Controlled Values establish the normative vocabularies Attestor uses to classify governed objects, states, relationships, provenance, authority context, and evaluation outcomes consistently.
The purpose is semantic discipline rather than scoring. Controlled values constrain institutional meaning so Attestor's established Schemas, Validation, Conformance, Publication, and Production architecture can operate against stable vocabulary.
Controlled Values give repeated Attestor concepts one governed meaning. A value may be used normatively only when its meaning, scope, and permitted use are defined by Attestor architecture; free-form labels must not silently become institutional states or outcomes.
Attestation Type values classify the nature of the assertion without deciding its truth or evaluation outcome. The initial controlled families are identity, evidence, source-provenance, verification-related, relationship-condition, and correction-supersession. Their formal profile requirements are governed by the applicable Schemas / Profiles and related Attestor architecture.
Attestor-owned objects use a bounded lifecycle vocabulary. The initial controlled states are draft, active, superseded, withdrawn, and retired. State transitions and object-specific applicability are governed by Lifecycle.
Canonical existence and public representation remain separate. Publication vocabulary is unpublished and published. Publication does not determine lifecycle state, validity, or evaluation outcome.
Attestor evaluation uses conclusion-oriented outcomes rather than confidence scores. The initial controlled outcomes are supported, partially-supported, not-supported, contradicted, and indeterminate. Evaluation governs the evidentiary and rule conditions for each.
Relationships describe governed connections without transferring ownership or authority. Initial controlled relationships are supports, references, derived-from, evaluates, results-in, supersedes, corrects, and related-to. Formal directionality and permitted relationship behavior are governed by Relationships.
Provenance must distinguish how Attestor obtained or knows an input. Initial controlled provenance modes are direct, referenced, and derived. Provenance and Eligibility govern the applicable provenance meaning, admissibility, and metadata requirements.
Authority vocabulary must distinguish who owns or governs meaning. Initial controlled authority contexts are Attestor, Suite-source, and external-source. These values classify authority context; they do not rank authority or trustworthiness.
The following values establish Attestor's normative controlled vocabulary. Their structural placement, applicability, transition rules, relationship behavior, and Validation treatment are governed by the corresponding established architecture.
Attestor does not adopt the June-era confidence-scale or generic Trust Signal model as a normative controlled vocabulary. Evaluation outcomes express a bounded institutional conclusion about the assertion under review; they are not percentages, reputation scores, generalized confidence ratings, or automatic measures of trust.
Lifecycle state, publication state, validation result, and evaluation outcome answer different institutional questions and must remain separate. An Active object is not necessarily Published; a Published object is not necessarily favorable; and a structurally Valid object does not imply that its assertion is Supported.
Validation and Conformance now have established operational result vocabularies governed by their respective Attestor architectures. These vocabularies remain distinct from lifecycle state, publication state, and Evaluation Outcome.
The first controlled production operation exercised controlled values across Attestation classification, lifecycle, publication, evaluation, relationships, provenance/authority context, Validation, and Conformance. The operation therefore moved Controlled Values from vocabulary architecture into governed institutional use.
Production exercised only the values required by the first operation. Unused canonical values remain established but are not represented as independently production-tested merely because they belong to an exercised vocabulary family.
Controlled vocabularies may be extended only through governed architectural change. New values must have a defined meaning, a defined place in the Attestor object model, and no unresolved collision with existing Suite terminology. Implementations must not create unofficial values and treat them as canonical Attestor vocabulary.
Controlled Values govern Attestor's own semantic use. They do not redefine values owned by source institutions. When Attestor references a Certifier status, Registry state, Chronicle event type, Anchor result, Beacon Signal Type, Atlas classification, Navigator workflow state, or external vocabulary, the source meaning remains authoritative.
Controlled Values are established and production-proven as Attestor's normative semantic vocabulary. The first production operation exercised representative values from the principal vocabularies while preserving the distinction among object classification, lifecycle state, publication state, evaluation outcome, relationship semantics, provenance/authority context, Validation, and Conformance.
Production proof does not imply that every canonical value has been exercised. Values such as superseded, withdrawn, retired, partially-supported, not-supported, contradicted, indeterminate, and other unneeded relationship or conformance dispositions remain established for governed use without being falsely characterized as production-tested by this operation.
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