Provenance and authority

Every rule in a Book has two independent signals: provenance (how it came to be) and authority (whether the owner has verified it). They are structurally distinct and never substitute for each other.

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Provenance classes

Provenance identifies the origin of a proposed rule or value. There are four classes:

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How the class is determined

A rule may have multiple field origins — for example, one field extracted from a file and another suggested by a recipe. The provenance class follows the most tentative wins rule:

1. If any field is a suggestion, the whole rule reads as Suggested.
2. If any field is derived, the whole rule reads as From your numbers.
3. If any field is extracted, the whole rule reads as From your file.
4. Only a rule where every field was owner-provided reads as You told us.

This ensures an unverified suggestion is never styled like an authorized price.

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When no provenance is recorded

A rule carried forward from an already-published version may have no recorded origins. In that case, no provenance chip appears — its authority is its verification, not its origin.

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Authority

Authority is whether the owner has explicitly verified a rule. There are three states:

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Provenance is not authority

A rule labeled From your file is not automatically verified. A rule labeled You told us is not automatically verified. A rule labeled Suggested is explicitly not authorized. The provenance chip stays neutral so a suggestion is never dressed as an authorized rule. Only the Verified chip — earned through explicit owner action on the Verify Statements page — represents authority.

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How provenance appears

Provenance chips appear on:

• Review draft — Each rule shows its provenance chip alongside its verification status.
• Verify Statements — Each rule shows its provenance chip so you can see where a rule came from before deciding to verify it.
• Guided pricing setup — The economics helper shows provenance for each calculated value (floor, target, suggestion) so you can see whether a number came from your costs, your stated target, or a Kordless suggestion.

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Source and provenance detail

On the Review draft and Verify Statements pages, each rule can be expanded to show its source and provenance detail — the specific claims, inputs, or suggestions that produced it. This lets you trace a rule back to its origin before verifying it. If a rule has no source recorded, the detail reads: “No source recorded. This rule must be corrected before publication.”

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The candidate value model

In guided pricing setup, the economics helper produces a candidate value with a visible derivation. The candidate value distinguishes: None of these is an authorized price. Each is a proposal that the owner must review and verify before it can quote.

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