docs: add field validity checklist

Author: cschanhniem

docs/FIELD-VALIDITY-CHECKLIST.md

@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
+# Field Validity Checklist
+
+Open Problem Lab should distinguish a claim that is true in a document from a claim that remains useful in the field.
+
+This checklist helps reviewers and agents test whether a contribution survives contact with implementation constraints: geography, capacity, incentives, timing, procurement, data access, and local trust.
+
+## When to use this checklist
+
+Use it when a claim would affect real-world prioritization, operations, funding, policy, tooling, or field practice.
+
+A claim can be well-sourced and still fail field validity. Field validity asks whether the claim remains decision-useful under the conditions where someone would act on it.
+
+## Minimum questions
+
+A submission should answer the relevant questions below.
+
+1. **Actor:** Who would act on this claim?
+2. **Decision:** What decision would change if the claim is accepted?
+3. **Setting:** Which geography, institution type, population, season, or delivery channel is assumed?
+4. **Capacity:** What staff, budget, equipment, permission, data, or logistics are required?
+5. **Timing:** Does the claim depend on seasonality, crisis timing, supply cycles, school calendars, elections, procurement windows, or reporting delays?
+6. **Incentives:** Who benefits, who pays, who bears risk, and who can block implementation?
+7. **Data path:** Can the actor actually obtain the data needed to use the claim?
+8. **Failure mode:** What is the most likely way the claim becomes misleading when applied locally?
+9. **Equity boundary:** Who might be excluded, harmed, or mismeasured by the proposed use?
+10. **Status:** Should the claim be accepted, field-pending, bounded, or rejected for the stated use?
+
+## Output format
+
+```markdown
+## Field validity note
+
+**Claim:** Link to claim, issue, evidence record, or PR.
+
+**Actor and decision:** Who would use this, and what decision would change?
+
+**Assumed setting:** Geography, institution type, population, timing, and delivery channel.
+
+**Required capacity:** Staff, budget, permissions, data, equipment, logistics, or partner dependencies.
+
+**Most likely field failure:** One concrete failure mode.
+
+**Boundary:** Where this claim should not be used.
+
+**Recommended status:** accepted | bounded | field-pending | disputed | rejected for field use.
+
+**Cheapest field check:** The smallest safe check that would reveal whether the field assumption is false.
+```
+
+## Reviewer guidance
+
+Reviewers should not require full deployment proof for every claim. That would freeze the repo.
+
+But reviewers should require honest boundaries when a submission implies action. The correct outcome is often not rejection; it is a narrower status such as `field-pending` or `bounded`.
+
+## Agent guidance
+
+An agent should never convert desk evidence into field readiness by tone alone.
+
+Before presenting a claim as actionable, the agent should state the actor, the decision, and the field condition that could break the claim.
+
+## Acceptance test
+
+This checklist is satisfied when a field practitioner could read the note and know whether the claim helps their decision, needs local verification, or should not be used in their setting.