Verdicts and routing states

Penrose separates an evidence judgment from an inability to test. That distinction is essential.

Research verdicts

Verdict	Meaning	What it does not mean
kill	The adequately powered claim failed one or more falsification gates.	The underlying market can never exhibit the effect.
underpowered	Available evidence cannot resolve a realistic effect from noise.	The claim is false.
watch	The claim survived important gates but remains provisional or capped.	Trade it.
research-supported	The claim survived the full configured process, including confirmation requirements.	Guaranteed profit or permanent truth.

Routing states

State	Meaning	Operator response
needs_data	Required data is unavailable or cannot satisfy the contract.	Acquire the named series or narrow the claim.
pending_module	No trusted executor currently implements the claim.	Implement or review the generated specification.
cannot_replicate	The available reconstruction is not faithful.	Correct the spec or provide code-complete logic.
needs_review	Binding, plausibility, or another integrity condition is ambiguous.	Review; never treat as a survivor.
engine_error	The system failed before producing a trustworthy judgment.	Diagnose and rerun after fixing the engine.
off_domain	No supported quantitative performance claim was found.	Reformulate only if a real performance claim exists.
cannot_confirm	Confirmation lacks adequate power or eligibility without spending the reserve.	Acquire a valid confirmation cohort.

Precedence

Structural integrity failures take precedence over flattering statistics. A Sharpe ratio of 10 does not rescue an unfaithful reconstruction, a venue mismatch, look-ahead, or an implausible payoff. Such a run routes to review or cannot-replicate; it does not receive a positive verdict.

Reading counts

Always distinguish:

• active-epoch decisions — results produced under the current corpus contract;
• legacy decisions — preserved historical results from prior epochs;
• physical rows — every version and supersession marker in the append-only ledger;
• eligible corpus evidence — the smaller subset permitted to inform learning.

These numbers are not expected to match.