Observed
Directly supported by captured deployed or source evidence.
Methodology
Evidence has a boundary. The report should show it.
AuditDeck begins with deterministic capture, records limitations, and keeps observed facts distinct from inference and confirmed root cause.
No completeness claim. A public crawl cannot see every state, authenticated route, audience variation, regional response, or business context.
Surface review
The passive sequence.
The engine follows a bounded process so the result can be explained and reproduced without changing the target website.
1. Establish scope
Validate the public origin, authorization, robots policy, page limit, crawl delay, sitemap seeds, and maximum depth.
2. Discover routes
Read permitted sitemap entries and visible same-origin links. External links are recorded but not followed.
3. Capture evidence
Render desktop and mobile states and collect screenshots, metadata, visible controls, copy, console errors, failed requests, and accessibility results.
4. Apply deterministic rules
Generate stable findings and a passive route graph with traceable evidence references and omission reasons.
5. Review interpretation
Separate observations from inferred impact, add client context where needed, and approve, edit, annotate, or suppress conclusions before delivery.
Language standard
Four different claims.
Reports use explicit labels so a likely explanation is never quietly promoted into a confirmed cause.
Inferred
A reasoned interpretation with stated confidence and limitations.
Needs context
Evidence exists, but product intent or operating context is missing.
Confirmed
A cause or result reproduced within a defined, authorized scope.
Severity
Priority is not certainty.
Severity describes potential impact and urgency. Confidence describes evidentiary support. A high-severity, low-confidence issue needs validation, not louder language.
Material blocker or broad risk
Likely to prevent a critical task, hide important content, or affect many users.
Meaningful friction
Degrades comprehension, navigation, trust, accessibility, or task completion.
Localized improvement
Useful quality work with limited immediate impact or reach.