Evidence-First Audit Playbook

Why this matters

Research often fails not because nobody collected information, but because its origin, date, scope or limitations were lost. An evidence-first audit preserves enough context for another person to understand and test each important claim.

A simple evidence record

Capture the question, the source, the observation time, the exact result, its interpretation and its limitations. Do not reduce all observations to a single confidence score without a meaningful explanation.

Four useful labels

• Observed: directly supported by the collected source.
• Inferred: a reasonable interpretation, with its assumptions stated.
• Unverified: plausible but not independently checked.
• Unknown: insufficient information to determine the answer.

Safe stop points

If credentials are missing, a site is blocked, a critical dependency is unknown or a change could harm production, stop the implementation step. Document what is needed for a safe continuation rather than inventing a success.