Observatory Maturity Ladder v1¶
Maturity is evidence strength, not physical truth.
The Observatory now tracks not only what exists, but how strongly each artifact should be trusted. A higher maturity score means the artifact has stronger evidence, clearer caveats, and a more stable interpretation inside its declared scene contract.
How to read artifact maturity¶
| score | stage | how to read it |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Proposed | A concept, expected panel, or fixture slot has been named, but repeatable artifact evidence is not established yet. |
| 1 | Experimental | An artifact exists, but the contract, inputs, or interpretation are still unstable. |
| 2 | Observed | The artifact was produced from real run data and can be inspected, but coverage or closure may be partial. |
| 3 | Confirmed | The artifact satisfies its local validation gate for at least one run or fixture. |
| 4 | Characterized | The artifact has repeatable structure, documented interpretation, tooling or schema support, and known caveats. |
| 5 | Canonical | The artifact is part of the stable Observatory language and can anchor other interpretations within a declared fixture contract. |
Canonical does not mean physically true. It means the artifact can anchor Observatory interpretation within its declared scene contract.
Current Anchors¶
| artifact | maturity | why |
|---|---|---|
| Hermetic Storyboard | Canonical | Promoted Gallery anchor for the sealed-room fixture with closure, coverage, curvature signature, verdict, and explicit scene-contract caveats. |
| Observer Storyboard Demo | Characterized | Renderer-agnostic nine-panel framework with schema, rendering tool, demo artifact, and explicit PASS / FAIL / PARTIAL / MISSING vocabulary. |
| Query Observatory | Observed | A storyboard artifact exists, but it has not yet been promoted into a stable catalog or canonical visitor-facing contract. |
| Cost Basin | Proposed | Concept architecture is documented; no dedicated Cost Basin artifact generation or validation gate exists yet. |
Catalog Scores¶
The machine-readable source lives in:
The generated report lives in:
Current catalog scores are produced from reports/observatory_catalog.json plus the curated anchor assignments above. Cataloged artifacts are scored independently per run, so an early curvature signature ladder can remain Observed while a later full-coverage ladder becomes Characterized.
Artifacts without a recorded score are unlabeled, not Proposed. Proposed means a concept, expected panel, or fixture slot has been named but repeatable artifact evidence is not established yet.
For the full trust-vocabulary crosswalk, see the Observatory Trust Model.
Reading Rule¶
Use maturity as a trust label for Observatory evidence:
- Low maturity (scores 0-1) means useful, but easy to misread.
- Middle maturity (scores 2-3) means the artifact can support a local claim with caveats.
- High maturity (scores 4-5) means the artifact can teach the Observatory language itself.
Canonical still means only this: the artifact can anchor interpretation within its declared scene contract.