Qualify a workflow

Qualification turns a compiled demonstration into a governed artifact tied to one application, version, execution surface, and environment. It is the review between compiled and ready to deploy.

OpenAdapt Desktop provides the complete guided path. The same contract is available through openadapt flow qualify for automation and integration.

Open the qualification cockpit

In Desktop, open a compiled workflow and choose Qualification. For a new project, define:

• the execution surface: Browser, Windows, macOS, Linux, RDP, or Citrix;
• the application and version;
• a stable environment identifier shared with the qualification runner;
• any required runner capabilities; and
• the minimum acceptable effect-verification tier.

Starting the project retains the compiled workflow and creates a versioned qualification contract. Later edits advance its revision and invalidate stale case evidence and certification.

Review the compiled graph and every action

The Workflow structure view shows actions, branches, loops, exception paths, terminal outcomes, and the retained targeting ladder. Review the inferred program before assigning safety contracts.

For every action, confirm one business-risk class:

• Read-only observes without changing business state.
• State-changing changes UI or transient application state.
• Consequential can change a meaningful business record or trigger an external effect.
• Irreversible is consequential and cannot be safely undone through the qualified workflow.

The cockpit explains unresolved classifications and coverage gaps under What must be resolved. Certification refuses an unreviewed action rather than guessing.

Arm identity before consequential actions

Select a consequential action under Arm identity and bind the business effect. Identity can use the canonical evidence ladder or a quorum of explicit signals such as application, session, workflow state, subject name, record ID, and secondary identifier.

Each signal declares its source, exact or normalized comparison, and—when needed—its screen region, parameter binding, or extraction rule. Duplicate or conflicting records remain refusal conditions.

Safe entity language for attended decisions

The released signed decision schema and Cloud receiver can preserve an approved entity class and neutral fallback. The Flow and Desktop controls that set the class are in the coordinated V2 release work.

The class is optional presentation metadata. It does not require a separate author role, and its absence does not block qualification, certification, or execution.

After that release, the person or tool that prepares the qualification can select a static class for a step that can halt for an operator. For example, use patient record, insurance claim, or loan application. This class describes the kind of item. It never contains the live identity of the item.

The class and a neutral record or item fallback become part of the exact qualification contract. A signed decision task carries the approved class to a remote operator surface. The receiver renders only reviewed safe classes and uses the fallback when no class was set or when it cannot validate the class. A class change creates a new qualification revision and requires recertification.

OpenAdapt never infers this language from a screen, OCR, parameters, an application name, or a model. See qualification-owned entity language for the complete rule and current release status.

Bind the resulting business effect

Identity proves OpenAdapt is acting on the intended record. Effect verification proves the intended state persisted. Bind each consequential write to a verifier and choose the minimum accepted strength:

1. Independent system: API, database, audit feed, or downstream record.
2. Independent session: a separate read-only session retrieves the result.
3. Persisted-state reacquisition: leave the record, find it again, and read the saved value.
4. Immediate screen: the current field, banner, or notification.

The workflow-level minimum and each effect binding are both enforced. A weaker observation cannot be promoted to VERIFIED merely because the UI looked successful.

Run representative and fault cases

Add the normal cases the workflow must complete and the uncertainty cases it must refuse. The cockpit supports representative, ambiguity, wrong-identity, stale-identity, weak-effect, and missing-effect cases.

Choose the local execution target and optional deployment config, then select Run and sign case. Case parameters stay in the local fixture store outside the workflow. Secret values are refused there and remain runner credential references. Desktop retains the raw report locally and adds a signed receipt containing its hash, outcome, required and passed contracts, evidence classes, model-call count, and external-network-call count.

Signed results from another customer-controlled qualification runner can be imported. The signature, workflow revision, environment, runner capabilities, and evidence hashes must match the project.

Certify and publish an immutable version

When action review, identity coverage, effect coverage, and required cases all pass, choose Run certification. Every refusal remains visible with the exact action and contract that must be resolved.

The artifact controls then provide the normal production lifecycle:

1. Create working version preserves the previous revision.
2. Seal and encrypt version creates a protected candidate and stores only its key reference in the operating-system credential store.
3. Run the required cases and certify that exact sealed version.
4. Export qualified artifact creates a deterministic archive with a SHA-256 digest, or Deploy qualified artifact prepares the reviewed, sanitized Cloud path.

Raw recordings, reports, screenshots, case inputs, and secret values remain inside the declared local boundary. Deployment never turns a pending local review into an upload.

Script the same contract

The CLI exposes the same versioned project:

openadapt flow qualify init bundle \
  --target citrix \
  --application Accuro \
  --application-version 2026.1 \
  --environment-digest "$QUALIFIED_ENVIRONMENT_SHA256" \
  --minimum-tier 3

openadapt flow qualify inspect bundle --policy clinical-write
openadapt flow qualify set-risk bundle \
  --step step_012 \
  --classification consequential \
  --explanation "Writes the appointment record"
openadapt flow qualify explain bundle --policy clinical-write
openadapt flow qualify certify bundle \
  --policy clinical-write \
  --evidence-root qualification-evidence

Use openadapt flow qualify schema for the machine-readable project schema and openadapt flow qualify --help for identity, effect, case, runner-trust, requalification, report, and certification commands.