Verbs & effects

An action is an instruction selected by a finding. The execution receipt separately records whether it was attempted, applied, failed or withheld and what was delivered.

Verb	Supported behavior
observe	Record a finding
warn	Record a warning; do not assume a response header was emitted
block	Refuse input or suppress unreleased output
redact	Replace a validated span with a fixed marker
mask	Replace a validated span with a partial reveal
tokenize	Replace a validated span with a request-vault placeholder
pseudonymize	Replace a validated span with a consistent surrogate
reidentify	Restore exact input-vault placeholders on a supported reverse leg
rewrite, reask	Unavailable; activation is rejected

Spanless classification does not provide coordinates for redaction. Mutating sidecar combinations are refused during activation. observe, warn and block are meaningful classification actions, subject to the external-tier activation restrictions.

What mutated proves

A transformation validates all coordinates, UTF-8 boundaries, non-overlap and replacement operations before committing the candidate body. A failed or discarded candidate cannot claim mutation. Stream operations must also refer to bytes still held for release. Invalid spans apply the configured failure posture.

In monitor, the finding can say the configured action is redact, but the effect is an annotation and no bytes changed. Reversibility describes the action’s mechanism; it does not establish durable recovery. The vault remains request-scoped unless the running build explicitly provides a durable store.

Read the selected action together with transformation and delivery receipts. A mutation applied before output was withheld is different from a mutation delivered to the client. A finding count alone establishes neither one.