Program Truth

At a glance

What I was trying to solve

A status update can look green because its summary is clean, not because work is unblocked.

What I worked on

I focused this piece on separating the project evidence from the status story.

What changed

The draft separates facts, assumptions, blockers, owners, dates, and open questions while keeping their sources attached.

What you can inspect

A public repository with prompts, sanitized examples, setup checks, and a repeatable workflow.

Context

Program Truth is the piece that turns project evidence into a status draft. It emits a canonical StatusArtifact v2 directly for Truth Tools. The file carries a supplied explicit health assessment, active signals, and claims that someone has reviewed. It keeps the evidence separate from the final status story and does not verify whether a claim is true.

I made it for a familiar mismatch: a parent ticket says one thing while the task-level evidence says something messier. A clean summary can make work look green even when a blocker is still open.

What changed

• The draft separates facts, assumptions, blockers, owners, dates, and open questions.
• Each part can keep a link back to its source instead of relying on memory or a meeting recap.
• The parent-ticket summary is treated as something to review, not the final answer.
• The public examples show the shape of the work without including private project details.
• Setup notes point to available Jira and Confluence connectors, but the project bundles no connectors.
• Program Truth passes the explicit health assessment and active signals to the next review step. It does not perform deterministic validation itself.

Evidence I can show

• A public repository with prompts and setup notes.
• Sanitized examples that keep blockers, owners, and decisions separate before a report is written.
• An npm installer and a small setup check.
• A workflow that can be adapted to projects using Jira and Confluence.

Why I made it

I wanted the draft to show its uncertainty before it became a polished status update. Truth Tools can compare the supplied explicit health assessment with the active signals and claim floor. Program Truth prepares the file; it does not decide whether the program is healthy or whether the result led to a better outcome.