Methodology
Methodology designed for decision confidence.
RepoTruth explains not only what it observes, but also the limits of those observations.
Methodology transparency is fundamental to trust. You should be able to see how every output is reached, how confident it is, and where its knowledge ends, so your people can rely on the evidence and challenge it. This page explains, in plain terms, how RepoTruth arrives at what it produces.
- Evidence, not verdicts
- Confidence-scoped
- Unknowns preserved
- Explainable
- Human review required
How RepoTruth works
From a snapshot to a decision-ready package, in five steps.
Each step is observable, explainable, and read-only.
-
Snapshot
A read-only, point-in-time copy of the codebase is provided. Nothing is connected and nothing runs.
-
Repository Reality Extraction
The system is observed as it actually is, structure, dependencies, history, and the boundaries of what can be seen are recorded.
-
Decision Intelligence
From the evidence, RepoTruth derives where to investigate first, how confident each observation is, and what remains unknown.
-
Diagnostic Package Generation
Everything is assembled into one structured deliverable, with its own explicit statement of limits.
-
Human Review
Your people read, interpret, and decide. RepoTruth concludes nothing on their behalf.
The foundational distinction
Interpretation ≠ Authority.
RepoTruth is designed to interpret evidence. RepoTruth is not permitted to exercise authority.
Interpretation is mandatory, without it, evidence is only data. Authority is prohibited, the decision, and the responsibility, remain your people’s. Everything RepoTruth produces lives inside that single distinction.
Interpretation is mandatory. Authority is prohibited.
Decision Intelligence Ontology
RepoTruth produces intelligence, not decisions.
The platform generates a fixed set of evidence-based outputs, and nothing that resembles a verdict.
-
Evidence
Observations of the system, cited to their source and scoped by confidence.
-
Concern candidates
Structural observations raised for an architect’s judgment, candidates for review, never verdicts.
-
Investigation corridors
Suggested paths through the system for human review, a way to look, not a way to act.
-
Review priorities
Where to investigate first, ordered by investigation urgency and paired with confidence.
-
Unknown inventories
An explicit record of what could not be determined, surfaced, not assumed away.
RepoTruth interprets the evidence and orders where to look. Decision authority always remains human.
Score Constitution
Scores indicate investigation urgency, not truth.
Every score answers one question, where should humans look first?, and nothing more.
-
Score ≠ Truth
A score reflects where attention is best spent, not a fact about the system.
-
Score ≠ Severity
It measures urgency of investigation, never the seriousness or danger of a finding.
-
Score ≠ Recommendation
A high score invites a closer look. It never instructs anyone to act.
-
No global health score
There is no single number for a repository. A one-figure verdict is deliberately not produced.
The one number a buyer or an automated gate would most like to act on is the number this methodology refuses to compute.
Confidence Model
Every observation carries confidence.
Confidence scopes each observation, communicates its limitations, and remains explainable, never a black box.
-
Directly Observed
Read straight from the snapshot, with no inference.
-
Strongly Derived
Inferred from multiple, consistent observations.
-
Moderately Derived
Inferred from limited but consistent evidence.
-
Weakly Derived
Inferred from sparse or partial evidence, with the gaps stated.
-
Historically Inferred
Derived from repository history, where it is present and readable.
-
Ambiguous
The evidence supports more than one reading, surfaced as ambiguity, not resolved by guess.
-
Unverifiable
A question a static snapshot structurally cannot answer.
-
Unknown
No evidence either way, recorded explicitly, never inferred shut.
Every confidence value can be explained: what was observed, what was inferred, and why it is held no more firmly than that.
Unknown Preservation
Unknowns are preserved, never hidden.
Where the evidence runs out, RepoTruth records the question rather than filling in an answer.
Most tools quietly fill in what they cannot determine, or omit it entirely. RepoTruth treats the unknown as a first-class entity, named, categorized, and surfaced with the same prominence as any finding.
