.write'] });
-/** Anonymous + enforced — the module's secure default. */
+/** An authorized admin: verified, signed in, holding the branding manifest's capabilities. */
+const admin = () => ({ enforced: true, permissions: ['setup.access', 'setup.write'], userId: 'usr_admin' });
+/** Anonymous + enforced — the module's secure default, refused by the family's anonymous floor. */
 const anon = () => ({ enforced: true });
+/** Signed in, holding no capability — the caller the manifest's own gate refuses. */
+const member = () => ({ enforced: true, permissions: [], userId: 'usr_member' });
 
 function mount(contextFromRequest: any = admin, env: Record<string, string> = {}) {
   // `env: {}` so a real `OS_BRANDING_*` in the environment cannot lock a key
@@ -199,11 +201,22 @@ describe('settings envelope (#3843) — success bodies', () => {
 describe('settings envelope (#3843) — error bodies', () => {
   const CASES: Array<{ name: string; status: number; code: string; run: () => Promise<Captured> }> = [
     {
+      // ADR-0056 D2 — the family's anonymous floor answers before the
+      // manifest's capability gate, in the same declared envelope.
       name: 'anonymous read of a capability-gated namespace',
+      status: 401,
+      code: 'UNAUTHENTICATED',
+      run: async () => {
+        const { http } = mount(anon);
+        return drive(http, 'GET /api/settings/:namespace', { params: { namespace: 'branding' } });
+      },
+    },
+    {
+      name: 'a signed-in read without the namespace\'s capability',
       status: 403,
       code: 'SETTINGS_FORBIDDEN',
       run: async () => {
-        const { http } = mount(anon);
+        const { http } = mount(member);
         return drive(http, 'GET /api/settings/:namespace', { params: { namespace: 'branding' } });
       },
     },
@@ -230,8 +243,8 @@ describe('settings envelope (#3843) — error bodies', () => {
     },
     {
       name: 'anonymous write',
-      status: 403,
-      code: 'SETTINGS_FORBIDDEN',
+      status: 401,
+      code: 'UNAUTHENTICATED',
       run: async () => {
         const { http } = mount(anon);
         return drive(http, 'PUT /api/settings/:namespace', {
@@ -338,7 +351,7 @@ describe('settings envelope (#4224) — the four ad-hoc keys travel in the decla
       details: { namespace: 'branding' },
       gone: ['namespace'],
       run: async () => {
-        const { http } = mount(anon);
+        const { http } = mount(member);
         return drive(http, 'GET /api/settings/:namespace', { params: { namespace: 'branding' } });
       },
     },
 
@@ -96,10 +96,11 @@ beforeAll(async () => {
 
   // The route the console's Localization page and the prompt read, mounted on
   // the service that boot registered, for an administrator holding the
-  // namespace's read capability.
+  // namespace's read capability. Signed in: a context with no `userId` is
+  // refused 401 by the family's anonymous floor (ADR-0056 D2).
   const http = new MockHttp();
   registerSettingsRoutes(http, kernel.getService<SettingsService>('settings'), {
-    contextFromRequest: () => ({ enforced: true, permissions: ['setup.access'] }),
+    contextFromRequest: () => ({ enforced: true, permissions: ['setup.access'], userId: 'usr_admin' }),
   });
   const state: { status: number; body?: any } = { status: 200 };
   const res = {
 
@@ -33,6 +33,13 @@
  * | a CURRENT member's key (control)    | 200, row lands | 200, row lands — unchanged |
  * | no credential (control)             | 403 | 403 — unchanged |
  *
+ * Since the family took the shared anonymous floor (ADR-0056 D2), every
+ * refusal in that "after" column — the three `403`s and the empty listing —
+ * answers `401 UNAUTHENTICATED`: a refused key resolves to NO principal (the
+ * last case of the vetted-tenant block pins that), and a caller with no
+ * principal is an anonymous one. What this file owns is unchanged — the
+ * refusal itself, and zero rows in the store.
+ *
  * ## The wiring ablation, held permanently
  *
  * The three `mount()` shapes below differ in NOTHING but whether this seam can
@@ -454,8 +461,9 @@ describe('#15351 — under a wall-enforcing posture the settings doors refuse an
     const m = await mount({ kind: 'service', posture: 'isolated' });
     const res = await put(m, KEY(RAW_EXMEMBER_KEY));
 
