Concepts/Definition

Application context: different objects prove "correct" at different stages

Acceptance criteria judge whether a design answers the requirement. Tests judge implementation against an interface. Deployment checks judge whether a release can run. Only later business outcomes show whether the user received the intended result. A system can pass every local gate and still fail overall when one judge does not hand its conditions to the next.

Definition

Judge Migration tracks how the adjudicator, acceptance standard, and evidence type change across a lifecycle. The record states what the previous stage established, what the next stage must prove again, which assumptions remain open, and how the final outcome links back to the agent version and execution trace.

Engineering use

A request to raise a transport allowance to 1000 can become requirement criteria, parameter and authority checks, an after-read, and reconciliation in the next payroll cycle. A unit test proves that code executed as specified; it cannot replace payroll reconciliation. A reconciliation failure must still link to the policy version, approval, and tool receipt used at execution time.

Boundary

Judge Migration concerns continuity of evidence. It does not call for one central reviewer across every stage. Specialist judges can remain independent when the hand-off carries forward valid constraints and unresolved claims.