Verified Truth Ecosystem — Claims Discipline

Document: CLAIMS_DISCIPLINE.md Version: 1.0 Date: 2026-06-26 Owner: Maxim Geller Prepared in response to: Mikhail Goman's scientific review (Deliverable D of six)

Purpose

This document inventories every meaningful claim made in public-facing Verified Truth material — the portal at truth.equiwork.io, the Goman case study, and connected doctrine documents. Each claim is tagged with an explicit status. The goal is to make every assertion auditable: a reviewer should be able to read this document, find any claim, and immediately know what kind of thing it is.

A scientific reviewer noted that the previous version of the doctrine sometimes sounded like a series of strong assertions without explicit grounding. This document fixes that by separating:

• what we have built (EXISTS / PARTIAL / PROTOTYPE)
• what we are building (PILOT / ROADMAP)
• what we propose (RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS / CONCEPT)
• what we build on (EXTERNAL PRECEDENT)
• what is deliberately not in public material (CONFIDENTIAL DETAIL)

Every claim in the doctrine should fit into exactly one of these categories. If a claim does not fit, it is either (a) too vague to be useful and should be sharpened, or (b) overclaiming and should be downgraded.

Status taxonomy

A claim may carry multiple badges when appropriate. For example, "EquiWork is the first implementation of the unified framework" is EXISTS (the framework exists in code) and RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS (the proposition that this unified framework is the right architecture is still being validated by use).

Section A — Claims about EquiWork (the agreements platform)

A.1 The lifecycle

Claim: "EquiWork implements an agreement lifecycle from Draft to Canonical." Status: EXISTS for the five core states (Draft → Confirmed → Frozen → Signing → Canonical). PARTIAL for the two later states (Executing, Completed). The first canonical record was sealed on 2026-04-21 — a verifiable event with a hash reference. CONFIDENTIAL DETAIL on exact commit and tag.

A.2 The AI bounded role

Claim: "AI cannot become authoritative through any path the framework permits." Status: EXISTS as architectural design. CONFIDENTIAL DETAIL on exact composition (predicate vocabulary, validator logic, schema-level constraints). The claim is testable: a reviewer with code access can verify there is no path from AI output to canonical state.

A.3 Audit trail

Claim: "Every state change is recorded in an append-only audit log." Status: EXISTS in production schema. CONFIDENTIAL DETAIL on exact table structure and enforcement mechanism.

A.4 Production stability

Claim: "EquiWork is in production today." Status: PARTIAL. Code is deployed to app.equiwork.io. Known infrastructure issues (session persistence and a split-store architecture) are documented internally as P0 blockers awaiting an architectural decision from the CTO. We do not claim production is fully stable; we claim it is live and useful for first-pilot scope.

A.5 EIP-712 signatures

Claim: "EquiWork uses EIP-712 signatures for binding payloads." Status: EXISTS + EXTERNAL PRECEDENT (EIP-712 is a public Ethereum standard).

A.6 SHA-256 hashing of agreements

Claim: "Agreement content is hashed with SHA-256 when frozen." Status: EXISTS + EXTERNAL PRECEDENT (SHA-256 is a public cryptographic standard).

A.7 Predicate vocabulary

Claim: "The framework uses a frozen predicate vocabulary with documented semantics." Status: EXISTS internally. CONFIDENTIAL DETAIL on the exact predicate names and their semantics (kept under invite/NDA per public-vs-protected content map).

A.8 Authority levels

Claim: "The framework defines graduated authority levels." Status: PARTIAL. Model defined in internal documentation. Implementation in code is partial; full on-chain authority registry is ROADMAP. CONFIDENTIAL DETAIL on exact taxonomy.

A.9 Smart contracts

Claim: "Core EquiWork contracts are written and unit-tested." Status: PARTIAL. Contracts exist in private repository, unit tests pass. Mainnet deployment is ROADMAP. Multisig setup is ROADMAP.

A.10 Dispute layer

Claim: "EquiWork supports formal dispute resolution." Status: ROADMAP. Conceptual flow documented. Implementation not started.

A.11 80+ API routes, automated test pass

Claim: "EquiWork has approximately 80 API routes and a passing automated test suite." Status: EXISTS at time of last verification (2026-Q2). Validation pipeline is currently paused; staleness check against current production state is required before re-asserting publicly.

