Structured request
Bind tenant, human, agent, workload, delegation, purpose, decision, subject, time, and evidence profile.
Procurement Center
Make the mission easy to evaluate—and the conclusion impossible to manufacture.
Use neutral, testable requirements to determine whether ECG, an alternative platform, a combined stack, an integrator, or an internal build can satisfy the evidence transaction.
Important qualificationThis material is not legal advice, an approved justification, or a claim that ECG is the only responsible source. Buyers must apply current law, policy, counsel review, market research, approvals, and price analysis.
Mission need
Prove the evidence state supplied to consequential AI.
Define the current inability to show what an agent was permitted to see, which assertions were valid and knowable, which sources were authoritative, what evidence was missing or contradictory, and whether the state can be verified and replayed.
✓ Workflow and consequence✓ Current reconstruction time✓ Systems and sources✓ Authorization model✓ Evidence gaps and incidents✓ Deployment deadline and cost of delay
Minimum essential outcomes
Write the requirement around evidence—not vendor terminology.
Equivalent artifacts and implementations should be eligible when they satisfy the complete, tested mission need.
Permission correctness
Enforce the intersection of human, agent, workload, source, purpose, classification, residency, and disclosure policy.
Bitemporal correctness
Distinguish valid time from what was observed, recorded, superseded, and knowable.
Authority + sufficiency
Apply explicit source authority, freshness contracts, mandatory evidence, contradictions, and gaps.
Portable artifact
Produce a versioned Evidence Manifest and signed Context Bundle with obligations and expiration.
Independent proof
Support detached verification, content-addressed integrity, declared replay fidelity, and export.
Evaluation discipline
Market research comes before an acquisition conclusion.
“Roadmap” and “can build” should not count as current capability unless schedule and contract make delivery enforceable—but ECG’s own roadmap receives the same treatment.
01
Begin with the mission
Describe the operational inability to reconstruct authorized and sufficient evidence. Do not begin with the ECG brand.
02
Classify requirements
Separate mission-, security-, interoperability-, and schedule-essential capabilities from preferences and future options.
03
Research the market
Evaluate search, graphs, catalogs, policy, observability, operational platforms, integrators, combinations, and internal build.
04
Use one test scenario
Give every vendor the same identity, time, permission, contradiction, missing-evidence, signature, and replay test.
05
Establish reasonableness
Analyze price, scope, outcomes, alternatives, internal build, transition, and negotiated protections.
06
Preserve competition
Require export, detached verification, documented interfaces, customer data ownership, and future market reassessment.
Capability truth matrix
Evaluate what exists today.
Public demonstrations, prototypes, reference architectures, and planned capabilities are different states.
CapabilityStatusDeploymentLimitationEvidence
Buyer-editable package
Start with a factual record, not a prewritten conclusion.
The downloadable Markdown package contains neutral worksheets and acceptance structures that procurement, technical, security, legal, and audit teams can adapt.
- ✓ Mission need worksheet
- ✓ Essential-requirements matrix
- ✓ Alternatives questionnaire
- ✓ Common demonstration script
- ✓ Decision Context Audit scope
- ✓ Statement of work outline
- ✓ Acceptance matrix
- ✓ Security questionnaire
- ✓ Price and volume worksheet
- ✓ Justification outline
Evidence binder
A · Mission need
B · Requirements
C · Market research
D · Product evidence
E · Verified IP
F · Price analysis
G · Responsibility
H · Approvals + release
Procurement FAQ
Questions an independent approver should ask.
Does ECG provide a legal sole-source determination?+
No. The buyer selects the authority, conducts market research, obtains approvals, evaluates alternatives, and determines price reasonableness. This center supplies a factual evaluation structure.
Why can’t enterprise search solve the requirement?+
It may solve part of it and should be evaluated. The common test asks whether a system also binds purpose and workload identity, preserves excluded and missing evidence, supports bitemporal reconstruction, and produces a signed, replayable artifact.
Do patents or terminology establish exclusivity?+
No. Any intellectual-property claim must be verified by counsel, mapped to shipped capability, and considered only alongside mission need, alternatives, responsibility, schedule, and price.
What should the first award cover?+
One bounded decision type, a small source set, explicit acceptance tests, security review, signed artifacts, verification, replay, portability, and transition rights.
How should buyers preserve future competition?+
Require documented schemas, data export, detached verification, customer-controlled evidence and keys where appropriate, third-party connector interfaces, and market reassessment before expansion.
Controlled diligence
Request the procurement package for one bounded decision.
We will separate public material from patent-sensitive, security-sensitive, and customer-confidential evidence.