The StackAttest Standard: how we decide whether AI-built software is production ready

Software is being written faster than trust in it can keep up. Roughly 84% of developers now use AI coding tools, yet close to 46% say they do not trust the output. Independent research keeps finding that around 45% of AI-generated code ships with a known security weakness. That gap is the whole reason StackAttest exists, and the StackAttest Standard is how we close it.

This page is the canonical explanation of the Standard. If you want to know exactly what a StackAttest score means, how it is produced, and why we report four numbers instead of one, this is the reference.

Why one number is not enough

Most trust products give you a single grade and ask you to believe it. A single grade hides the two things that actually matter: how much evidence sat behind the verdict, and how confident the reviewers were. A high score built on thin evidence is not the same as a high score built on deep evidence, and pretending they are the same is how trust products lose the trust.

So the Standard reports four separate signals, and each one answers a different question.

1. The Score

The headline result. It is produced by a deterministic engine, which means the same inputs always give the same score, with no model opinion mixed in. Run it twice on the same commit and you get the same number every time. A single critical failure, like a missing production gate, cannot be quietly averaged away by strong results elsewhere.

2. Evidence Coverage

How much of the Standard we could actually check for this product. A control with no evidence is marked as uncovered, not silently passed. Coverage tells you how complete the picture is, so you never mistake an absence of evidence for a clean bill of health.

3. Validation Confidence

How strong the evidence behind the covered controls is. Live, observed evidence counts for more than a founder declaration. Confidence separates a result we watched happen from one we were told about.

4. AI Consensus

How much an independent panel of AI reviewers agreed when they examined the evidence. A confident, unanimous verdict reads very differently from a split one, and we show you which you are looking at.

Evidence over opinion

The Standard is built on a simple rule: a claim only counts if there is evidence for it. We gather that evidence directly from your live surface and your source with a read-only connection. TLS and security headers, authentication and access control, error handling, backups, health checks, and known-vulnerable dependencies are all read from the real thing, not from a questionnaire.

Every finding points back at the evidence that produced it. You can always ask why a control passed or failed and get a concrete answer, not a vibe.

Deterministic first, AI second

This is the part people most often get wrong about StackAttest, so it is worth being precise. The Score is never decided by an AI model. It is computed by deterministic rules over the evidence, which is what makes it replayable and hard to argue with.

After the Score is set, an independent council of separate AI reviewers examines the same evidence and challenges each other. They can flag weak evidence, disagree, and ask for more. Their agreement becomes the AI Consensus signal. What they never do is change the deterministic Score. The council reviews the evidence. It does not overrule the math.

The council challenges the evidence. It never changes the Score.

The Passport you own

The output of a validation is a Passport. You own it, and you decide who sees it and which sections they see. Share it with an investor, a buyer, or a partner, set an expiry, and revoke it whenever you want. Your source never leaves your control, and the reader sees the verified result rather than your code.

A public Passport can also carry a signed attestation. Anyone can check that signature against our published key, without an account and without seeing any evidence, and confirm the result has not been tampered with.