The 6 audit principles draw from two sources:
Feynman's criteria for good theories (The Character of Physical Law, 1964):
- It must agree with experiment → Verifiable & Verified
- It must be self-consistent → No Internal Contradiction
- It must be the simplest explanation → Simplest Sufficient Solution
Engineering constraints that theory alone doesn't cover: 4. It must be buildable → Feasible 5. It must handle edge cases → Boundary-Complete 6. It must be handoff-ready → Maintainable
The theoretical layer tells you "is this a good idea?". The engineering layer tells you "can this actually ship?". Self-Review checks both.
Pillars are lenses for examining the same body of work — not file categories.
| Pillar | Core question | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Design | Why are we doing this? What should it become? | Intent, decisions, constraints, specs |
| Artifact | What was actually produced? | Any deliverable — code, documents, designs, videos, skills, configs |
| Skill | How do we do things? What did we learn? | Reusable methods, standards, accumulated know-how |
| Progress | Where are we? What's next? | Plans, status, milestones, tracking |
The same deliverable can be examined through multiple pillars. A design doc is both Design (intent) and Artifact (deliverable). A pillar may have no dedicated files — intent might live only in commit messages, progress only in branch status.
Checks alignment between every pillar pair — the complete C(4,2) combination with no exceptions.
Priority (always run):
- Progress <> Design — Are we aligned with design intent?
- Progress <> Artifact — Does claimed status match actual deliverables?
- Progress <> Skill — Any lessons to capture?
Cross-pillar (always run by default): 4. Design <> Artifact — Does the output match the design? 5. Design <> Skill — Do our methods support our design goals? 6. Artifact <> Skill — Does the output follow established methods?
Dimension 2 verifies artifacts at 4 levels of depth — L1 (Exists), L2 (Build), L3 (Integration), L4 (E2E). Default minimum is L3 for code and configuration, L2 for documentation and content. L4 when acceptance criteria explicitly require end-to-end verification.
For the complete verification depth table with per-artifact-type minimums, see references/dimensions.md § Verification Depth by Artifact Type.