Changelog and version index

Every assessment names the version it was performed under. A level means nothing without one, so every change to this rubric is dated, numbered and classified.

Clarifying changes cover wording, examples, added evidence guidance, and corrections that could not move any system's score. The test is strict: if an unchanged system could be scored differently before and after the change, it is not clarifying. Breaking changes cover anything that could move a score for an unchanged system — a changed level descriptor, a changed evidence requirement, a changed depth cap, a change to what a dimension covers, or a change to a threshold.

Before a version takes effect, its text may be amended in place rather than superseded, because no score exists that an amendment could move. That window closes on the effective date or on the first scorecard issued under the version, whichever comes first. An amendment made inside it is dated below, its reason written before the edit, and it names any change that would have been breaking had the version been in effect.

A score awarded under an earlier version stays awarded under that version. We do not restate historical scores against a new version. Where a breaking change would move a score, the entry says so, and the only way to hold a level under the new version is a new engagement.

Entries

• 2026-09-19 · v1.0 · initial publication

  First published version of the Ordoia Assurance Levels: eight dimensions in four pairs, four levels, the depth grid, and the reporting rules. No prior version exists, so no system's score can move. Amended in place on 2026-08-15, before this version's effective date and before any scorecard was issued under it: seven criteria were tightened so that each supports a yes-or-no determination rather than a judgement — the tool inventory's enumeration method (dimension 2, level 2), the egress map's denominator (dimension 3, level 2), the privileged-action set (dimension 4, level 2), the model-call inventory (dimension 6, level 2), the scope of the no-mutation assertion (dimension 3, level 3), the per-case record of scorer type (dimension 5, level 2), and the requirement that tracing be in place at run time (dimension 7, level 2). At least four of the seven could have moved a score for an unchanged system, and would have been breaking changes had this version been in effect; it was not, and no score existed to move. The amendment is recorded here rather than folded into the initial publication, because a version readable at its permanent address before it takes effect is still a version somebody may have copied. Permanent address ordoia.com/oal/v1.0.

One entry is not an empty changelog. It is dated, and it establishes the address at which this version will remain after it is superseded.

Version index

Superseded versions stay published at their own addresses indefinitely, so that a scorecard issued under an earlier version can still be read against the criteria it was awarded under.