Fidelity Validation

Fidelity Validation

Sanitization removes source code identifiers. But aggressive sanitization can also remove behavioral detail that an implementor needs. This skill detects information loss.

Why This Exists

The sanitization pass rewrites raw specs into output specs. Each rewrite risks:

• Dropped behaviors: A feature or edge case described in the raw specs that doesn't appear in the output specs
• Lost constants: A numeric threshold, timeout, limit, or size that was accidentally removed or changed during rewriting
• Diluted precision: A specific behavioral rule replaced with vague language ("the system handles errors" instead of "the system retries with configured backoff — N attempts, base delay, maximum delay, and jitter")
• Missing decision trees: A conditional behavior with multiple branches that was simplified to just the happy path
• Dropped error conditions: Error handling that was described in the raw specs but omitted from the output specs
• Feature gaps: Entire features or sub-features present in the raw specs but missing from the output domain spec

When to Run

Run this AFTER:

1. Sanitization (Layer 5) is complete
2. Contamination audit (Layer 6) passes — output specs are confirmed free of source identifiers
3. All remediation/rewriting rounds are done

This is the final quality gate before handing the output to the implementer.

The Principle

Every behavioral claim in the raw specs must have a corresponding claim in the output specs — with equal or greater precision.

The output specs may use different words (that's the point of sanitization), but it must convey the same behavior. If the raw spec says "retry N times with a specific base, cap, and jitter", the output specs must say the same — not just "the system retries on failure."

Process

Phase 1: Build the Source Claim Inventory

For each raw module spec (workspace/raw/specs/modules/*.md), extract:

1. All numeric constants — timeouts, limits, sizes, counts, thresholds, intervals, percentages
2. All behavioral rules — "when X happens, the system does Y"
3. All error conditions — what errors occur and how they're handled
4. All state transitions — state machines, mode changes, lifecycle events
5. All decision trees — if/else branches, priority orders, cascades
6. All features — distinct capabilities described

Write this inventory to workspace/raw/audit/fidelity-inventory.md.

Phase 2: Cross-Validate Against Output

For each item in the source claim inventory, search the corresponding output domain spec(s) for a matching behavioral claim.

Match criteria:

• The output specs describes the same behavior (possibly with different words)
• Numeric constants match exactly (no rounding, no approximation)
• Decision branches are all present (not just the happy path)
• Error conditions are all present
• State transitions are complete

Report format per item:

### [RAW-SPEC: section-name] Claim: "description of the behavioral claim"
- Constant/Rule/Error/State/Decision/Feature
- Raw value: [exact value from raw specs]
- Output location: [file:section where it appears in the output] or MISSING
- Output value: [exact value from output specs] or N/A
- Status: MATCH | WEAKENED | MISSING | CHANGED
- Notes: [if WEAKENED/MISSING/CHANGED, explain what was lost]

Status definitions:

• MATCH: Output spec conveys the same behavior with the same precision
• WEAKENED: Output spec mentions the behavior but with less precision (e.g., "retries on failure" instead of "retries with specific backoff params")
• MISSING: Output spec does not mention this behavior at all
• CHANGED: Output spec describes different behavior for the same scenario

Phase 3: Also Validate Cross-Cutting Artifacts

Repeat Phase 2 for:

• Journey specs: raw journeys vs output journeys
• Contracts: raw contracts vs output contracts
• Protocol specs: raw protocols vs output protocols
• Test vectors: raw test vectors vs output test vectors (constants must match)
• Acceptance criteria: raw ACs vs output ACs (criteria must be present)

Phase 4: Severity Assessment

Categorize all WEAKENED, MISSING, and CHANGED findings:

Phase 5: Write Report

Write the full report to workspace/raw/audit/fidelity-report.md.

The report SHALL include:

1. Summary statistics: total claims checked, MATCH count, WEAKENED count, MISSING count, CHANGED count
2. P0-CRITICAL and P0-WEAKENED findings: full details with exact raw vs output text
3. P1 findings: full details
4. P2 findings: summary only
5. Verdict: PASS (zero P0 issues) or FAIL (any P0 issue exists)

Write a summary to workspace/output/audit/fidelity-summary.md:

• Verdict: PASS or FAIL
• Total claims validated
• Match rate percentage
• Number of issues by severity
• NO details about what was found or what raw specs say — this is an implementer-facing artifact

Agent Dispatch Pattern

The fidelity validation is compute-heavy (reading all raw specs AND all output specs). Dispatch as:

1. Inventory builders (parallel, one per 4-5 raw module specs): Extract behavioral claims from raw specs → workspace/raw/audit/fidelity-inventory-batch-N.md

2. Cross-validators (parallel, one per output domain spec): Read the relevant inventory batches + the output domain spec → produce per-domain findings

3. Aggregator (sequential): Merge all findings → severity assessment → final report

Each agent is dispatched as greenfield:analyzer since they need to read both raw/ and output/.

What This Does NOT Check

• Contamination (that's the Layer 6 audit's job)
• Structural organization (output specs may organize differently than raw — that's fine)
• Prose quality (rewording is expected)
• Provenance citations (these are intentionally stripped)

Relationship to Other Skills

• spec-sanitization: Creates the output specs this skill validates
• second-pass-review: Checks for contamination; this skill checks for information loss
• validation-methodology: Defines the acceptance criteria that both raw and output specs must satisfy
• behavioral-spec-writing: Defines what behavioral claims look like

Together, the audit (Layer 6) and fidelity validation form a two-sided check:

• Layer 6 asks: "Is there anything in output/ that shouldn't be?" (contamination)
• Fidelity validation asks: "Is there anything NOT in output/ that should be?" (information loss)