Forensic Cross-Check (FCC)
classification and the observational surface declared inside boundary_readiness.
- 1. What FCC Is
- 2. The Inference Mechanism
- 3. The Four FCC States
- 4. The Anti-Synthetic-Coherence Sensor
- 5. FCC in the Evidentiary Profile
- 6. FCC, DWC and FAC — how they actually relate
- 7. FCC continuity is not Evidentiary Continuity
- 8. What FCC Does Not Determine
- 9. GLM Construct Declaration
- 10. Architectural Review Items
The Forensic Cross-Check (FCC) is a server-computed evidentiary inference mechanism introduced in EVIDE v2.0. It occupies position nine of the EVIDE evidentiary profile and is exposed under the profile key continuity.
FCC evaluates the structural coherence of a closure surface by cross-checking two dimensions against each other: the classification of the decision being stabilized, and the runtime visibility of the conditions under which it was made.
The result is a four-state inference — stable, degraded, unknown, broken — that becomes part of the evidentiary record at the moment of stabilization. It cannot be submitted, overridden, or modified by the intake system.
It evaluates whether the conditions under which it was decided
are structurally coherent with the classification claimed.
FCC is derived from a cross-dimensional matrix. The two input dimensions are:
classification— taken fromintervention.classification_status. Declared by the intake system. Values:stable,provisional,contested.runtime_visibility— not a submitted field. The intake system declareshandoff.boundary_readiness.visibility_surface; EVIDE maps that declaration onto the runtime visibility dimension used by the inference.
runtime_visibility field to submit. It appears in the response profile because EVIDE derives it. The field you declare is handoff.boundary_readiness.visibility_surface.
The cross-check detects structural incoherence: a decision classified as stable under conditions declared insufficient produces a different FCC output than the same classification under declared_complete conditions. The asymmetry between what is claimed and what is observable is exactly what FCC is designed to surface.
The complete implemented matrix. Every reachable combination is listed; there are no other paths.
| classification | runtime_visibility | FCC state |
|---|---|---|
| stable | confirmed | stable |
| stable | partial | degraded |
| stable | unverifiable | degraded |
| provisional | confirmed | degraded |
| provisional | partial | degraded |
| provisional | unverifiable | unknown |
| contested | any | broken |
| absent or unrecognised | any | unknown |
| any | absent or unrecognised | unknown |
stable does not mean the decision was correct. broken does not mean misconduct occurred. FCC states describe the structural relationship between declared classification and derived observational conditions at the moment of stabilization. Nothing more.
FCC contains an embedded detection mechanism referred to as the Anti-Synthetic-Coherence (ASC) sensor. This mechanism addresses a specific and structurally dangerous failure mode in AI-assisted governance systems.
The failure mode is this: an AI system can produce outputs that are internally coherent — well-formed, logically consistent, formally complete — while the conditions that would make those outputs observationally grounded no longer exist. The system appears to be functioning correctly. The evidentiary conditions for its outputs have silently degraded.
A system can produce coherent outputs from incoherent conditions.
FCC is designed to detect that gap.
The ASC sensor is the asymmetric half of the matrix. When a system claims a stable classification while declaring an observational surface it cannot fully vouch for, the cross-check refuses to return stable. The structural incoherence is forensically significant — not because the outputs are necessarily wrong, but because they cannot be independently reconstructed from the observational conditions present at the time they were produced.
This is the epistemic distinction at the core of FCC: the evidentiary value of a closure depends not just on what was decided, but on whether the conditions surrounding the decision were sufficiently observable to support independent reconstruction.
The evidentiary profile is a flat object. Most of its members are values carried over from the declared payload; three are objects computed by EVIDE and marked "mode": "inferred". FCC is one of the three.
Records stabilized before the profile was extended carry profile_version: "1.0". That format has the same flat members and the same continuity object, but no decision_wave_compression and no formal_accountability_collapse. Both formats remain valid as stored evidence: a 1.0 profile is not an incomplete 1.1 profile, it is a complete profile of an earlier generation. Consumers should branch on profile_version rather than assume the two inferred dimensions are present.
profile_version tracks the profile structure; evide_schema tracks the intake schema. A schema update does not necessarily change the profile structure, and a profile extension does not require a schema increment.
threshold_authority: the profile member threshold_authority does not carry the payload's threshold_authority object. It carries a single value, the attribution status read from intervention.classification_context.threshold_authority.attribution_status — one of attributed, fragmented, implicit, unknown, or null when not declared. This is the logical dimension that FAC refers to as threshold_attribution in its derivation string. The API field name and the inferential dimension name currently differ; see Section 10.
The evidentiary profile carries three inferred dimensions. They are frequently read as a single escalation ladder. They are not. Each is computed from its own inputs, and only one of them takes another as input.
| Dimension | Derivation | States |
|---|---|---|
| continuity (FCC) | classification × runtime_visibility | stable · degraded · unknown · broken |
| decision_wave_compression (DWC) | runtime_visibility × boundary_readiness × unresolved_signals | not_detected · detected · critical · unknown |
| formal_accountability_collapse (FAC) | authority × threshold_attribution × continuity | not_detected · detected · critical · unknown |
Read the derivations and the topology follows:
- FCC feeds FAC. The continuity state computed by the cross-check is one of FAC's three inputs. This is the only dependency between inferred dimensions.
