Evidence lineage is the recorded trail from a published statement back to the specific passage in the specific document that supports it.
What Is Recorded
- The statement
- The specific claim made in the content.
- The passage
- Where in the document the support was found, not merely which document.
- The document
- Which file, and which revision of it.
- The version
- Which version of the content the statement appeared in.
- The decision
- Who approved that version, when, and on what rationale.
Why the Passage Matters
A citation pointing at a 200-page manual is not practically verifiable, and anything not practical does not get done. Recording the passage is what turns traceability from a claim into a workflow a reviewer will actually use.
Bounded Corrections
The main operational payoff arrives when a source turns out to be wrong. Lineage identifies every product that cited it, so the correction is applied across that known set as one recorded change, instead of being handled one customer complaint at a time.
History Is Appended, Never Rewritten
Lineage and audit entries are added, not edited or deleted. A correction is recorded as a new event rather than as a change to the old one, because a history that can be edited proves nothing.