Review, judgment and trust
Doc type: How-to & explanation · Applies to: POSE v7.4.1 · Reviewed: 2026-10-20
A sealed bundle fixes the subject and the contracts that judge it. An append-only attestation records the reviewer's conclusions. The review plan says which evidence, judgments and reviewer separation are owed. Signing proves a binding to a trusted key; the reviewer still answers for the conclusion.
Prepare the subject
pose review-plan spec:customer-export --json --explain
pose validate --strict
pose review bundle spec:customer-export --seal
pose review auto-attest spec:customer-export --reviewer agent:reviewer-a
Use the returned bundle id for subsequent operations. auto-attest prepares
mechanical answers from sealed evidence and reports pending judgments. It
cannot turn a successful test into an engineering conclusion. Evidence must
have an accepted class and belong to the component the plan names.
The opt-in engineering-judgment, high-criticality and structural-materiality profiles add obligations according to scope. Observed material structural facts can require mappings to requirements, assumptions or decisions (R/A/D), or an explicit disposition with rationale. Invalidated assumptions and withdrawn decisions cannot serve as active causal bases under adopted causal closeout. The engine checks the relation; the reviewer judges whether it is convincing.
A policy change cannot authorize its own weakened review. The protected baseline restores stronger obligations from the resolved base where supported; an unresolved base is disclosed as unprotected. Read the plan's reasons and coverage before recording a conclusion.
Delegate a review
pose review brief <bundle-id> --kind review
pose review dispatch <bundle-id> --via <adapter>
# After configuring and inspecting the adapter:
pose review dispatch <bundle-id> --via <adapter> --apply
The brief is generated from the bundle. Implementer notes are labelled
separately. Dispatch runs a configured command in a disposable worktree at the
sealed commit and retains its outcome under .pose/review-runs/. File changes,
timeouts, budget overruns and execution failures are failed runs. A completed
run does not create an attestation or approve the spec. The adapter is a local
command, not a host security sandbox.
Read the returned work, complete every judgment, then use pose review attest
and the CLI reference. Finish
with pose review verify, pose review-check and pose closeout-check for
the scope. Changed semantic inputs require a fresh bundle and current evidence.
Sign reviews without a hosted service
A native Ed25519 issuer stores its private key outside the repository. Inspect the issuer and pin only the authority it should exercise:
pose issuer init local-review
pose issuer pin local-review --attestations --apply
pose issuer list
A key usable by agents on the account should not be granted human authority. When verified human authority is required, configure a separately protected issuer and an explicit authority grant. Native and external issuers coexist; pinning or rotating one does not remove the others.
pose review attest … --sign <issuer> signs the attestation. --authority
adds the claim used by verified identity. The claim binds the project and the
verifier audience separately, the bundle digest, reviewer and required
executions. Review independence, identity assurance and attribution are
separate disclosures:
| Question | What the record establishes |
|---|---|
| Who prepared, concluded, confirmed or applied? | Explicit attribution, with confirmation bound to the exact conclusions. Authorizing an operation differs from adopting its conclusions. |
| Was another actor or execution required? | The review plan's independence floor. |
| Is identity declared or verified? | A declared label, or an authenticated claim under configured trust. |
| Is cognitive independence proven? | It remains not observable. |
The MCP pose_review_attest writer accepts a trusted signed envelope; it does
not provide an unsigned shortcut. See MCP for preview and apply.
Adopt signing with existing history
Preview pose adopt signed-attestations before applying it. From v7.3.0,
adoption can seal existing unsigned attestations into a signed legacy ledger
under .pose/review-ledgers/. Their bytes remain unchanged. New or altered
attestations must satisfy signing requirements. Use --issuer <name> when
more than one local issuer is eligible. The ledger preserves attributable
history; it does not retrospectively establish verified human authorship.
Development-only hardening
Pending changes strengthen shared approval preflight, proof disclosure,
historical trust, source reuse and incomplete-source handling. Additional
Git/dispatch snapshot work is still in-progress at this review. These are
separate from the behavior shipped in v7.4.1; see development status
before depending on their flags, schemas or refusal codes.