---
id: correctness.overview
title: Correctness Governance
summary: Govern project policies and rubrics, their applicability, linked cases, approval state, and contribution provenance.
kind: concept
product_area: correctness_governance
status: stable
updated: 2026-09-07
canonical: /docs/correctness-governance
---

# Correctness Governance

Correctness Governance is the project-level surface for policies and rubrics. It makes the specialist standards used by expert work and benchmark evaluation inspectable, attributable, and reusable across benchmark workspaces.

## Definition

The surface has **Policies** and **Rubrics**. Policy pages describe a behavior rule, its scope, linked examples, approval state, activity, and connected rubrics. Rubric pages define testable evaluation criteria and show how they relate to cases, policies, and evaluation use.

Correctness Elicitation is the broader capability that discovers and resolves specialist judgment. Correctness Governance is the product surface that owns the resulting governed project artifacts. Expert Contributions may propose or contribute policies and rubrics, but those artifacts retain their own lifecycle and provenance.

## Decision checkpoint

| Need | Inspect or change | Boundary |
| --- | --- | --- |
| State a reusable behavior rule | Policy | Keep source and expert rationale visible |
| Decide where a rule applies | Policy scope and applicability | Do not encode broad intent only in rubric wording |
| Make the rule testable | Binary rubric | Define observable pass and fail evidence |
| Connect standards to examples | Linked cases | A linked case does not automatically belong to every benchmark |
| Review expert-originated material | Contribution provenance and approval | Contribution output is not silently governed |
| Explain evaluation movement | Policy, rubric, case, and version context | Do not rely on an aggregate score alone |

## Policies and rubrics

A policy explains what behavior should occur and why. Applicability determines the situations in which the rule controls. A rubric turns that rule into an evaluation question whose result can be traced to observable behavior. Several rubrics may operationalize different parts of one policy, and cases can help demonstrate where each rubric applies.

Rubrics should remain atomic enough to interpret. If one rubric simultaneously checks grounding, tone, escalation, and completeness, a failure does not identify the responsible behavior. Split criteria where independent failure evidence matters.

## Human and agent roles

Agents can draft possible wording, surface linked cases, identify proposed applications, and prepare follow-up questions. Experts contribute domain authority through benchmark-scoped work. Project operators inspect and maintain the governed artifacts. Approval history and activity should make the transition between proposal, contribution, and governed state visible.

Changing a project-level policy or rubric may affect several benchmarks. Before interpreting a later Run, confirm which benchmark version and standard boundary it used.

{% example-demo title="Unsupported compatibility" %}
A specialist confirms that compatibility may be claimed only when an authoritative source explicitly supports the exact equipment combination. Correctness Governance records the policy, scopes it to recommendation and validation responses, links representative cases, and defines a binary rubric that passes only when the response cites support or clearly states uncertainty.
{% /example-demo %}

## Related workflows

{% related-card-grid title="Related workflows" %}
- [Build policies and rubrics](/docs/operating-manual/build-policies-and-rubrics)
- [Write binary rubrics](/docs/correctness-governance/binary-rubrics)
- [Request an Expert Contribution](/docs/expert-contributions/request-contribution)
{% /related-card-grid %}

## Related reference pages

{% related-card-grid title="Related reference pages" %}
- [Policies](/docs/object-model/policies)
- [Applicability Logic](/docs/object-model/applicability-logic)
- [Rubrics](/docs/object-model/rubrics)
{% /related-card-grid %}

## Source confidence

Code-backed: the active Correctness Governance layout, policy list, rubric list, and detail surfaces establish the current ownership and relationships described here.