A document that says how the system behaves is making claims. Every claim
that matters carries one of three grades, and there is no softer grade. This
page states the vocabulary once so both trees, the UI kit's
(docs/SCRIPTURE.md, section 6) and the platform contract's
(~/Code/Versable/gcp/contract/), cite the same nine lines instead of
restating them.
The grades#
| Grade | Meaning | What the entry must carry |
|---|---|---|
| ATTACKED | something that runs enforces the claim, or the failure it names is closed by a mechanism | the mechanism, by file:line or command, and the commit that landed it |
| PARTIAL | the claim holds where applied, but nothing forces it; a practice, a review cue, a doc that states the rule | what exists, and one sentence naming what does not |
| MISSING | nothing holds the claim; the hole is open | the exact command or read that proved the hole, so a later run can re-check it |
An entry's grade is as of the day it was written or last re-checked, and the entry says which day. A grade never gets a modifier ("mostly ATTACKED", "PARTIAL but close"); when the honest answer sits between two grades, the lower one is the grade and the sentence explains the gap.
The rule behind the vocabulary#
A rule nothing reads is not a rule. Rules bind exactly as far as their enforcement reaches. A canon sentence, a do-not, a contract clause: each is PARTIAL at best until something (a lint, a test, a CI job, a generated page, a conformance suite) reads it, and its status line names that reader. This is the scripture's F15, the sharpest lesson of the kit's own history, where the canary rule and the git-add ban both existed on paper and both died unread.
Absence claims#
A claim that something does not exist ("no gate compares X", "no consumer imports Y") records the exact command that returned empty, with the day it ran. Absence claims without a recorded command get reversed; the scripture's own gate reversed two of them (F12). Re-runs must exclude the doc that carries the command, or the doc matches its own absence check.
Where this came from#
docs/SCRIPTURE.md, section 0 (the rules the doc holds itself to) and section
6 (the failure-mode catalog, F1 to F19). Ratified by the owner in the two
scripture reviews (2026-08-15, 2026-08-18) and lifted here on 2026-08-18 so
the platform contract could cite one page rather than a line range.