R3
Reality Audit Procedure
The procedure translates the Audit Standard into a documentable workflow from mandate to review. It is designed to remain brief in simple matters and expand where a matter is serious, contested, or complex.
Abstract
The procedure provides a common workflow for Reality Audit. It separates mandate, observation, claim, interpretation, model, grounds, counter-material, finding, correction, and review so that the audit can be checked and corrected.
The procedure does not decide the result in advance. Each stage must be proportionate to the matter, while missing access, methodological deviations, and uncertainty remain visible in the record and final document.
How the procedure is to be used
The procedure must be read together with the Reality Audit Standard. The Standard establishes minimum requirements; the procedure shows how those requirements can be fulfilled in a concrete workflow.
Simple audits may be documented briefly, but every stage must either be completed or recorded as not completed. Serious, contested, or personally consequential matters require more extensive source work, contradiction, conflict-of-interest assessment, and independent review.
Establish the mandate and object of audit
- Purpose
- Determine what the audit is to answer, who holds which roles, what material is included, and what expressly falls outside scope.
- Actions
-
- Formulate one primary question that can be tested without embedding the conclusion.
- Identify the object of audit, period, actors, material, and intended use.
- Register the commissioner, auditor, decision-maker, and other relevant roles.
- Disclose dependencies, overlapping roles, interests, and access limitations.
- Documented output
-
- Mandate
- Scope and exclusions
- Role register
- Preliminary independence and risk note
Distinguish object, appearance, claim, interpretation, and frame
- Purpose
- Prevent what is observed, what is claimed, and the model being used from collapsing into one uncheckable category.
- Actions
-
- Register what is directly observed or documented.
- Formulate the concrete claims to be tested.
- Separate interpretations, translations, categories, models, and assumptions from the material to which they refer.
- Register decisions or practices built upon the claim.
- Documented output
-
- Claim log
- Distinction table for observation, interpretation, model, and inference
- Assumption register
Create the source and grounds register
- Purpose
- Ensure that every central conclusion can be traced to identified material with known status and context.
- Actions
-
- Register source, date, origin, location, type, and relevance.
- Mark whether the source is original, copied, excerpted, translated, anonymised, or altered.
- Distinguish direct material from summaries and reports about that material.
- Register missing or unavailable material and its possible effect.
- Documented output
-
- Source register
- Integrity notes
- List of missing material
- Version log
Test reference, correspondence, and inference
- Purpose
- Examine whether terms, classifications, figures, models, and conclusions actually answer to the grounds to which they are assigned.
- Actions
-
- Test what each central term and classification refers to.
- Follow the inference from source or observation to interim and final conclusion.
- Register hidden premises, model operations, measurement assumptions, and category shifts.
- Test whether the conclusion can be stated more weakly without losing what the material actually supports.
- Documented output
-
- Reference test
- Inference map
- Assumption and model note
- Preliminary assessment of claim strength
Test counter-material and alternative explanations
- Purpose
- Reduce the risk that the audit merely confirms the frame or explanation selected first.
- Actions
-
- Seek material capable of weakening, qualifying, or changing the main claim.
- Formulate at least one reasonable alternative explanation where the material permits more than one.
- Register which counter-material was tested, rejected, unavailable, or remains unresolved.
- Assess whether selection, time period, or access created systematic distortion.
- Documented output
-
- Counter-material register
- Alternative explanations
- Selection and access note
- Revised claim strength
Assess error, uncertainty, and capture risk
- Purpose
- Distinguish ordinary error, insufficient grounds, and necessary interpretation from a documented mechanism in which a frame gains governing priority over actuality and resists correction.
- Actions
-
- Identify any frames limiting what may count as relevant grounds.
- Register what the frame may be replacing and how the governing priority operates.
- Test whether relevant correction has been resisted, redefined, or made unavailable.
- Distinguish no capture indication, capture risk, and capture identified.
- Documented output
-
- Error and uncertainty register
- Capture-risk assessment
- Documented mechanism where capture is identified
Classify and justify the finding
- Purpose
- Formulate a finding that states what the grounds support, what they do not support, and what remains unresolved.
- Actions
-
- Select finding class F1–F7.
- Write a concise principal finding and a traceable justification.
- Include central grounds, material counter-evidence, uncertainty, and limitations.
- Where responsible, present preliminary adverse or personally consequential findings to relevant parties.
- Documented output
-
- Finding statement
- Finding class and strength
- Contradiction log
- Revised or confirmed finding
Determine correction, responsibility, and review
- Purpose
- Tie every measure directly to a documented finding and test whether the measure actually improves correspondence, traceability, and responsibility.
- Actions
-
- Determine whether correction is necessary, possible, and within the mandate.
- Set the measure, responsible party, timeframe, expected effect, and review method.
- Assess necessity, proportionality, and possible harm where rights, reputation, position, access, or participation are affected.
- Record the review and whether the correction solved, transferred, or intensified the problem.
- Documented output
-
- Correction plan
- Responsibility and timeframe
- Review criteria
- Final document and revision note
When the audit is complete
An audit is not complete merely because a finding has been written. The record must show the mandate, grounds, counter-material, methodological deviations, finding class, any correction, and the review plan. Where new information materially weakens a finding, correction, annotation, suspension, or renewed audit must be considered.
Conformity with the Standard concerns the method used; it does not make the conclusion final, infallible, or legally binding.
Audit record
The digital audit record follows the same eight stages. Information is stored locally in the browser and can be exported as Markdown or JSON.
Open the audit recordRelated documents
- Reality Audit StandardNormative minimum requirements for mandate, documentation, findings, correction, and review.
- Reality Audit — methodology overviewThe common methodological architecture and finding classification.
- Reality Audit WorkbenchLocal audit record and export template.
Revision history
- Document version
- 1.0
- First published
- 18 June 2026
First public edition.