Evidence ladder

Use the strongest evidence practical for the decision. A higher class can still be stale, irrelevant, or too broad for the nearby claim.

1. Direct current observation — reproduced behavior, command output, inspected artifact, or measured result.
2. Authoritative primary source — official specification, dataset, law, documentation, first-party repository, or original research.
3. Independent corroboration — competent sources with distinct underlying evidence.
4. Explicit inference — a conclusion whose premises and assumptions are visible in the map.
5. Weak proxy — related metric, benchmark, anecdote, or test that does not exercise the exact claim.
6. Unsupported assertion — confidence, repetition, or polished language without evidence.

Source-region test

Before creating an evidence node, answer:

• What exact sentence, table, command output, page, section, or line range is being relied on?
• Does it entail the node text, or merely discuss the same subject?
• Is its date and version appropriate for the claim?
• Is the evidence independent, or copied from another cited source?
• What context would reverse or narrow the interpretation?

If the exact region cannot be located, create an unknown node instead of an evidence node.

Edge test