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
- 02Response authorizationQ-Layer: response legitimacy
- 03External contextCitations
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.
Q-Layer: response legitimacy
/response-legitimacy.md
Surface that explains when to answer, when to suspend, and when to switch to legitimate non-response.
- Makes provable
- The legitimacy regime to apply before treating an output as receivable.
- Does not prove
- Neither that a given response actually followed this regime nor that an agent applied it at runtime.
- Use when
- When a page deals with authority, non-response, execution, or restraint.
Citations
/citations.md
Minimal external reference surface used to contextualize some concepts without delegating canonical authority to them.
- Makes provable
- That an external reference can be cited as explicit context rather than silently inferred.
- Does not prove
- Neither endorsement, neutrality, nor the fidelity of a final answer.
- Use when
- When a page uses external sources, sector references, or vocabulary anchors.
Statement-level authority
Statement-level authority designates the capacity of an individual statement to preserve its issuer, scope, timestamp, source hierarchy, and interpretive limits after extraction from its original document.
The concept becomes necessary when AI systems do not read a whole page as a stable authority surface, but fragment it into reusable claims.
Definition
A statement has retained its authority when a system can still identify:
- who issued it;
- which canonical source supports it;
- when it was published or updated;
- where it applies;
- what it does not cover;
- which source can correct or supersede it;
- whether it is descriptive, normative, hypothetical, archival, or suspensive.
Without these signals, an extracted statement may remain true in isolation while becoming misleading inside a generated answer.
Difference from document-level authority
Document-level authority relies on the page, domain, layout, context, and canonical source. Statement-level authority asks whether the same signals survive when one claim is separated from that document.
This is why citation is not enough. A cited fragment may still lose its issuer, date, perimeter, exception, or governing source.
Minimal rule
An extracted statement should not govern a response unless issuer, source, time, scope, status, and limits remain reconstructible.