Consistency checks

Catch conflicting facts before customers quote them back

A data-retention period appears across product pages, help topics, and contract-related material. If writers retype the value, an old statement can survive a policy change. Shared definitions and deterministic checks make contradictions easier to locate and correct.

See the comparison

The task in this example

Find every statement of the data-retention period and flag disagreements.

Business goal: Manage risk
Business metric: Contract risk

The approved value should not depend on the page

Legal and product have confirmed a 90-day retention period within this scope. Twenty locations state it; three still say 30 days before the repair.

Retyped values disagree

Each page maintains its own copy of the period.

Three locations contradict the approved 90-day value.

Approved value: 90 days
Source pattern: Independent retyped values
Check result: Three outdated 30-day statements

Customers can encounter a conflicting statement

Shared definitions remove the conflicting copies

The check identifies retyped statements and writers replace them with the scoped shared value.

All twenty locations use the approved 90-day definition after review.

Approved value: 90 days
Source pattern: Shared definition and references
Check result: Contradictions repaired before release

The checked scope has one maintained value

Prevent contradictions and reduce reconciliation work

The check must cover reused references and manually typed statements. An empty error report is meaningful only when the team knows which sources and scopes were examined.

Define the fact

Confirm the value and its applicability.
- Contract contradictions
Check and repair

Compare statements deterministically and replace retyped values.
- Caught before customers
Review the release

Verify customer-facing output and retain the evidence.
- Pre-release check time
- Legal review time

Business metric

Contract risk

Track incidents and corrective work involving contradictory commitments, with the affected scope and severity recorded.

What to measure and how to interpret it

Use known contradictions to test detection. Include legitimate exceptions with different applicability so the check does not force unlike policies into one value.

Contract contradictions: Statements conflicting with the authoritative value for the same defined scope.
Caught before customers: Confirmed contradictions detected and repaired before external release.
Pre-release check time: Effort to run checks, review exceptions, and verify repairs.
Legal review time: Legal effort to resolve value and scope questions, including recurring disagreements.

Check the business result

Track disputes or corrective work attributed to inconsistent retention statements. Count and severity matter; a period without disputes does not establish that all content is consistent.

Schedule a call

Define once, reuse with scope

A structured definition, traceable reuse, and a reviewed search for retyped claims provide the evidence for a deterministic comparison.

Controlled facts / Data retention

Shared fact definition

Retention period for the agreed policy scope

Reuse the approved 90-day value wherever this same policy scope applies.

Value: 90 days
Scope: Policy, product, and effective period recorded
Authority: Legal and product confirmation
Reuse: References identify every direct inclusion
Exception handling: Review retyped claims and legitimately different scopes

Intelligent content

Maintain an authoritative, scoped fact and traceable references. Replace retyped duplicates after review; deterministic code compares the stated values.

A practical starting point

Choose one fact whose contradictions create recurring review work. Confirm its scope with the owner and test both direct reuse and manually typed variants.

Legal and product establish the authoritative value and exceptions. The content checker finds disagreements; it does not decide the policy.

See how this scenario works