Section B — Claims about CAP (object provenance, Cartulary Inc planned)

B.1 CAP as architectural substrate

Claim: "CAP applies the same protocol used by EquiWork to physical objects." Status: CONCEPT. Architecture is domain-agnostic by design; this claim follows from the architecture. The concrete demonstration that the substrate works for objects is PILOT (T&T) and CONCEPT for other verticals.

B.2 CAP as independent corporate entity

Claim: "CAP will be incorporated as a separate Delaware C-Corp (working name: Cartulary Inc) that licenses CAP primitives from EquiWork." Status: ROADMAP. Corporate structure planned. Not yet incorporated.

B.3 Six-tier CAP architecture

Claim: "CAP supports a six-tier access architecture from T1 private owner through T6 white-label." Status: CONCEPT. Architecture proposed in internal planning. Not implemented. No tier currently has production deployment.

B.4 V1 wedge: paintings conservation

Claim: "CAP's first commercial wedge is paintings conservation, insurer-led GTM (Chubb, Hiscox, AIG Private Client, Lloyd's syndicates)." Status: CONCEPT + ROADMAP. Strategy chosen in internal planning. No insurer conversations have begun yet. AXA was eliminated as a potential first partner after their announced partnership with Winston Artory (Aug 2025).

B.5 Object lifecycle preservation

Claim: "CAP preserves the full lifecycle of an object from origin to current possession." Status: CONCEPT. Demonstration would require full integration with at least one production deployment in one vertical, with real objects flowing through the system. None exists today.

B.6 Physical-world binding

Claim: "CAP records can be cryptographically bound to physical marks on objects." Status: RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS. Multiple existing technologies could support this (RFID, NFC, physical unclonable functions, DNA marking for art conservation). Selection and validation per vertical remains.

Section C — Claims about T&T (wine vertical, established Delaware Corp)

C.1 T&T as separate Delaware Corp

Claim: "Tasting & Toasting is a separate Delaware Corporation, licensing CAP substrate from EquiWork." Status: EXISTS. Corporate registration complete.

C.2 First winery pilot

Claim: "First winery pilot conversation underway with Stara Winna Góra (Poland)." Status: PILOT. Conversation has begun. No signed pilot agreement yet. Pilot scope and commercial terms are not yet defined publicly. CONFIDENTIAL DETAIL on commercial terms once they exist.

C.3 Winery OS module list

Claim: "Winery OS comprises a defined set of modules covering vineyard, cellar, bottling, distribution, and consumer." Status: CONCEPT. Module list exists in internal planning documents. No modules are implemented in production for any winery.

C.4 Production data state on T&T prod environment

Claim: "T&T production environment has X live customers." Status: Such a claim does not appear in public material. Current internal state: D2 deployment complete (migration applied, seed winery created, 25 PDFs uploaded to S3). D3 was confirmed never to have run on production. Production is at zero-customer scope. Any future public claim about T&T traction must reflect actual production state.

C.5 Consumer-facing app

Claim: "T&T has a consumer-facing app for verified wine experience." Status: PROTOTYPE. Consumer flow drafted. Production build is ROADMAP.

Section D — Claims about Scientific Knowledge Passport (Goman case study)

D.1 The Scientific Knowledge Passport as a category

Claim: "The Scientific Knowledge Passport extends the Verified Truth framework to scientific careers." Status: RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS. Structurally plausible given the framework's domain-agnostic protocol. The Goman case study describes the model. No implementation exists for any researcher.

D.2 Professor Goman bibliometric facts

Claim: "Professor Mikhail Goman has approximately 80 publications, 17,000+ reads, 1,400+ citations, received the Zhukovsky Gold Medal in 1992, began at TsAGI in 1972, is currently Professor of Dynamics at De Montfort University." Status: EXISTS + EXTERNAL PRECEDENT. All numbers from publicly accessible bibliometric platforms (ResearchGate, Google Scholar, DMU institutional profile). Verifiable independently.

D.3 The SUPRA project as flagship work

Claim: "Goman led development of a generic airliner aerodynamic model in extended flight envelope as part of EU FP7 SUPRA (2009-2012)." Status: EXISTS + EXTERNAL PRECEDENT. Public record. Verifiable via SUPRA project documentation and Goman's published works.