-    expect(res.status).toBe(403);
-    expect(res.body?.error?.code).toBe('SETTINGS_FORBIDDEN');
+    // The refused key resolves to no principal, so the anonymous floor answers.
+    expect(res.status).toBe(401);
+    expect(res.body?.error?.code).toBe('UNAUTHENTICATED');
     // Read back FROM THE STORE, never off the response body.
     expect(m.settingRows()).toHaveLength(0);
     expect(m.auditRows()).toHaveLength(0);
@@ -464,25 +472,29 @@ describe('#15351 — under a wall-enforcing posture the settings doors refuse an
   it("refuses an ex-member's org-stamped key at GET /:namespace (the read leak)", async () => {
     const m = await mount({ kind: 'service', posture: 'isolated' });
     const res = await getNs(m, KEY(RAW_EXMEMBER_KEY));
-    expect(res.status).toBe(403);
-    expect(res.body?.error?.code).toBe('SETTINGS_FORBIDDEN');
+    expect(res.status).toBe(401);
+    expect(res.body?.error?.code).toBe('UNAUTHENTICATED');
+    expect(res.body?.data).toBeUndefined();
   });
 
   it('stops an ex-member enumerating the namespace through GET /api/settings', async () => {
-    // The listing is not a refusal but a FILTER (`listManifests`): an enforced
-    // caller sees only what it may read. With no capabilities resolved, that is
-    // the empty list — pinned so the leak cannot come back as a 200 that still
+    // The listing used to be a FILTER (`listManifests`) for this caller — an
+    // enforced caller with no capabilities saw the empty list. The refused key
+    // resolves to no principal, so the anonymous floor now refuses the listing
+    // outright — pinned so the leak cannot come back as a 200 that still
     // names the namespace.
     const m = await mount({ kind: 'service', posture: 'isolated' });
     const res = await listNs(m, KEY(RAW_EXMEMBER_KEY));
-    expect(res.status).toBe(200);
-    expect(res.body).toMatchObject({ success: true, data: { manifests: [] } });
+    expect(res.status).toBe(401);
+    expect(res.body).toMatchObject({ success: false, error: { code: 'UNAUTHENTICATED' } });
+    expect(res.body?.data).toBeUndefined();
   });
 
   it('refuses an organization-less key where the posture requires one', async () => {
     const m = await mount({ kind: 'service', posture: 'isolated' });
     const res = await put(m, KEY(RAW_ORGLESS_KEY));
-    expect(res.status).toBe(403);
+    expect(res.status).toBe(401);
+    expect(res.body?.error?.code).toBe('UNAUTHENTICATED');
     expect(m.settingRows()).toHaveLength(0);
   });
 
@@ -504,7 +516,8 @@ describe('#15351 — under a wall-enforcing posture the settings doors refuse an
   it('CONTROL — no credential is still the anonymous refusal, and writes nothing', async () => {
     const m = await mount({ kind: 'service', posture: 'isolated' });
     const res = await put(m, {});
-    expect(res.status).toBe(403);
+    expect(res.status).toBe(401);
+    expect(res.body?.error?.code).toBe('UNAUTHENTICATED');
     expect(m.settingRows()).toHaveLength(0);
   });
 });
@@ -553,7 +566,8 @@ describe('#15351 — the posture is the EFFECTIVE one, never the requested one',
     delete process.env.OS_TENANCY_POSTURE;
     const m = await mount({ kind: 'service', posture: 'isolated' });
     const res = await put(m, KEY(RAW_EXMEMBER_KEY));
-    expect(res.status).toBe(403);
+    expect(res.status).toBe(401);
+    expect(res.body?.error?.code).toBe('UNAUTHENTICATED');
     expect(m.settingRows()).toHaveLength(0);
   });
 });
 
@@ -382,7 +382,8 @@ describe('#8026 — the refusal on the REST boundary', () => {
     const { svc, rowFor } = await bootProviderless();
     const http = new MockHttp();
     registerSettingsRoutes(http, svc, {
-      contextFromRequest: () => ({ enforced: true, permissions: ['setup.access', 'setup.write'] }),
+      // Signed in — the family's anonymous floor refuses a context with no `userId`.
+      contextFromRequest: () => ({ enforced: true, permissions: ['setup.access', 'setup.write'], userId: 'usr_admin' }),
     });
 
     const state: { status: number; body?: any } = { status: 200 };