GOV-009 · Generative Search, Scale, and Governance

Expose freshness and provenance

• Major
• IF
• OR
• THEN
• ELSE
• AND

The decision

• IF
  • data may change or be reused in generated answers
• THEN
  • show dates, methodology, sources, ownership, and update state where useful
• ELSE
  • omit unnecessary metadata

Primary metric

freshness/provenance completeness

Guardrail

false recency

Reason

Makes the decision explicit, measurable, and reversible where possible.

LAKA levels

• Major

Operators

• IF
• OR
• THEN
• ELSE
• AND

Governs gates

• maintainability
• compliance

Source

04-IF-ELSE-AND-OR-RULEBOOK.md — GOV-009 — Expose freshness and provenance

The other eleven rules in Generative Search, Scale, and Governance

• GOV-001 Keep foundational SEO as the base IF the goal includes visibility in generative search experiences Baseline
• GOV-002 Do not depend on llms.txt for Google Search IF a proposal claims a special AI text file is required for Google visibility Baseline
• GOV-003 Do not chunk content mechanically IF content is being split only because an AI system is assumed to need tiny sections Major
• GOV-004 Use query fan-out as a research map IF a broad request implies related information needs Major
• GOV-005 Block scaled content abuse IF content volume is generated primarily to manipulate rankings or AI responses without distinct user value Structural
• GOV-006 Measure generative visibility directly IF Search Console or another first-party surface provides generative-search reporting Baseline
• GOV-007 Do not invent AI-specific schema IF a proposal adds unsupported structured data solely for generative visibility Baseline
• GOV-008 Prepare for agentic use through usability IF browser agents or assistive systems need to interpret and operate the site Structural
• GOV-010 Constrain programmatic expansion IF candidate combinations exceed quality or maintenance capacity Structural
• GOV-011 Protect privacy, consent, and sensitive data IF volumetric generation or personalization uses personal, confidential, licensed, or restricted data Structural
• GOV-012 Pursue paradigm assets selectively IF a new tool, dataset, benchmark, diagnostic, or agent can complete the task far better than existing result classes Paradigm