An unknown is not a failure. It is not noise. It is not low risk. It is an un-assessed question, and often the most useful thing in the package, because it tells your people exactly what to ask next.
-
Unknown
Recorded explicitly where evidence is absent, with its category and who could resolve it.
-
Reviewed
Surfaced to your people as a question worth investigating, never inferred away.
-
Resolved
Retired only when evidence or a human supplies the answer, never by RepoTruth filling the gap.
Human review workflow
Humans remain terminal.
RepoTruth supports review. Your people remain responsible for the decision.
-
Observe
Your people read the evidence, the priorities, the confidence, and the unknowns.
-
Interpret
They bring context RepoTruth cannot have, and form a judgment from the evidence.
-
Challenge
Any finding can be questioned. Because outputs cite their evidence and confidence, they can be checked.
-
Decide
The decision is made by people with the authority to make it, never by the platform.
Constitutional boundaries
The methodology runs inside permanent boundaries.
These are properties of how RepoTruth is built, not options it can be configured past.
Read-only
It writes to nothing in your environment.
Snapshot-based
It analyzes an inert, point-in-time copy, never a live system.
No credentials
It stores, requests, and reuses none.
No production access
It never connects to a running system.
No execution
It runs no code from your repository.
No remediation
It changes, fixes, and patches nothing.
No authority
It approves, certifies, and decides nothing.
Human review required
Every output is built for a human to decide on.
Diagnostic generation flow
From evidence to deliverable, one explainable stage at a time.
Each stage builds on the last, and nothing is asserted more firmly than the evidence allows.
-
Evidence
What was directly observed, cited to its source.
-
Signals
Patterns derived from the evidence, readings a human can reason about.
-
Scores
Investigation urgency over a region, where to look first, never how bad it is.
-
Confidence
How firmly each observation is held, and why, explainable, never opaque.
-
Unknowns
What could not be determined, recorded explicitly and carried forward.
-
Review Priorities
An ordering of where human attention is best spent first.
-
Diagnostic Package
Everything assembled into one decision-ready deliverable, with its own statement of limits.
Methodology FAQ
How the method holds, in plain terms.
How are scores calculated?
Scores are derived deterministically from observed evidence, for example, how strongly other code depends on a region, or how thin the available knowledge is. They express investigation urgency only, and each carries its own confidence. The same snapshot always yields the same scores, and every score can be traced back to the evidence behind it.
What if confidence is low?
Low confidence is reported, never hidden. A low-confidence observation is uncertain, not wrong, it is a call to look closer, alongside an honest statement of why we hold it no more firmly. A finding is never asserted beyond what the evidence supports.
How should unknowns be interpreted?
As questions, not as gaps. An unknown is un-assessed, not low risk and not safe. A region dense with unknowns is precisely where human investigation is most valuable. Unknowns are resolved only by evidence or a human, never inferred shut.
Can outputs be automated?
RepoTruth’s outputs are built for human review and are non-actionable by construction. They are not designed to gate a pipeline, trigger an action, or stand in for a decision. The package informs people; the people decide.
Can RepoTruth approve architectural decisions?
No. RepoTruth produces evidence and concern candidates for an architect’s judgment. It approves nothing and decides nothing. Architectural decisions are made by people with the authority to make them.
Why does RepoTruth avoid recommendations?
Because interpretation is not recommendation. A recommendation embeds a decision RepoTruth has no standing to make, it lacks your context, your constraints, and your authority. By producing evidence, priorities, and unknowns instead, RepoTruth keeps the judgment, and the responsibility, with your people.
Understand how RepoTruth reaches its conclusions, and its limits.
A read-only diagnostic, scoped to your decision.
Tell us the decision you’re facing. We’ll scope a Diagnostic Package to it, produced by the method on this page, read-only and snapshot-based, with every finding carrying its evidence, its confidence, and its unknowns.
Evidence, not verdicts. Human review remains terminal.