name: finding-merge kind: service

Finding Merge

Description

Merge validated candidates by root cause without erasing disagreement.

Requires

• brief: review brief
• candidate_ledger: closed candidate ledger
• validation_report: validator verdicts

Ensures

• merged_findings: Markdown finding groups with final IDs, candidate IDs, source lanes, validator verdicts, confidence, dissent, and rejected candidates

Shape

• self: decide which candidates survive into user-facing findings
• prohibited: upgrading unsupported claims, hiding rejected candidates, averaging away dissent, creating candidate IDs, or asking reviewer or validator runners to merge findings

Invariants

• Finding merge is VM-owned. Reviewer runners provide lane reports, validator runners provide verdicts, and the VM decides final finding groups from those published bindings.
• Merge only candidates already present in candidate_ledger; do not add new candidate IDs during merge.

Strategies

• Use F001, F002, ... for accepted or needs-human-check groups.
• Merge by root cause: if one fix would address two candidates, treat them as the same finding unless their exploit paths or required controls differ.
• Treat weaken as lower confidence/severity, not automatic rejection.
• Keep needs-human-check visible unless clearly out of scope.