Glossary

Status: draft. Definitions follow the shipped typed contract. Service observations cover only the cases listed in the evidence ledger. The numeric examples below are illustrative, not recorded service answers.

Canonical vocabulary

Use this table for authored prose about judgevet. Its preferred and avoided columns are the source for terminology enforcement. Apply each row only in its stated context; ordinary technical uses outside that context remain valid.

Preferred Avoid Context Check
question prompt; query An evaluation instruction supplied to Jev. question
answer response; result A judgment for one named question. HTTP responses and function results are different concepts. answer
confidence certainty The reported Choice or Score confidence value. confidence
score confidence The value on a Score rubric. This is a semantic distinction, not a global word replacement. human
port interface The typed boundary used by judgevet callers and adapters. Other interfaces retain their own names. boundary
adapter implementation; driver A judgevet component connecting that boundary to HTTP, CLI or MCP. adapter
verified documented A claim described as observed against the live service. Vendor documentation alone is insufficient. human
model judgment calibrated judgment A model answer whose statistical calibration has not been established here. always
typed client judgevet as a Python library. This description is accurate and permitted. human

The Check column selects a bounded lexical context. human rows require semantic review; they do not trigger a global word replacement. The writing guide defines the selectors and the safe source-identifier scope.

These preferences do not rename public APIs. Preserve exact Python identifiers, JSON fields, third-party API names and quoted diagnostics. Use code formatting for literals such as SystemOneResponse, result, instructions, and HTTPSystemOneAdapter. A statement about an HTTP response may use that term; it does not mean the answer to an individual question.

A lexical check cannot decide whether a number is a score or confidence, or whether evidence justifies a claim. Human review must check those meanings. The examples and definitions below supply that context.

Inputs and answers

State

The content to evaluate: text, a JSON object or a JSON array. For example, "I was charged twice" is state. It is distinct from the question asked about that content. See the vendor's API request definition and judgevet's port types.

Question

A named evaluation instruction expressed as Noul, Choice or Score. For the state above, "Is this about billing?" can be the instructions for a Noul question named billing. The name lets the caller find its answer. See question types and the vendor request format.

Answer

The typed judgment for one question: NoulAnswer, ChoiceAnswer or ScoreAnswer. For example, a Noul answer can contain noul=0.8. SystemOneResponse is the container for named answers, resolved model and usage; it is not another question type. See answer types and the vendor answer format.

Noul

A yes/no question answered with the model's probability of yes. A value of 0.8 is not a Python boolean and does not measure how much billing occurred. Noul has no separate confidence field. See TypeSafe's Noul definition.

Choice

A question that selects a named alternative. A routing question might offer billing and technical. Its answer contains the selected label, probabilities for the alternatives, and confidence. See TypeSafe's Choice definition.

Score

A question that evaluates an ordered rubric. Criteria such as ["Can wait", "This week", "Today"] define levels starting at zero. Its answer contains a numeric score, probabilities for levels, a legend and confidence. Capitalized Score names the question type; lowercase score names the numeric value. See TypeSafe's Score definition.

Criteria

Descriptions that define outcomes or rubric levels. Noul uses optional true and false descriptions. Choice maps labels to descriptions. Score uses an ordered list of descriptions. For example, a Choice criterion "billing": "Payments and refunds" explains that label's meaning. See the Noul, Choice and Score request definitions.

Numbers and decisions

Probability

A model-reported value from zero to one for an outcome. Noul supplies the probability of yes; Choice and Score supply per-option or per-level values. For example, noul=0.8 reports probability, not a local acceptance decision. See the primitive definitions above. These values do not establish measured accuracy on your data.

Confidence

The model-reported confidence associated with a Choice selection or a Score value, from zero to one. It is separate from the selected label or score. For example, a score of 1.6 and confidence of 0.7 describe different things. See the Choice and Score answer definitions. judgevet has not established statistical calibration: confidence 0.7 is not proof that 70% of comparable judgments are correct.

Score value

The numeric value on the question's rubric. It can fall between levels. On a zero-to-two rubric, 1.6 is a score, not a probability or confidence. The vendor describes it as the probability-weighted average of the levels. For illustrative probabilities 0.1, 0.2, 0.7, that average is 0 × 0.1 + 1 × 0.2 + 2 × 0.7 = 1.6. See TypeSafe's Score answer definition.

Policy

Application-defined rules evaluated locally against typed answers. A policy produces a binary acceptance decision: pass or fail. It does not ask the model another question and does not prove that an accepted judgment is correct. For example, a Noul minimum of 0.8 accepts 0.8 and rejects 0.79; the bound is inclusive. Missing or invalid required answers raise an error instead of returning an unmet-policy decision. See the typed policy guide and policy evaluation source. Thresholds in examples are teaching values, not universal recommendations.

Architecture

Port

The typed contract through which callers request judgments. SystemOnePort and AsyncSystemOnePort describe synchronous and asynchronous calls. For example, a caller can receive a compatible fake port in a test. See the port protocols.

Adapter

A component connecting a port to a particular entry point or external service. The HTTP adapter calls Jev. CLI and MCP are inbound adapters that accept user or host input. For example, changing how CLI input is read does not require adding file operations to the pure domain. See the HTTP adapter and architecture contracts.

Evidence and documentation status

Verified

A claim supported by an identified check within a stated scope. Live verified means a call exercised the behavior against the service. For example, a recorded 401 call verifies that observed error shape. A synthetic test can verify a local comparison or parser, but cannot establish an unseen service body. See the evidence ledger.

Documented and inferred

Documented means a source states the behavior. Inferred means the expectation has not been established by the relevant observation. Vendor statements can support a documented expectation while it remains unverified against the live service here. The 429 and 529 bodies remain unseen. A fixture copied from documentation does not promote them to live verified. If sources disagree, retain both citations and state the open question.

Sketch, draft and stable

These are page trust statuses, not judgments about writing polish.

  • Sketch: a proposal or an unproven description. Flag it before writing code against it. For example, a proposed capability is not a shipped feature.
  • Draft: usable guidance with explicit evidence limits. The current API reference is draft because some service behavior remains unseen.
  • Stable: a claim that the required evidence is established. Under this repository's rules, no page reaches stable while a documented status code remains unseen. Editing prose or passing offline tests does not qualify.

See the repository trust rules. Keep each claim's scope explicit even when a page has a single status marker.