C. The Proof Dossier: What You Build

The dossier is one cumulative record, not a pile of unrelated chapter exercises. It preserves the original brief, the evidence gathered against it, and the decision that follows. A folder of documents or a paper notebook is sufficient.

Start before building

Copy the proof brief from the Introduction. Give it a date and version. Select one main use for your capstone; the other chapter artefacts are supporting exercises, not a requirement to combine every model into one system.

Use these sections throughout:

Section	Contents
1. Brief	Intended and forbidden use, affected people, baseline, acceptance thresholds, stop rule
2. Sources and boundaries	Data provenance, permissions, versions, transformations, missing resources, permitted destinations
3. Design	Candidate workflow, alternatives rejected, model and prompt versions, human checkpoints
4. Evaluation	Test plan, separation from development data, inputs and outputs, counts, failures, baseline comparison
5. Review	Conversation logs where used, independent checks, corrections, unresolved objections
6. Decision and handover	Go/revise/stop memo, limitations, owner, fallback, pilot conditions, next review

Label each piece of evidence observed, illustrative, or not tested. Record whether an outcome came from your own run, a cited external study, or a constructed case in this book. A conversation log shows how you reasoned; it is not a substitute for test results or independent verification.

What each chapter contributes

Chapter numbers below follow reading order, not source filenames.

Chapter	Contribution to the dossier	Evidence to retain
1. What changed?	Initial use and capability hypothesis	Proposed task, unsupported claims, questions to test
2. For whom?	Stakeholder and subgroup map	Who is represented, who is missing, error costs
3. Can you tell?	Four-lens audit	Quoted claims, missing provenance, review owner
4. What’s in the data?	Data analysis, or a critique of the worked case	Dataset version, transformations, patterns versus causal claims
5. Whose data is it?	Data-boundary sheet	Direct and potential identifiers, group counts, unresolved approvals
6. What are you giving up?	Deployment comparison	Data destinations, costs, constraints, rejected alternative
7. Are you asking well?	Retrieval design and injection-boundary check	Source support, exact test inputs/outputs, tool permissions
8. What is it saying?	Language-analysis disagreement set	Cases where scoring and human reading differ
9. Does it actually work?	Evaluation report	Counts by class and condition, failed thresholds, baseline
10. How does it decide?	Model comparison	Shared tests, explanation limits, reasons for selecting neither if needed
11. Can it do the whole job?	Action and checkpoint map	Permissions, failure propagation, stop and escalation design
12. What comes next?	Capstone decision memo	Benefits, transition costs, exclusions, decision and next evidence

The paper route produces analysis and design records. Build-along work adds executable artefacts and measured runs where the required resources are available. Do not mark a build completed because you read its example.

Capstone acceptance checklist

Ask a peer to review the dossier, or perform a separate self-review before submitting it. A criterion is met only when the reviewer can point to the relevant evidence.

• Scope: the intended use, affected users, and forbidden use are explicit.
• Precommitment: the original threshold and test plan survive alongside any explained revisions.
• Traceability: sources, versions, inputs, outputs, and calculations can be followed.
• Honest evaluation: baseline, denominators, failures, and relevant groups or conditions are shown; missing tests are labelled.
• Decision quality: the recommendation follows the evidence, including a revise or stop decision where warranted.
• Human responsibility: checkpoint, accountable role, fallback, and stop condition are named.
• Limits: illustrative numbers, untested assumptions, and generalisation limits are not presented as measured facts.
• Next gate: the memo states what evidence is needed before the next stage in Appendix D.

A dossier meets the exercise standard when all eight are present and no critical unknown is concealed. This is a learning rubric, not certification of safety or legal compliance. Keep the reviewer’s objections and your responses with the final memo.