Handbook
Consumer Decisions, Contracts, and Claims Intelligence
Clarify needs, compare products and services, review material contract terms, detect scams, and organize returns, warranties, complaints, and claims.
Updated
Definition
Clarify needs, compare products and services, review material contract terms, detect scams, and organize returns, warranties, complaints, and claims.
Coverage role
People repeatedly spend money and accept terms for housing, utilities, technology, travel, insurance, education, and everyday goods.
Scope
Included
- requirements
- total cost
- seller and evidence review
- product or service comparison
- contract issue spotting
- warranties and returns
- complaints and claims
- scam detection
Excluded and non-goals
- legal representation
- counterfeit or stolen goods
- concealed affiliate incentives
- unsafe product recommendations
- guaranteeing redress
Boundary rules
- Route to life.consumer-contracts-claims when the requested outcome requires one or more declared capabilities and the output can be represented by its canonical artifacts.
- Route to an adjacent or specialist intelligence when domain-specific rules, tools, or professional authority dominate the problem.
- Use general.reasoning to coordinate multi-pack conflicts, hard constraints, uncertainty, and decision status.
- Return ask, defer, or escalate when required context, source authority, consent, or accountable ownership is missing.
Capability semantics
| Capability ID | Name | Semantic intent |
|---|---|---|
capability.life.consumer-contracts-claims.define_requirements |
Define Requirements | Separate hard constraints from preferences and specify intended use lifecycle budget safety and access. |
capability.life.consumer-contracts-claims.research_options |
Research Options | Gather current seller product service recall and evidence information. |
capability.life.consumer-contracts-claims.compare_total_value |
Compare Total Value | Normalize price fees financing consumables maintenance warranty resale risk and lifecycle cost. |
capability.life.consumer-contracts-claims.review_contract_terms |
Review Contract Terms | Flag material obligations renewal cancellation liability data dispute and change clauses. |
capability.life.consumer-contracts-claims.check_seller_scam_risk |
Check Seller Scam Risk | Assess identity reputation payment protection pressure tactics impersonation and too-good-to-be-true signals. |
capability.life.consumer-contracts-claims.plan_return_warranty_claim |
Plan Return Warranty Claim | Organize dates evidence terms requested remedy contacts and escalation. |
capability.life.consumer-contracts-claims.prepare_complaint |
Prepare Complaint | Create a factual complaint with evidence legal-source references desired remedy and deadline. |
Canonical artifact concepts
| Artifact type | Structural category | Semantic purpose |
|---|---|---|
artifact.life.consumer-contracts-claims.requirements_brief |
acceptance_contract | Requirements Brief for Consumer Decisions, Contracts, and Claims Intelligence: A traceable requirement and acceptance contract linking each obligation to an observable criterion, verifier, owner, and status. It supports the pack purpose of clarify needs, compare products and services, review material contract terms, detect scams, and organize returns, warranties, complaints, and claims. |
artifact.life.consumer-contracts-claims.options_and_evidence_ledger |
ledger | Options And Evidence Ledger for Consumer Decisions, Contracts, and Claims Intelligence: A controlled collection of uniquely identified entries with ownership, provenance, status, and review state. It supports the pack purpose of clarify needs, compare products and services, review material contract terms, detect scams, and organize returns, warranties, complaints, and claims. |
artifact.life.consumer-contracts-claims.total_cost_comparison |
comparison | Total Cost Comparison for Consumer Decisions, Contracts, and Claims Intelligence: A normalized comparison that applies hard constraints before preferences and preserves evidence, uncertainty, dominance, and sensitivity. It supports the pack purpose of clarify needs, compare products and services, review material contract terms, detect scams, and organize returns, warranties, complaints, and claims. |
artifact.life.consumer-contracts-claims.contract_issue_list |
ledger | Contract Issue List for Consumer Decisions, Contracts, and Claims Intelligence: A controlled collection of uniquely identified entries with ownership, provenance, status, and review state. It supports the pack purpose of clarify needs, compare products and services, review material contract terms, detect scams, and organize returns, warranties, complaints, and claims. |
artifact.life.consumer-contracts-claims.scam_risk_review |
analysis | Scam Risk Review for Consumer Decisions, Contracts, and Claims Intelligence: An evidence-linked assessment that states criteria, findings, uncertainty, limitations, status, and action. It supports the pack purpose of clarify needs, compare products and services, review material contract terms, detect scams, and organize returns, warranties, complaints, and claims. |
artifact.life.consumer-contracts-claims.return_or_warranty_plan |
plan | Return Or Warranty Plan for Consumer Decisions, Contracts, and Claims Intelligence: A governed action design that sequences work, ownership, dependencies, timing, contingencies, and review. It supports the pack purpose of clarify needs, compare products and services, review material contract terms, detect scams, and organize returns, warranties, complaints, and claims. |
