Catalogs, branching & write-audit-publish

Prompt A. "Map our SOX audited-publish control onto Iceberg. A nightly load must not reach the production mart until quality checks pass. Explain the steps write → audit → publish with an Iceberg branch. Say exactly what readers of main see at each step."

Prompt B. "Name three ways to get WAP wrong: write to main, audit the wrong snapshot, and publish before the audit. Explain why each one silently breaks the control."

Rubric — a strong explanation hits these (5–7):

• Identifies the catalog as the holder of the atomic pointer and as the governance boundary.
• Distinguishes an immutable tag from a mutable branch.
• Writes the candidate data to a branch, not to main. Says that main readers are unaffected.
• Runs the audit checks against the snapshot of the branch (the candidate data).
• Publishes only when the audit passes. Uses a fast-forward (or cherry-pick) of main to the branch.
• Explains why order matters: the gate must be enforced before the data is visible.
• (Bonus) Names a failure mode (write-to-main, audit-wrong-snapshot or publish-first) and its consequence.