Conformance vs Passed

conformance and passed answer different questions.

conformance is structural. It describes the highest implemented index-ai level the target satisfies.

passed is the global validation verdict. It answers whether the result should be treated as successful under the current options.

Conformance

The current validator can return:

Value	Meaning
none	Level 1 required checks did not pass.
level-1	Level 1 AI Manifest checks passed, but Level 2a did not fully pass.
level-2a	Level 1 and Level 2a Agent Index checks passed.

The package reserves TypeScript union members for Level 2b and Level 3, but the current validator does not emit those levels.

Passed

passed is based on validation severity and options:

• any fail check makes passed false
• failOnWarn makes any warning fail the global result
• strict makes SHOULD-level warnings fail the global result
• strictSecurity upgrades private/internal infrastructure heuristic findings from warn to fail
• discovery warnings do not fail by default

This means a target can have structural level-2a conformance while still returning passed: false under stricter options or fail-level security findings.

CLI interaction

The CLI exposes both fields in human and JSON output.

Exit codes are based on passed, not directly on conformance:

Code	Meaning
0	A validation result exists and passed is true.
1	A validation result exists and passed is false.
2	No validation result exists because usage, configuration, or runtime setup failed.

--no-exit-code returns 0 for validation failures only. It does not hide usage, configuration, or runtime errors before a validation result exists.

Decision model

Scope

The highest structural level the validator emits is level-2a. For everything outside that, see Scope.