Verify Citations

• Input: an intake package or draft citation set with SourceRef and provenance metadata
• Decision model: classify the evidence as pass, fail, or escalate for the next governance step
• Output: a citation-readiness report listing valid evidence, missing prerequisites, provisional markers, and blocking gaps
• Handoff rule: passing packages can move to policy review; failed or ambiguous packages stop and return for evidence remediation

Assertions

• Verify SourceRef prerequisites before evaluating downstream readiness
• Treat provisional-only, checksum-mismatched, or non-authoritative evidence as blocking when deterministic review cannot proceed
• Keep current MVP scope focused on provenance and citation-shape verification
• Route unresolved conflicts to escalation instead of silently downgrading them
• Do not invent new verification runtimes or out-of-band side effects

Procedure

Step 1: Inventory the cited evidence

List the cited raw artifacts, SourceRefs, checksums, and provenance status so review is grounded in explicit evidence rather than free-form claims.

Step 2: Verify citation prerequisites

Check SourceRef shape, authoritative-versus-provisional markers, checksum expectations, and any other ingest prerequisites required by the current knowledgebase contracts.

Step 3: Classify the readiness outcome

Use one of three outcomes only:

• pass: evidence is citation-ready for the next governance step
• fail: required citation prerequisites are missing or invalid
• escalate: contradictory or ambiguous evidence requires human review

Step 4: Hand off the result

Return blocking gaps, remediations needed, and the next destination such as policy-arbiter or a return to intake/evidence remediation.

Boundaries

• Do not present post-MVP claim-level verification as a landed runtime guarantee
• Do not approve packages that rely only on unresolved provisional evidence when deterministic review requires authoritative provenance
• Do not mutate page content or raw artifacts from this skill
• Do not bypass policy-arbiter when evidence is incomplete or disputed

Verification

• SourceRef and provenance prerequisites are explicitly checked
• Evidence outcome is pass, fail, or escalate
• Blocking gaps are named before policy review proceeds
• Post-MVP citation automation is kept out of the MVP runtime claim
• The workflow remains deterministic and fail-closed

References

• AGENTS.md
• docs/architecture.md
• raw/processed/SPEC.md
• schema/ingest-checklist.md
• schema/metadata-schema-contract.md