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
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.
Source legitimacy
Source legitimacy is the condition under which a source is authorized to govern a specific claim, scope or decision context.
A source can be visible, indexed, popular, cited or retrieved without being legitimate for the claim being made. A directory may be useful for discovery, a review may be useful for sentiment, a product page may be useful for features, and a canonical doctrine page may be required for the definition of a method.
Short definition
Source legitimacy asks whether the source has the right role, authority, freshness, proximity and scope to constrain the answer. It is evaluated through source hierarchy, not through visibility alone.
Governance implication
When a system cites a source, the audit should ask whether that source was merely available or actually legitimate. This distinction prevents domain strength, popularity or source repetition from replacing authority.