Verify facts

Verification is an org setting. When it is on, kmem shows which facts a person checked, and Ask leaves out agent facts that nobody accepted.

What verification does

kmem records who wrote each block of a doc: a person or an agent. Verification uses that record.

With verification on:

Text that an agent wrote directly stays out of answers until a person accepts it or verifies it. This applies to Ask and to agents that read your docs.
Docs show trust marks: Verified, Accepted and Unverified.
Search and Ask rank verified facts above facts that nobody checked.

With verification off:

Every doc answers questions as soon as kmem saves it, whoever wrote it.
Docs show who wrote them, and no Verified, Accepted or Unverified marks.
All facts have the same weight in search and in Ask.

In both modes, kmem keeps these rules:

Stale and Superseded marks still show, and a person can still set them.
Superseded facts stay out of answers.
A change from an agent to an existing doc still waits in Review when the rules in Review changes say so.

A new org starts with verification off. Turn it on if your team wants a person to check what agents write before the text reaches answers.

Turn verification on or off

Only an owner or an admin can change this setting.

Open the org menu, and select Org settings.
Find the Verification section. It shows the current value, On or Off, and what each value does.
Select Turn verification on or Turn verification off.

When you turn verification on, kmem asks Turn verification on? first. It tells you how many docs have agent text that nobody accepted or verified. That text leaves answers until a person accepts it or verifies it.

Select Turn on to continue, or Cancel to keep verification off.

When you turn verification on, kmem accepts nothing and deletes nothing. The setting only changes which text answers questions, and which marks the docs show. You can turn it off again at any time.

The status marks

With verification on, each block of a doc can show one of these marks:

Mark	What it means	Does the text reach answers?
Verified	A person checked the text, and it is still true.	Yes. It ranks above text that nobody checked.
Accepted	A person accepted the change of an agent in Review. Verification is a separate check of the current text.	Yes.
Unverified	An agent wrote the text, and nobody accepted or verified it.	No, while verification is on.
Stale	The text was true, and it may not be true now.	Yes, at half the weight of a verified fact.
Superseded	A later fact replaced this text.	No.

With verification off, only Stale and Superseded marks show.

The marks show in these places:

In the margin of a doc in Read mode, beside each block.
In the doc line at the top of a doc, for example Verified by Maya Chen.
In the summary under the title, for example 1 accepted or 3 unverified.
In Docs, beside a doc in a list. A doc that only people wrote shows Verified.
In Properties, in the Details panel.

Accept or verify one fact

The status panel shows the facts about one block, and it lets you change its mark.

Open the doc in Read mode.
Select the mark beside the block. kmem opens the Provenance panel.
Read the facts: Written by, Written on, Through, and, when they apply, Accepted, Verified, Model and Freshness.
Under Change the state, select a state:
Verified: you checked the text, and it is still true.
Stale: the text was true, and it may not be true now.
Superseded: a later fact replaced the text.
Not verified: you withdraw an earlier mark.
Under Applies to, select This claim.
Select the button, for example Mark this claim Verified.

kmem puts your name on the mark. Every change is in the audit log, with your name and the earlier state. You can change the mark again later.

To accept the change of an agent, accept its batch in Review. Read Accept a batch. kmem then marks the text Accepted.

With verification off, the panel offers Stale, Superseded and No mark.

Select Close to close the panel. On a phone, the panel opens as a sheet, and the Back button of the phone closes it.

Verify a doc

To verify all text in a doc at one time:

Open the status panel of any block in the doc.
Under Applies to, select the whole doc. The choice shows the number of claims, for example The whole doc — 12 claims.
Select Verified.
Select the button, for example Mark 12 claims Verified.

kmem records that you read all of these claims, and that each one is still true. It puts your name on each claim. Do this only when you checked the whole doc.

To verify one section, select the section under Applies to instead. The choice shows the heading and the number of claims.

If you can read a doc but not change it, the panel does not let you change the marks. Ask an owner for write access.

What Ask and agents leave out

With verification on, Ask and agents leave out text that an agent wrote directly and that nobody accepted or verified.

If that text could answer a question, Ask says A doc that may answer this is waiting to be checked. Verify the text, then ask again.
An agent that reads your docs gets the same result. An agent can ask kmem to include the unverified text in one search.

Superseded text stays out of answers in both modes.

With verification off, Ask and agents leave out only superseded text.

Docs that people write

kmem trusts the work of a person. When a person writes a doc, kmem marks the text Verified by that person. This rule applies to these tools:

The editor in kmem.
The kmem API and the kmem command line tool, with the account of a person.
An upload by a person.

These actions do not mark text as verified:

Git sync.
A restore from the history.
An undo of the changes of a session.

The doc line names a verifier only when people verified all of the text in the doc. A doc that only people wrote shows Verified in lists, when the org uses verification.

A block that a person wrote never shows an Unverified or Accepted mark.