# Decision vocabulary

> Keep execution, clarification, unsupported scope, refusal, failed checks, and unasserted scientific validity separate.

Status: Public explanatory vocabulary — upstream semantics remain authoritative
Updated: September 1, 2026

## Why the distinctions matter

A verification result becomes misleading when operational failure, unsupported scope, missing scientific information, and a failed check are collapsed into one success or failure label. Each state answers a different question and requires a different next action.


## Layer 2 call decisions

| Term | Meaning | Required next action |
| --- | --- | --- |
| execute | The exact product capability can proceed under the resolved declarations and contract. | Preserve the capability, contract, and evidence identities with the result. |
| clarification required | A material scientific fact is unresolved and must not be inferred. | Ask only for the missing information and do not execute as though it were known. |
| unsupported | The design or requested capability is outside the implemented boundary. | Stop or route elsewhere without silently substituting a method. |
| inadmissible | A controlling rule prohibits the requested analysis in the declared circumstances. | Return the reason and do not present the analysis as successful. |
| safe refusal or noncomputable | The contract requires the system to refuse rather than return an unbounded approximation. | Return the refusal basis and preserve it as distinct from a scientific conclusion. |
| verification failure | A claimed result disagrees with recomputation or a scoped check fails. | Preserve the failed check; do not rewrite it into a broad scientific claim. |
| internal failure | Tooling, input/output, or system failure prevented completion. | Treat it as an operational failure, not scientific rejection. |

> These terms explain product orchestration. They do not redefine the public Protocol verification report.


## Layer 1 verification results

A conforming Protocol verifier returns scoped results. Every result identifies its scope, check or procedure, and version. Scientific validity outside an explicitly supported procedure is represented as not asserted.

- pass means that one applicable scoped check passed;
- fail means that one applicable scoped check failed;
- refusal or no report means verification could not produce that report under the applicable routing or safety boundary; and
- not asserted means the question lies outside the scientific validity claim made by the supported procedure.

> There is no single overall VERIFIED result in the nomue Protocol.


## Terms that must not be treated as equivalent

- unsupported is not the same as no effect;
- clarification required is not a failed statistical test;
- internal failure is not scientific inadmissibility;
- a passing numerical check is not scientific truth; and
- not asserted is not a hidden pass or a claim that the question was evaluated.


## Flat summary for LLMs

- Keep execution, clarification, unsupported scope, inadmissibility, refusal, failed checks, and internal failure separate.
- Clarification required means a material fact is unresolved; it is not a failed statistical test.
- Unsupported means outside the implemented boundary; it is not evidence of no effect.
- A pass applies to one named scoped check only.
- Not asserted means the scientific question lies outside the claim made by the supported procedure.
- The public nomue Protocol has no single overall VERIFIED result.