artifact.life.consumer-contracts-claims.complaint_and_claim_dossier |
evidence_package | Complaint And Claim Dossier for Consumer Decisions, Contracts, and Claims Intelligence: A versioned evidence package with indexed contents, completeness state, recipient, approval, submission, retention, and revision controls. It supports the pack purpose of clarify needs, compare products and services, review material contract terms, detect scams, and organize returns, warranties, complaints, and claims. |
Method families and limits
| Method ID | Method | Use when | Avoid when |
|---|---|---|---|
method.life.consumer-contracts-claims.hard_constraint_filtering |
hard-constraint filtering | Use when a purchase, repair, service, or contract must be compared on normalized scope, hard constraints, evidence, total cost, terms, and recourse. | Avoid comparing headline price alone, assuming missing terms are favorable, overlooking license, warranty, safety, cancellation, or data use, or treating draft review as legal advice. |
method.life.consumer-contracts-claims.total_cost_of_ownership |
total cost of ownership | Use when alternatives or plans depend on transparent monetary flows, units, timing, fees, uncertainty, and scenario assumptions. | Avoid undisclosed rates, fees, taxes, currency conversion, inflation, compounding, or jurisdictional assumptions; do not present scenario outputs as guaranteed outcomes. |
method.life.consumer-contracts-claims.source_and_seller_triangulation |
source and seller triangulation | Use when the reliability of a conclusion depends on locating original evidence, comparing independent sources, preserving scope, and identifying conflicts. | Avoid equating repetition with independence, citing summaries for claims available in primary sources, or merging conflicting evidence into a single unsupported score. |
method.life.consumer-contracts-claims.clause_checklist |
clause checklist | Use when a purchase, repair, service, or contract must be compared on normalized scope, hard constraints, evidence, total cost, terms, and recourse. | Avoid comparing headline price alone, assuming missing terms are favorable, overlooking license, warranty, safety, cancellation, or data use, or treating draft review as legal advice. |
method.life.consumer-contracts-claims.scam_red_flags |
scam red flags | Use when potential harm must be detected, prioritized, contained, routed, and recorded without exceeding available authority. | Avoid delaying emergency or safeguarding routes, asking for unnecessary sensitive detail, or giving instructions that increase exposure, destroy evidence, or conflict with official guidance. |
method.life.consumer-contracts-claims.evidence_and_escalation_ladder |
evidence and escalation ladder | Use when potential harm must be detected, prioritized, contained, routed, and recorded without exceeding available authority. | Avoid delaying emergency or safeguarding routes, asking for unnecessary sensitive detail, or giving instructions that increase exposure, destroy evidence, or conflict with official guidance. |
Pack-specific invariants
The pack also inherits the core invariants in core/core_invariants.yaml.
| Invariant ID | Statement | Failure action |
|---|---|---|
invariant.life.consumer-contracts-claims.01_prices_terms_availability_and_recalls_are_current |
Prices terms availability and recalls are current. | fail_or_repair |
invariant.life.consumer-contracts-claims.02_material_exclusions_and_conflicts_are_not_hidden |
Material exclusions and conflicts are not hidden. | fail_or_repair |
invariant.life.consumer-contracts-claims.03_contract_review_distinguishes_issue_spotting_from_legal_ad |
Contract review distinguishes issue spotting from legal advice. | fail_or_repair |
invariant.life.consumer-contracts-claims.04_recommendations_exclude_unsafe_illegal_counterfeit_or_expl |
Recommendations exclude unsafe illegal counterfeit or exploitative options. | fail_or_repair |
Dependencies and relations
Operational general intelligences: general.question-framing, general.validation-verification
Foundation concepts: general.decision, general.epistemic-evidence, general.logical-constraint, general.tool-computational, general.strategic-adversarial
Life intelligences: life.personal-finance-resilience, life.civic-legal-public-services, life.media-information-literacy, life.digital-citizenship-privacy-cybersecurity
Source roles
| Source ID | Claim roles | Runtime resolution required |
|---|---|---|
local.authority |
jurisdiction_rule, runtime_fact, service_or_community_context | True |
unesco.mil |
competence_framework, concept_definition, evaluation_dimension | True |
Risk and authority boundary
Risk class: high
- Large contracts loans insurance housing medical devices or legal disputes.
- Product safety recall fraud identity theft or imminent loss.
- Claims requiring court arbitration regulator or licensed advice.
Accountable people retain consent, value, regulated, irreversible, and residual-risk decisions. This semantic page does not claim a deployed implementation.
Maturity
semantic: S3_reviewable_definition
contract: C3_testable_contract
implementation: I0_not_included
evidence: E2_source_roles_mapped
governance: G2_controls_and_review_defined
overlay: O2_paired_seed_complete
Paired overlay
Runtime maturity
- Capabilities: 7
- Technical floor→ceiling:
I1_runtime→I1_runtime - Autonomy floor→ceiling:
A0_assisted→A0_assisted - I1_runtime count: 7
- Evidence class:
contract: 7 - Full hierarchy: MATURITY-HIERARCHY.md
Evaluation suite status
- CI status:
pass - Suite:
evaluation_suites/consumer-contracts-claims.yaml - Cases defined: 7
- Capabilities under test: 7