Method
Published in full. A verdict that only we can reproduce would be a brand, not a standard.
Everything here is open, including our own workings. The methodology, the scorer, every gate and every decision live at github.com/whiteknightonhorse/provek, licensed for reuse, so any verdict can be recomputed from the same inputs. The operating documents that produced this instrument are recorded separately at provek-method — provenance, not instruction. Following them has no effect on any verdict: the score is computed from measured operations, and the use of a method is not one of them.
The ladder
Assigned per operation, never to a company as a whole. A company can be L4 in deployment and L0 in pricing.
- L0
- A human performs the operation; the agent drafts or advises.
- L1
- The agent performs it; a human approves each instance.
- L2
- The agent performs it; a human approves by exception.
- L3
- The agent performs and decides; a human may intervene but routinely does not.
- L4
- Intervention requires a privileged path, and that path is recorded.
- L5
- No human control path exists for this operation.
What it does not measure
- decision quality
- profitability
- whether the autonomy is desirable
- reliability, and whether anyone is accountable
Evidence classes
Every piece of evidence carries the cost of forging it. Mixing classes inside one number without disclosing the mix is forbidden — otherwise a score would say the same thing about a self-report as about a cryptographic signature.
- self_reported
- the subject, for free — never enters the score
- platform_observed
- the subject, at the cost of sustained theatre
- third_party_attested
- requires collusion with a third party
- cryptographically_bound
- requires compromising a key
Not measured is a state, not a zero
Three absences are distinguished and never collapsed: the check ran and nothing qualified; the check did not run; the source could not be read. A missing measurement is not a violation, and a verifier that suspended a subject for its own blindness would be punishing someone for its own failure.