D.4 Goman case study as pilot

Claim: "Goman is the first pilot subject of the Scientific Knowledge Passport." Status: CONCEPT + PARTIAL. Maxim has reviewed scope. Direct pilot agreement with Goman or his institution does not yet exist as a formal commitment. We claim Goman as an illustrated subject of the model, drawn from public academic record.

D.5 Digital twin of laboratory

Claim: "Each laboratory receives a digital twin preserving evolution of equipment, experiments, datasets." Status: CONCEPT. Specification not started. Existing tools (electronic lab notebooks, LIMS systems, research data management platforms) overlap with parts of this concept; how Verified Truth would compose with or replace them is not yet specified.

D.6 Scientific AI Research Agent

Claim: "Each laboratory receives a scientific AI agent that organizes verified knowledge but does not create scientific truth." Status: CONCEPT. Same architectural posture as EquiWork's AI bounded role (Section A.2) applied to the science domain. Not implemented for any laboratory.

D.7 Fifty-year preservation

Claim: "A future researcher in 50 years can open the Scientific Knowledge Passport and continue a living scientific school." Status: CONCEPT. Aspirational scenario describing what the architecture would enable. No commitment that we will be operating in 50 years; the architecture is designed so that preservation does not depend on our continued operation (open standards, exportable records).

Section E — Claims about Verified Truth as a framework

E.1 Framework definition

Claim: "Verified Truth is an infrastructure layer for preserving evidence-backed, context-bound, human-approved operational truth — preserved at the moment it happens, not reconstructed years later." Status: EXISTS (as principle and architecture) + PARTIAL (as full implementation). Phrasing was sharpened in response to scientific review, to distinguish operational truth from philosophical truth.

E.2 Universal substrate claim

Claim: "One protocol covers agreements, objects, and scientific knowledge from a single substrate." Status: RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS. The architecture is designed to support this. EquiWork (agreements) is EXISTS/PARTIAL. CAP (objects) is CONCEPT/PILOT. Scientific Knowledge Passport is CONCEPT. The full claim that one substrate works across all three is not yet validated by all three working at production scale.

E.3 Continuous lifecycle preservation

Claim: "Verified Truth preserves continuous lifecycles rather than point-in-time documents." Status: EXISTS as architectural principle, demonstrable in EquiWork's lifecycle. CONCEPT for objects, CONCEPT for science.

E.4 Composition of existing standards

Claim: "Verified Truth composes existing public-domain standards (W3C PROV concepts, EIP-712 signatures, SHA-256 hashing) into a verification architecture." Status: EXISTS for EquiWork. Each underlying standard is EXTERNAL PRECEDENT in its own right.

E.5 First implementation

Claim: "EquiWork is the first implementation of the Verified Truth framework." Status: EXISTS. EquiWork is the first system to compose these primitives in this specific way. We do not claim no one will ever build a similar system; we claim this is the first.

Section F — Claims about AI / human boundary

F.1 AI suggests; human approves

Claim: "AI can analyze. AI cannot approve." Status: EXISTS as architectural principle, enforced by framework design. CONFIDENTIAL DETAIL on exact enforcement mechanism.

F.2 AI bounded by protocol, not policy

Claim: "AI being non-authoritative is structural to the framework, not a runtime convention that could be bypassed." Status: EXISTS as architectural design. Testable by code review under invite.

F.3 Multiple AI provider abstraction

Claim: "The framework supports multiple AI providers (Anthropic, OpenAI, others) without changing the trust model." Status: PARTIAL. Provider abstraction exists in code. Currently using one primary provider; other providers integrable but not all tested in production.

F.4 AI never signs binding payloads

Claim: "AI does not sign EIP-712 payloads or any cryptographic payload that carries binding weight on behalf of a party." Status: EXISTS. Testable by code review under invite.

Section G — Claims about ownership and legal weight

G.1 Ownership as verified history

Claim: "Ownership is not a static claim — it is the result of verified history." Status: CONCEPT + EXTERNAL PRECEDENT. This is a philosophical/architectural claim that follows from the framework's design. It does not contradict existing property law; rather, it claims the system produces better evidence for property law to operate on. The claim that this produces legally stronger records than current practice is RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS until tested in actual dispute.

G.2 Reduces dispute reconstruction cost

Claim: "Continuous record of what was promised and what was done reduces dispute reconstruction cost." Status: RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS. Structurally plausible. Not yet demonstrated through real dispute resolution involving a Verified Truth record.

