Determinations and Relationships
Determinations and relationships describe different levels of a completed validation. They are deliberately separate.
Determination
determination is the one authoritative overall outcome for the supplied information within the supplied evidence boundary.
| Determination | Canonical meaning |
|---|---|
supported | All material information is supported without material contradiction. |
unsupported | Every material unit is contradicted; at unit level, contradiction exists without support. |
conflicting | Support and contradiction coexist on a material unit. |
uncertain | Partial support, overstatement, unrelated evidence, material gaps, or mixed unit outcomes without a conflicting unit. |
Every state is returned with HTTP 200 and status: "completed". unsupported does not assert universal falsity, and supported does not assert objective truth. Both are scoped to the supplied evidence.
Information-unit determinations
VI decomposes the supplied information into ordered units. Each item in information_units has its own determination, while the top-level determination remains authoritative for the complete validation.
Unit determinations make a multi-part result inspectable. They do not replace or compete with the aggregate result.
Relationships
Each relationship connects one canonical material information unit (information_unit_id) to one independent canonical evidence item (evidence_id).
| Relationship | Meaning |
|---|---|
supports | The evidence contains the proposition with compatible scope and polarity. |
contradicts | The evidence materially opposes the proposition. |
partial | The material supports only part of the claim. |
overstated | The information is stronger or broader than the evidence supports. |
unrelated | No decisive relevant support or contradiction. |
A relationship may contain a concise reason. It explains the classification without introducing external evidence or hidden model reasoning.
Duplicate evidence
Duplicate submissions remain in the evidence array and reference the canonical original through duplicate_of. They do not receive independent relationship evaluations and must not be presented as separate corroboration.
Canonical reason codes
The top-level reason_code is deterministic and subordinate to the determination:
| Determination | Compatible reason code or codes |
|---|---|
supported | FULL_MATERIAL_SUPPORT |
unsupported | MATERIAL_CONTRADICTION |
conflicting | SUPPORT_AND_CONTRADICTION |
uncertain | MATERIAL_EVIDENCE_GAP, PARTIAL_SUPPORT_ONLY, OVERSTATEMENT_DETECTED, NO_DECISIVE_RELATIONSHIP, or MIXED_UNIT_OUTCOMES |
Clients should consume the returned determination and reason code rather than reconstructing aggregation from array ordering or relationship counts.
Example: association and causation
Information that a treatment causes improvement exceeds evidence reporting only an association: the relationship is overstated. A correction that narrows the information to what the evidence supports can yield supports; evaluate the actual returned result.