Execution safety, control 8 of 9
S-08 Require evidence-backed validation and an independent release decision
P0Hard gateNeeds your evidence
The authoring agent's statement that a change is safe is not release evidence. Validate the candidate with deterministic tests and an independently enforced policy boundary.
- Priority
- Gate. A FAIL stops publish or launch.
- Hard gate
- Yes. A FAIL stops publication, whatever the score.
- Change class
- READ_ONLY: Inspect authorised evidence.
- Quality bucket
- Not scored: hard gate only
Evidence to review
- Trusted test results, candidate identity, prerequisite closure and independent gate output.
How to implement
- Tie test artifacts to the candidate digest and action scope.
- Require complete applicable critical prerequisites.
- Distinguish staged validation from live deployment checks and business outcomes.
- Prevent the authoring agent from modifying the gate, approval store or evidence verifier.
- For optimisation writes, require the independent contextual review and action-level safety contract in O-01 through O-08. A deterministic gate cannot itself judge useful writing.
How UltimateSEO checks this
Needs your evidence. No automated check covers this control, so it stays UNKNOWN until evidence is supplied.
States used: PASS, FAIL, UNKNOWN, NOT_APPLICABLE or BLOCKED. UNKNOWN is never shown as a pass. How states work.
Part of The UltimateSEO Framework v4.3, catalogue dated 2026-10-14. Evidence states, control states and the publish gate are explained on the hub.