G.3 Compatible with existing legal frameworks

Claim: "EquiWork does not replace contracts; it integrates with them." Status: EXISTS for the integration. RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS for the claim that courts in any specific jurisdiction will give Verified Truth records evidentiary weight beyond what an audit log normally receives. Lawyer review needed per jurisdiction.

G.4 Investment, securities, financial advice

Claim: Verified Truth material does not give investment advice, does not constitute a securities offering, and does not constitute legal or financial advice. Status: EXISTS as policy statement on public material. Disclaimer present throughout.

Section H — Claims relative to existing systems (Comparison Matrix)

For each row in the Comparison Matrix (VERIFIED_TRUTH_COMPARISON_MATRIX.docx), the comparison claim has the form: "System X solves Y well; Verified Truth adds Z."

Each comparison claim's status is EXTERNAL PRECEDENT for the existing-system column (X solves Y is verifiable in public material about system X) and CONCEPT/PARTIAL/EXISTS for the "Z that Verified Truth adds" column, depending on which row's vertical applies.

H.1 We do not claim to invent provenance

Claim: "We do not claim to invent provenance, signatures, blockchain, AI, or formal verification." Status: EXISTS as honest framing. The architecture composes existing primitives.

H.2 We do not claim superiority on dimensions we did not measure

Claim: Each row in the Comparison Matrix is calibrated to what we can argue from architecture. Performance claims (latency, throughput, cost) are not made because they are not measured at production scale yet. Status: EXISTS as discipline.

H.3 "First implementation of the unified framework"

Claim: "EquiWork is the first implementation of the unified framework that composes [these specific architectural moves] into one substrate." Status: EXISTS + RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS. EquiWork is the first system we know of that makes these specific architectural choices together. The proposition that this specific combination is novel is to the best of our research; if any reviewer finds a prior system that combines the same three architectural moves (AI bounded by protocol design, single substrate for agreements + objects + knowledge, continuous lifecycle preservation), we will revise.

Section I — Forbidden claims (claims we deliberately do NOT make)

These are claims that appear in some early-stage Verified Truth doctrine drafts or might be tempting to make, but which we have explicitly removed because they overclaim:

I.1 NOT claimed: "We solve truth in the philosophical sense"

Why not: Philosophical truth is a separate problem we are not solving. We solve operational truth: evidence-backed, context-bound, human-approved, audit-preserved.

I.2 NOT claimed: "Cryptographic immutability guarantees the record is correct"

Why not: Garbage in, garbage out. Immutability prevents change of the record; it does not prove the record was accurate to begin with. Verified Truth addresses correctness by requiring human approval upstream of canonical state, not by assuming immutability fixes it.

I.3 NOT claimed: "Blockchain is the foundation of Verified Truth"

Why not: Blockchain is one possible component (for cross-party settlement, for cross-chain coordination, for proof of existence at a moment). The framework does not depend on blockchain.

I.4 NOT claimed: "AI verification can replace human verification"

Why not: This is the opposite of our architectural choice. We do not claim AI verifies. AI analyzes; humans verify and approve.

I.5 NOT claimed: "Patent-pending technology"

Why not: A patent requires a filed application under 35 USC §292. No EquiWork-related provisional or non-provisional patent application has been filed. Russian doctrine documents that use the phrase "в процессе патентного оформления" are an aspirational placeholder, not a factual claim.

I.6 NOT claimed: "Universally applicable to all industries"

Why not: We have one production vertical (agreements) with known gaps. CAP is in pilot for wine. Scientific Knowledge Passport is concept. The architecture is designed to be domain-extendable; we do not claim it is already proven for any specific domain it has not been built for.

I.7 NOT claimed: "Replaces lawyers / accountants / auditors"

Why not: The framework produces better evidence for these professionals to operate on. It does not replace their judgment. Investor and partner communications should not characterize Verified Truth as replacing professional services.

I.8 NOT claimed: "First commercial use of [X technology]"

Why not: Specific technology firsts (EIP-712 in this configuration, etc.) are difficult to substantiate without exhaustive review. We do not claim firsts on individual technologies; we claim a specific composition.

