# Capability Ladder
This document keeps the broad DSFB scope explicit without collapsing the project into vague marketing language.
## Phase A: Structural Scanner and Attestation
- Operator question:
What can fail here, based on the source tree I actually ship?
- Primary artifact:
`*_scan.txt`, `*.sarif.json`, `*.intoto.json`, `*.dsse.json`
- Success metric:
Findings are traceable to evidence spans and can be retained in CI.
- Technical risk retired:
Blindness to source-visible structural hazards and missing provenance.
## Phase B: Runtime Observer
- Operator question:
Is a structural failure beginning now in the telemetry stream?
- Primary artifact:
`ObservationResult`, `Episode`, `AuditTrace`
- Success metric:
Deterministic, replayable structural classifications with typed reason codes.
- Technical risk retired:
Reliance on scalar alarms that discard trajectory structure.
## Phase C: Static-To-Runtime Binding
- Operator question:
What should the runtime watch more closely because of the codebase it is attached to?
- Primary artifact:
`StaticPriorSet`, derived scanner priors, runtime-applied prior evidence
- Success metric:
Runtime outputs record when a structural prior influenced heuristic matching.
- Technical risk retired:
Scanner/runtime disconnect where static knowledge never reaches live observation.
## Phase D: Domain / Hazard Interpretation Lenses
- Operator question:
What do these findings mean in my mission context?
- Primary artifact:
One canonical scan report with domain-specific conclusion lenses at the end
- Success metric:
The same evidence can be interpreted coherently for cloud-native, distributed, industrial, supply-chain, or certification-preparation review without fragmenting the audit.
- Technical risk retired:
Over-generalized findings with no operational context.
## Why This Stays Broad
The project is intentionally broad. The discipline is not scope reduction; it is evidence separation.
- Source-visible structure belongs to the scanner.
- Live telemetry structure belongs to the observer.
- Provenance belongs to the attestation layer.
- Domain meaning belongs to the concluding interpretation lenses.
That separation keeps the scope wide while preventing overclaiming.