Forensic Record of Generated Code Explanation
The ritual of asking a tool to explain its own output became a standard step before the output could be committed.
Analysis Type: Forensic Subject: Generated Code Explanation, May 2023 Variant Analyst: The subject, working alone
The code was generated. The generation took eleven seconds. The code solved the problem it was given. The output was syntactically correct and passed a manual read for obvious errors. There was no reason not to commit it.
The subject asked the tool to explain it.
This is the forensic finding. Not that the subject used the tool, but that the usage created a second step that code written from scratch does not require. The explanation was produced. The explanation was read. The code was committed.
Under the governing rule, generated code explanation becomes procedure once the first explanation has been requested and the commit that followed it was clean. The second time, the explanation is part of the workflow. The third time, the workflow is the explanation.
The code is useful enough to commit and requires one explanation pass before it can be committed, which is a different standard than the code that came before it. Code written by the subject does not require the subject to explain it back to themselves before committing. Code generated by the tool does. The reason for this difference is not technical.
One private manual check is added to each commit cycle. The check is private because describing it to a reviewer would require explaining the source, and explaining the source would require a conversation about the source, and that conversation has no established script in this environment in this period.
Assisted work becomes routine while disclosure stays exceptional, held in suspension by the absence of a clear norm.
The forensic record shows forty-one instances of generated code explanation over eighteen working days. All forty-one resulted in commits. All forty-one explanations were correct. The code held. The check found nothing. The check was performed anyway.
The coworker two desks over has a parallel record. Neither party has mentioned it.
Finding: The ritual is not about the code. The ritual is a confidence interval, privately maintained.