TenantAtlas/specs/278-cross-domain-indicator-audit/standards-delta.md

Standards Delta: Cross-Domain Progress Indicator Semantics Audit

Target document: docs/ui/tenantpilot-enterprise-ui-standards.md
Source inventory: specs/278-cross-domain-indicator-audit/inventory.md
Follow-up map: specs/278-cross-domain-indicator-audit/follow-up-map.md
Status: Applied as bounded standards input, not runtime implementation

Standards Delta Rules

Rule ID	Area	Current gap	Proposed guidance	Target doc	Follow-up lane
IND-STD-001	allowed-categories	Current standards mostly discuss progress bars and OperationRun progress, not the product-wide indicator category set.	Every indicator-like cue must name exactly one semantic category: execution progress, activity state, coverage, completion, health, readiness, risk, pressure, usage, capacity, score, generation state, or unknown/ambiguous.	docs/ui/tenantpilot-enterprise-ui-standards.md	standards patch lane
IND-STD-002	determinate-progress	Some ratios and percentages outside OperationRun can look like execution progress.	Determinate progress UI is allowed only when a real numerator and denominator or real percent exists, the measured category is explicit, and the cue does not imply execution progress unless it measures active execution.	docs/ui/tenantpilot-enterprise-ui-standards.md	standards patch lane
IND-STD-003	freshness	Coverage, provider permissions, evidence, and review states can look current even when their basis is missing or stale.	Indicators must expose missing, stale, or unknown basis as state or supporting copy. Missing data must not render as healthy zero, calm, complete, or ready by default.	docs/ui/tenantpilot-enterprise-ui-standards.md	standards patch lane
IND-STD-004	wording	Labels such as Active operations, No current result, Posture score, and customer-safe output states can invite the wrong reading.	Labels must state the measured thing, not just a generic status noun. Avoid progress, score, health, ready, or active unless the source truth supports that exact meaning.	docs/ui/tenantpilot-enterprise-ui-standards.md	standards patch lane
IND-STD-005	dashboard	Tenant dashboard rollups combine provider permissions, findings, recovery, backup, evidence, reviews, and operations.	Dashboard indicators must remain decision-first and must not collapse execution outcome, data completeness, governance result, lifecycle/readiness, risk pressure, and customer handoff maturity into one unexplained status.	docs/ui/tenantpilot-enterprise-ui-standards.md	metric/indicator contract foundation
IND-STD-006	anti-pattern	Bars, counts, scores, badges, and colored cards can reuse the same visual language for incompatible meanings.	Forbidden: fake percentages; progress bars for provider health, risk, pressure, usage, score, or readiness without real denominator; outcome counters reused as progress; score values with no scale/direction; stale data shown as current truth; usage/capacity shown as success progress.	docs/ui/tenantpilot-enterprise-ui-standards.md	standards patch lane
IND-STD-007	provider-boundary	Provider health and permission posture can leak Microsoft-shaped terms into platform-core semantics.	Provider-owned cues must be labeled as provider posture or provider readiness examples. They must not define platform-core health, readiness, score, or success semantics by default.	docs/ui/tenantpilot-enterprise-ui-standards.md	metric/indicator contract foundation
IND-STD-008	quality-gate	Future contributors can add local progress-like UI without category/freshness/denominator review.	New or changed indicator surfaces should include a review note answering: what is measured, which category applies, whether direction is higher/lower/neutral, how fresh the source is, what missing data means, and what action the operator should take.	.specify/templates/* later, plus active specs	quality gate lane

Applied Target-Doc Delta

The standards target should now include a product-wide "Indicator Semantics" rule block near the existing Progress Bar Pattern. The block must stay concise and not copy the full inventory.

Minimum applied guidance:

• Indicators are not interchangeable. A bar, percentage, score, KPI count, status badge, readiness label, health label, risk count, usage/capacity value, or generation-state hint must state what it measures.
• Execution progress is only active work progress. Coverage, review completion, provider health, backup posture, risk pressure, usage/capacity, scores, and generation state must not borrow execution-progress language.
• Determinate bars require truthful numerator/denominator or percent values and accessible visible text.
• Unknown, stale, or missing source truth must remain visible and must not default to calm, ready, healthy, complete, or zero.
• Provider-owned health and permission posture stay provider examples, not platform-core default semantics.
• Future runtime work must split into contract, component, quality-gate, and migration lanes instead of treating this audit as permission for broad UI rewrite.

Anti-Patterns Derived From Inventory

Anti-pattern	Example inventory entries	Required later disposition
Activity-only bar reads like determinate progress	IND-002	Standards language first; component lane later if visual drift persists.
Missing basis reads like calm or zero	IND-008, IND-022, IND-037	Copy-only or standards clarification before contract rollout.
Label promises the wrong metric	IND-020	Copy-only clarification; product decision only if label semantics are intentionally retained.
Score has no direction or scale	IND-031, IND-032	Contract follow-up before shared component or migration.
Provider health becomes platform health	IND-028, IND-033	Provider-boundary standards and contract fields.
Review completion reads like evidence completeness	IND-026, IND-029	Component/contract distinction between completion and generation/readiness.
Preview-impact ratio reads like progress	IND-036	Standards clarification and later component categorization.

Review Outcome

• The standards delta is applied at a documentation level only.
• No runtime component, contract, migration, quality gate, or test family is introduced by this slice.
• Later specs may quote this delta as input, but must still define their own implementation scope and proof lane.