Conformance-Level Ladder

Companion reference for decisions/ADR-A14-conformance-levels.md. This document is the detailed, living version of the ladder; the ADR records the decision to adopt it.

Level	Description	Required for	Typical checks
L0 — RDF ingestible	Syntactically valid RDF with source provenance	Storage, discovery	Parses under the target syntax; carries a source-graph-role annotation (ADR-A13)
L1 — Mapped/mapping-pending	Confirmed mappings, mapping hypotheses, or explicit unmapped markers present	MORK-style integration	Every asserted mapping traces to a mapping activity
L2 — Semantically classified	Resources related to LATTICE classes/properties, possibly incompletely	Exploratory query	Resources typed against a known class; incompleteness is not an error
L3 — Declaration-conformant	Dimension sets, state spaces, transitions, authorities, etc. satisfy authoring shapes	Declaration governance	Authoring SHACL shapes pass; declaration reaches a governance state permitting further use
L4 — Analysis-ready	Suitable for stated SPARQL/reasoning/materialisation profiles	Candidate detection (E1/B-P1), gap analysis	Read-set/dependency analysis completes; no unresolved structural blocker
L5 — Operationally evaluable	Required facts, closure assumptions, evaluator profile, `Undetermined` dispositions present	Eligibility decisions	Every consumption point has a disposition for `Undetermined`; witnessed dimensions are complete for the stated evaluation
L6 — Authoritative execution-ready	Additionally satisfies transaction/authority/idempotency/ambiguity/effect requirements	Behaviour authoritative execution	Selection policy present and unambiguous; authority satisfiable; effect payloads complete; target bindings resolve
L7 — Projection-conformant	A materialised/external representation demonstrably consistent with its declared contract	External system integration	Projection matches its source under the synchronisation contract (ADR-A12)

Using the ladder

State the level a fixture or check targets. Do not describe a graph as “invalid” without naming which level it fails.
Higher levels are not a superset validation pass over lower ones — L6 does not imply an L0 syntax check was skipped, but a graph may legitimately sit at L2 for months without ever needing L5.
SHACL shapes are organised by the level/profile they check, not as one monolithic shape graph, so that an L2 fixture failing an L6 shape is not surfaced as a CI failure.