The Receipt Ladder
Move from assertion to evidence in explicit steps.
A compact framework for deciding how much confidence a claim deserves.
A claim begins as an assertion.
At the first rung, somebody said something happened. That may be useful context, but it is not yet a reproducible record.
Artifacts and observations add weight.
A retained input, output, timestamp, source, or captured state makes the claim inspectable. A repeated observation tests whether it holds beyond one moment.
Independent reproduction is a different class of evidence.
A separate evaluator using the stated method can reproduce, qualify, or reject the conclusion. The ladder does not collapse those levels into one word such as verified.
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