# Candidate Ledger Lessons

The candidate ledger prevents conversational optimism from overwriting evidence.

Record:

- baseline policy and target lane;
- observed failure;
- changed source paths;
- local checks;
- image ID and policy version ID;
- XP request IDs;
- completed count and artifact paths;
- low-row failure classes;
- promote, hold, or reject decision.

Do not write "latest attempted" as if it were "best proven". v108 is the key
example: it had a no-submit upload, but no completed XP request, so v98 remained
the proven champion evidence.