I.9 NOT claimed: "Quantum-resistant" / "Future-proof"

Why not: Current cryptographic primitives (EIP-712, SHA-256) are not quantum-resistant. The architecture can swap primitives, but we do not claim to have done so. "Future-proof" is a phrase that has no operational meaning.

I.10 NOT claimed: Specific revenue, valuation, or funding figures publicly

Why not: Investor-sensitive material is under NDA. Public statements about runway, valuation, or revenue are deliberately absent from public material.

Section J — Claims about the doctrine portal itself

J.1 Status badge discipline on the portal

Claim: "Every strong claim on the public portal carries an explicit status badge." Status: EXISTS as of v3 deploy (2026-06-26). Badges applied throughout. This claims-discipline document is the audit reference.

J.2 Confidential redaction

Claim: "Implementation specifics are not present in public HTML; they are marked as CONFIDENTIAL DETAIL and gated behind invite or NDA." Status: EXISTS as of v3 deploy. Post-deploy security check verifies that prohibited terms (specific authority taxonomy, internal database table names, specific commit hashes, internal predicate names with enforcement specifics) do not appear in public HTML.

J.3 Related Work section

Claim: "The portal includes nine Related Work cards covering W3C PROV, Common Criteria, TLA+, Chainlink, GS1 Digital Link, eIDAS, ORCID/DOI/Crossref, IBM Food Trust, and Traditional Contracts." Status: EXISTS as of v3 deploy. Each card includes what the existing system solves, what it does not solve, what Verified Truth adds, and an expandable research note.

J.4 Comparison Matrix

Claim: "The portal includes a hidden full Comparison Matrix of 17 systems across 9 columns." Status: EXISTS as of v3 deploy. Also produced as standalone document VERIFIED_TRUTH_COMPARISON_MATRIX.docx.

How to use this document

As a reviewer

Read any claim in the public portal. Find it in this document. Check what status badge it carries. If the claim is EXISTS, ask for evidence under invite. If the claim is CONCEPT or RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS, calibrate expectations accordingly.

As an author writing new material

Before publishing any new strong claim, check this document. If the claim does not fit any existing entry, add a new entry with an explicit badge. If the claim does not deserve any of the badges, it either needs to be sharpened or removed.

As a deploy gate

This document is referenced by security-redaction-checklist.md. Any new public deploy should be checked against this document: are new claims in the deploy reflected here? Are their badges accurate?

As a Mikhail-facing artifact

This document is the explicit form of the "claims must be tagged" requirement in your review. It does not yet exhaustively cover every sentence in the doctrine; it covers every claim that materially carries weight in the architecture or commercial proposition. Sentences that are clearly framing, examples, or transitional connective tissue are not enumerated here. If you find a claim in the doctrine that you believe should be in this document and is not, please flag it and it will be added.

Companion documents

• verified-truth-v3.html — the EN public portal (where most claims appear)
• verified-truth-v3-ru.html — the RU public portal
• goman.html / goman-ru.html — Science Pilot case study
• VERIFIED_TRUTH_COMPARISON_MATRIX.docx — the comparison matrix (Deliverable B)
• related-work-data.json — structured public reference data
• status-matrix.json — structured component statuses
• protected-access-plan.md — access tier architecture
• public-vs-protected-content-map.md — what lives in which tier
• security-redaction-checklist.md — pre-deploy review process

Status of the six deliverables

This document is Deliverable D of six requested by Mikhail Goman's scientific review. All six are now complete:

• ✅ A — Research Landscape Map · truth.equiwork.io/research/landscape
• ✅ B — Comparison Matrix · VERIFIED_TRUTH_COMPARISON_MATRIX.docx
• ✅ C — What Is New Here? · truth.equiwork.io/research/whats-new
• ✅ D — Claims Discipline (this document) · truth.equiwork.io/research/claims-discipline
• ✅ E — Reference Bibliography · truth.equiwork.io/research/references
• ✅ F — Reviewer Response Memo (private correspondence to the reviewer)

This document was first delivered alongside the initial Reviewer Response Memo (F) as evidence that the claims-discipline concern had been taken seriously. The remaining three deliverables (A, C, E) were completed and made publicly accessible shortly thereafter.

Acknowledgement

This document exists because Mikhail Goman, in his scientific review of the previous Verified Truth doctrine, observed that strong claims were being made without explicit grounding. He was right. This document is the structural fix. Future versions of the doctrine should not let claims accumulate without finding their entry here.