"Stability is achieved not by eliminating variation but by managing it.
A standard is not a moral statement. In an audit-driven requirement that can become theater, it is an agreement about what the system will do under pressure. Without that agreement, you get exceptions by persuasion instead of principle.
In an audit-driven requirement that can become theater, a quiet “just this once” becomes precedent. The damage is not one exception; it is the loss of clarity about the bar and who can change it. Write it for the person who inherits it later, because they will not have today’s context or today’s goodwill.
Walter A. Shewhart is useful here because it forces precision. State the standard plainly, then make the exception path narrow enough to matter. Let others hold you to it.