hosted/gov/WITNESS.md

IF.GOV.WITNESS (legacy: IF.WITNESS)

Role

A witness is the “auditor in the room”: it checks that governance rules were followed and that required artifacts exist.

Responsibilities

• validate that TRIAGE and PANEL produced required artifacts
• validate that the final output includes trace id and citation formatting rules
• raise “no-trace-no-trust” errors when invariants are violated

Non-responsibilities

• does not override governance decisions on substance
• does not act as a judge; it acts as a verifier

Required evidence

• witness checks are logged as trace events
• witness failures are exported as part of IF.AUDIT.PROOF bundles when disputes occur