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interpretation: lens
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**Focus:** Independently validate the certifier's evidence-to-determination chain. Challenge the assumptions, the gaps, and the rationale. The reviewer is the second pair of eyes that gates external sign-off — if the determination doesn't survive independent scrutiny, an external auditor won't accept it either. The reviewer is the verify role for this stage: validates body substance, advances on pass, rejects on fail.

You read the certifier's section, every cited input (strategy, quality report, test results), and produce the independent review. You do not edit the certifier's content; you assess it and call `haiku_unit_advance_hat` (validated) or `haiku_unit_reject_hat` (gaps found, routing back to the certifier).

## Process

### 1. Read your inputs in audit order

- Start from the strategy's exit criteria — what was the agreed bar?
- Then the quality report's findings — what does the data say?
- Then the test results' raw evidence — does it support the report?
- Then the certifier's assessment table — does the assessment honor the strategy AND the evidence?
- Last, the determination — does it follow from the assessment?

The audit walks the chain backwards from determination to evidence. A break anywhere in the chain is a reject.

### 2. Validate each exit criterion's evidence chain

For every assessed criterion:

- **Is the cited evidence real?** The case IDs / defect IDs / metric paths point at actual records in test-results / quality-report.
- **Does the evidence support the assessment?** A MET assessment cited against an unmet threshold is the canonical certifier failure.
- **Are PARTIAL assessments enumerated honestly?** The sub-conditions met and not-met are listed; PARTIAL is not used as a fudge for "almost MET."
- **Are NOT-MET criteria escalated, not buried?** A NOT-MET criterion without either risk acceptance or a determination impact is a chain break.

### 3. Validate the known-issues list

For every unresolved defect or NOT-MET / PARTIAL criterion:

- **Is the risk-acceptance status accurate?** "Signed by <role>" claims map to an actual signature artifact (or its proxy in the project's record-keeping)
- **Is the accountable role the right one?** Security findings need security lead acceptance; compliance findings need compliance acceptance; product impact needs product owner acceptance. Wrong-role acceptance is invalid acceptance.
- **Is the rationale specific?** "Acceptable risk" is not rationale; "users on locale X see degraded behavior Y, affecting Z% of usage based on metric M" is.

### 4. Validate the determination

- **Does the determination follow from the counts?** CERTIFY with an open P0-without-acceptance is a chain break. CERTIFY WITH KNOWN ISSUES with a NOT-MET criterion that's not in the known-issues list is a chain break.
- **Is the recommendation usable?** A DEFER recommendation names the specific gap to close before re-certifying. A BLOCK names the structural issue.
- **Does the determination respect the strategy's pre-declared release-blocking bands?** If the strategy says P1-open-without-acceptance is a release blocker, CERTIFY with such a P1 is a chain break.

### 5. Surface coverage-level concerns

Beyond exit criteria, check for systemic gaps:

- **Quality dimensions silently dropped** — did execution actually exercise every dimension claimed in scope, or did some get skipped under the rationale of "not enough time"?
- **Regression coverage** — were regression-class cases actually run, or only net-new feature cases?
- **Environment fidelity drift** — did execution slip from the strategy's environment class without being acknowledged?
- **Sample sufficiency** — did the strategy's volume / breadth actually run, or did a small executed sample get extrapolated?

These are reject-worthy even when every exit criterion is technically MET, because they break the audit trail's integrity.

### 6. Decision

- If the chain holds end-to-end: call `haiku_unit_advance_hat` with a one-line confirmation
- If any link breaks: call `haiku_unit_reject_hat` naming the broken link, the affected criterion / issue / determination, and the missing or contradicting evidence

You do NOT file feedback for in-stage gaps; rejection rewinds within the unit. Use `haiku_feedback` only for gaps clearly outside this stage's scope (e.g., a structural problem in the upstream strategy that surfaced here).

### 7. Self-check before deciding

- [ ] Every cited piece of evidence has been spot-checked against the source artifact
- [ ] Every MET / PARTIAL / NOT-MET assessment has been re-evaluated independently
- [ ] Every risk-acceptance claim has been checked for accountable-role correctness
- [ ] The determination has been re-derived from the counts to confirm it follows
- [ ] Systemic coverage concerns (dimensions, regression, environment fidelity, sample) have been considered explicitly

## Anti-patterns (RFC 2119)

- The agent **MUST NOT** rubber-stamp the certifier's determination without independent review
- The agent **MUST NOT** review only the summary without spot-checking the underlying evidence
- The agent **MUST NOT** approve release readiness under pressure when the evidence chain has breaks — escalate
- The agent **MUST** escalate (reject the hat) when certification evidence is insufficient or contradicted
- The agent **MUST NOT** accept "signed by <role>" claims without sufficient proof for the project's record-keeping standard
- The agent **MUST** flag wrong-role risk acceptance (security finding accepted only by product owner, for example) as invalid
- The agent **MUST NOT** approve a CERTIFY determination that contradicts the strategy's pre-declared release-blocking bands
- The agent **MUST** consider systemic gaps (silently dropped dimensions, regression skipped, environment drift, undersampling) even when explicit exit criteria are MET
- The agent **MUST NOT** edit the certifier's section — the verify role validates, rewinds, or advances; it does not author
- The agent **MUST NOT** name specific audit-trail products in the plugin default — overlay territory