- FCC and DWC share an input but not a result. Both read
runtime_visibility. Neither reads the other. They can and do disagree. - DWC does not feed FAC. Throughput pressure is not part of the accountability collapse inference. A closure can carry
decision_wave_compression: criticalandformal_accountability_collapse: not_detectedat the same time, and that combination is not a contradiction — the two dimensions are answering different questions.
FCC stable + DWC critical as the entry condition for Formal Accountability Collapse. FAC does not read DWC at all, and that combination produces formal_accountability_collapse: not_detected whenever authority is declared and threshold attribution is present.
FCC stable + DWC critical is read as Oversight Viability Collapse (OVC): individual closures appear structurally intact while decision throughput has rendered the oversight function operationally non-viable. OVC is throughput-driven; FAC is continuity-driven. OVC is a derived, display-time reading computed on top of the profile — it is not an engine dimension, it does not appear in the evidentiary profile, and it does not modify any inferred state. Formal schema definition for OVC is deferred.
FAC is an accountability-attribution inference. It asks whether a named authority and an attributable threshold owner stand behind a structurally coherent closure.
| Condition | FAC state |
|---|---|
authority declared, threshold attribution attributed or implicit, continuity stable |
not_detected |
continuity broken, or authority not declared, or threshold attribution unknown |
critical |
threshold attribution fragmented, or continuity degraded |
detected |
no condition above matched — including continuity unknown, and threshold attribution not declared |
unknown |
formal_accountability_collapse: unknown is the fall-through of the inference, not a positive finding. It means no rule matched — the record does not assert that accountability is intact, and it does not assert that it has collapsed. Consumers should treat unknown as absence of inference, distinct from not_detected.
Full documentation of the DWC/FAC framework: Decision Wave Compression — Technical Note
EVIDE uses the word continuity in two unrelated constructs. The overlap is a naming collision, not a relationship.
| continuity (FCC, Dimension 9) | Evidentiary Continuity | |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Within one closure | Across distinct closures |
| Question | Were the conditions coherent with the claim at this crossing? | Is this closure a declared continuation of a previous one? |
| Nature | Server-inferred, four states | Declared at deposit, validated, immutable |
| Carried by | evidentiary_profile.continuity | chain.parent_evide_id and related fields |
Evidentiary Continuity asks whether a sequence of closures holds together.
Reference: EVIDE Evidentiary Continuity — architecture, guarantees, and live API
FCC is an evidentiary inference mechanism. Its scope is precisely bounded:
- FCC does not determine whether a decision was correct, safe, or compliant
- FCC does not determine legal liability or regulatory violation
- FCC does not certify the quality of the AI system that produced the decision
- FCC does not validate the authority conditions declared by the submitting system — it observes their structural coherence
- FCC does not read the chain, the throughput context, or any other closure than the one being stabilized
- FCC does not operate as a post-stabilization interpretation layer — once the closure record is stabilized, FCC is fixed
- FCC does not reconstruct closure state after the fact — the state is inferred at the moment of crossing, not recovered from downstream artifacts
FCC is an evidentiary signal, not a verdict.
FCC is declared as a vendor framework construct in the public EVIDE GLM manifest, under vendor_framework_constructs, using the vendor-local alias EVIDE:FCC. The manifest declares several constructs; the FCC entry is reproduced below.
The canonical URI for FCC is this page. Any GLM-aware system that fetches the EVIDE manifest and follows the canonical_uri for EVIDE:FCC will arrive here for the authoritative definition of the construct.
This page documents implemented behaviour. Three design decisions remain open and are recorded here rather than resolved silently. Each may change the profile output in a future revision; none of them changes what FCC currently computes.
The FAC derivation string names its second input threshold_attribution. The profile exposes that dimension under the member name threshold_authority, which is also the name of the payload object it is read from. Consumers tracing the derivation will not find a member of that name.
formal_accountability_collapse: unknownA closure whose continuity could not be inferred, and a closure whose threshold attribution was simply never declared, both fall through to unknown. These are epistemically different situations: one is an inference that cannot be made, the other is a declaration that was not made. Whether they should remain a single state is open.
identityThe profile member identity returns claimed when an authority verification reference is present, and declared when it is absent. Whether that vocabulary conveys the intended ordering is under review.
EVIDE Framework: certifywebcontent.com - Evidentiary Deposit
EVIDE JSON Schema: app.certifywebcontent.com/json
EVIDE Intake Schema Documentation: Intake schema reference
Evidentiary Continuity: Chaining responsibility across decisions
DWC/FAC Technical Note: Decision Wave Compression and Formal Accountability Collapse
EVIDE v2.x Roadmap: Architectural Backlog and Experimental Constructs
GLM Manifest (EVIDE): governance-layer-manifest.json
GLM Standard Specification: Governance Layer Manifest - Open Standard Proposal
FCC observes the structural coherence of the closure surface.
It cross-checks classification against runtime visibility.
It does not decide. It does not adjudicate. It records.
FCC is computed exclusively by EVIDE. It cannot be declared, supplied, or overridden by the submitting system.
"The evidentiary value of a closure depends not only on what was decided,
but on whether the conditions surrounding the decision
were sufficiently observable to support independent reconstruction."
Contact: info@informaticainazienda.it