Evidence layer
Probative surfaces brought into scope by this page
This page does more than point to governance files. It is also anchored to surfaces that make observation, traceability, fidelity, and audit more reconstructible. Their order below makes the minimal evidence chain explicit.
- 01Canon and scopeDefinitions canon
- 02Evidence artifactai-governance.json
- 03Evidence artifactinterpretation-policy.json
Definitions canon
/canon.md
Opposable base for identity, scope, roles, and negations that must survive synthesis.
- Makes provable
- The reference corpus against which fidelity can be evaluated.
- Does not prove
- Neither that a system already consults it nor that an observed response stays faithful to it.
- Use when
- Before any observation, test, audit, or correction.
ai-governance.json
/.well-known/ai-governance.json
Published surface that contributes to making an evidence chain more reconstructible.
- Makes provable
- Part of the observation, trace, audit, or fidelity chain.
- Does not prove
- Neither total proof, obedience guarantee, nor implicit certification.
- Use when
- When a page needs to make its evidence regime explicit.
interpretation-policy.json
/.well-known/interpretation-policy.json
Published surface that contributes to making an evidence chain more reconstructible.
- Makes provable
- Part of the observation, trace, audit, or fidelity chain.
- Does not prove
- Neither total proof, obedience guarantee, nor implicit certification.
- Use when
- When a page needs to make its evidence regime explicit.
Defined authority
Defined authority designates authority explicitly declared through canonical sources, structured signals, governance artifacts, or source hierarchy rather than reconstructed from weak contextual cues.
It is the opposite of letting a system guess which source, date, scope, or modality should govern a response.
Definition
Authority is defined when a system can identify the governing source before synthesis. The declaration may come from:
- a canonical definition;
- a doctrine page;
- an identity or entity graph;
- a governance file;
- a source hierarchy;
- a response-legitimacy rule;
- an explicit boundary, negation, or non-response condition.
Why this concept matters
In human reading, authority is often carried by context. In machine interpretation, context is fragile. A domain, layout, author name, or page position may disappear once a fragment enters retrieval, summarization, citation, or recombination.
Defined authority makes the governing layer explicit enough to survive that movement.
Minimal rule
If a declared authority signal exists, it should have precedence over an authority reconstructed from popularity, proximity, stylistic confidence, or apparent relevance.