# The method — four claims

> Four claims about how to build a game that measures something: score calibration not knowledge, put a ceiling in the set, derive levels from a graph, and treat the mandate as a by-product.

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# Four claims

Each of these is a decision that could have gone the other way, and each names what would show it was wrong. They are the transferable part: nothing here is specific to agents, and all four apply to any game meant to measure a belief.

**1 — Score calibration, not knowledge** — A proper scoring rule, with a wrong answer costing more than a right one earns, and *don't know* always available and always worth zero.
[The argument](../method/calibration.md)

**2 — Put a ceiling in the question set** — If every question has a real answer, the only error the game can measure is underestimating. Two fifths of these are things nothing can do.
[The argument](../method/the-ceiling.md)

**3 — Derive levels from the graph, not from vibes** — A level is the number of hops to a one-way consequence, computed from the mesh — and it is distance, never a danger rating.
[The argument](../method/levels.md)

**4 — Make the mandate a by-product** — Nobody fills in a mandate form honestly. Ask *do you want it to?* forty times and one falls out of the play.
[The argument](../method/grant-vs-mandate.md)

## What they have in common

All four are ways of stopping a game from measuring the wrong thing while looking like it is working. A quiz with no ceiling, no scoring rule and hand-assigned levels still produces a number, still feels informative, and tells you nothing you did not put in. The four claims are what make the number arguable — and each one has a self-test in the vault that fails the build if it stops holding.

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