First Enabled Match Wins, With the Fallback Last

Context

Customers depend on retained geographic comparison semantics. Changing those comparisons can move records without a coverage edit.

Decision

One matcher supplies preview, ordinary placement and forced recalculation. Disabled rules are skipped. Absent deciding input and addresses outside all enabled coverage produce no calculated region; missing country compares as the United States.

Alternatives Considered

Interpret postal endpoints numerically or by national format. This changes retained comparison behavior and needs its own product decision.

Require one fallback or use the first enabled fallback. Retained behavior selects the last enabled fallback; browser warnings identify repeated fallback coverage instead of changing that result.

Consequences

Coverage authors should put specific geographic rules before broader matches. A reversed lexical postal interval is accepted but contributes no matches. Absent recognized address input prevents fallback matching. The shared matcher keeps saved-policy preview aligned with the geographic calculation used in placement.