Designation, Drafting and Style Rules for Veyrum Robotics Standard Documents

Foreword. This Standard defines how every document in the Veyrum Robotics Standard (VRS) library is designated, structured, and drafted, and — from the VRS 2026 edition — the normative layout of every rating criterion (6.5, 7.5). It was first drafted under the VRS Framework Design Brief v1.1 (CEO decisions D1–D9, ruled 2026-09-02) and is written to conform to its own rules. It is a draft issued for internal review and does not yet constitute a published Veyrum Standard. Requirements use “shall” for mandatory provisions, “should” for recommendations, and “may” for permissions.

This document is modelled on the drafting disciplines of ISO/IEC Directives Part 2, the ASTM Form and Style manual, and the designation practices of IEC, IEEE, SAE, and Euro NCAP, adapted for a rating-standard library.

Introduction

A rating is only as trustworthy as the documents behind it. This Standard exists so that every VRS document — for its entire life — is identifiable by a stable designator, readable by a fixed structure, and assessable because its requirements are objectively verifiable. The designation system defined here is designed to never require renumbering: identity lives in stable serials, meaning lives in titles and metadata, and positional codes are used only for the locked set of application sectors.

1 Scope

This Standard specifies:

• the document taxonomy of the VRS library (Clause 4);
• the designation system: family codes, serial allocation, and citation forms (Clause 5);
• the mandatory structure of every VRS document (Clause 6);
• drafting rules, including verbal forms and referencing (Clause 7);
• the designation footprint of editions and change instruments (Clause 8);
• the document maturity ladder (Clause 9); and
• the separation of technical designators from market-facing names (Clause 10).

This Standard applies to every document published in the VRS library, normative and informative. It does not govern when or why documents change (see VRS-GEN-004, Change, Edition and Review Policy), the content of any rating methodology, or the visual identity of published documents.

2 Normative references

The following documents are referred to in the text such that some or all of their content constitutes requirements of this document.

• VRS-GEN-001, Vocabulary and Terminology (undated — latest edition applies).
• VRS-GEN-004, Change, Edition and Review Policy (undated — latest edition applies).
• Canonical IR/AR Definition (internal, locked 2026-08-26, amended and re-locked 2026-09-02) — until superseded by VRS-GEN-001/005/006, the canonical definition is the controlling reference for rating semantics.

3 Terms and definitions

For the purposes of this document, the following terms apply. Terms defined in VRS-GEN-001 take precedence where they exist.

3.1 designator

The permanent identifier of a VRS document (e.g., VRS-GEN-002), consisting of the VRS prefix, a family code, and a serial number.

3.2 family code

A fixed three-letter code identifying the document family: GEN (general/centralized) or one of the twelve application-sector codes (Annex A).

3.3 requirement

An expression that conveys objectively verifiable criteria to be fulfilled and from which no deviation is permitted if conformance with the document is to be claimed. Signalled by “shall” / “shall not”.

3.4 recommendation

An expression that conveys a suggested choice or course of action deemed particularly suitable, without excluding others. Signalled by “should” / “should not”.

3.5 permission

An expression of a course of action allowed within the limits of the document. Signalled by “may”. Capability or possibility is signalled by “can” and is not a permission.

3.6 normative

Content that carries requirements or recommendations with which conformance can be claimed.

3.7 informative

Content provided for understanding only. Informative content shall not contain requirements.

3.8 criterion

a single scored element of an IR category or a sector protocol, specified in the layout of 6.5, carrying an integer point range and a ladder of rungs.

3.9 rung

one named, objectively verifiable state of a criterion that awards a stated integer number of points.

3.10 ceiling

the maximum points a criterion may award at a stated rating tier (Unverified, Verified, Certified); always equal to the value of some rung of that criterion (7.5.1).

3.11 evidence bar

the minimum evidence that must exist for a criterion to award any points at all; below the bar the criterion scores zero.

4 Document taxonomy

4.1 Every VRS document shall carry exactly one of the following type codes. The type code determines the document’s normative force; normative force shall never depend on disclaimer prose alone.

4.2 A TR or GD shall not contain requirements. Each TR and GD shall carry, on its cover and in its Foreword, the banner: “Informative — this document contains no requirements.”

4.3 Documents of type TR shall never carry a :YYYY edition mark, so that an informative paper can never be mistaken for an edition of a standard.

4.4 Test Protocols (how results are produced) and Assessment Protocols (how results are scored) shall be separate documents.

4.5 New type codes may be added by revision of this Standard. Existing type codes shall not be removed or merged while any document carries them.

5 Designation system

5.1 Designator grammar

5.1.1 Every VRS document shall be designated VRS-<FAMILY>-<SERIAL> where <FAMILY> is a family code (3.2, Annex A) and <SERIAL> is a zero-padded three-digit serial number (e.g., VRS-GEN-002, VRS-IND-201).

5.1.2 Serial numbers shall be allocated within the reserved ranges of Annex B. The serial number itself carries no meaning beyond its range; meaning shall be carried by the document title and metadata.

5.1.3 A designator, once assigned to a published document, shall never be changed and shall never be reused — including after withdrawal. NOTE — This rule is absolute. The cost of renumbering is measured in decades of ambiguity (IEC’s 1997 renumbering is the cautionary precedent).

5.2 Citation forms

5.2.1 A dated citation of a standard shall append the edition year: VRS-GEN-005:2027. A dated citation of a protocol or data artifact shall append the version: VRS-IND-201 v2.0.

5.2.2 An undated citation (VRS-GEN-005) means the latest published edition applies. Drafters shall choose dated or undated per the referencing rules of 7.3.

5.3 Family codes

5.3.1 The family codes are fixed and listed in Annex A. The twelve sector codes correspond to the twelve locked application sectors and shall not be added to, removed, or respelled after first publication of any document carrying them.

5.3.2 The GEN family is the single home for all centralized material: governance, vocabulary, the IR methodology and category standards, the AR scheme, and cross-sector protocols.

6 Document structure

6.1 Every normative VRS document shall consist of the following elements, in order:

1. Cover: designator + edition, title, type code, status, and the lifecycle lines of 8.3.
2. Foreword (informative, mandatory): publication machinery and changes since last edition.
3. Introduction (informative, optional): why the document exists.
4. Clause 1 — Scope: what the document covers and excludes.
5. Clause 2 — Normative references.
6. Clause 3 — Terms and definitions (deferring to VRS-GEN-001; local terms only).
7. Clauses 4…n — technical content.
8. Annexes, each headed “(normative)” or “(informative)”.
9. Bibliography (informative references).
10. Change history table.

6.2 Requirements shall appear only in technical clauses (Clauses 4…n) and normative annexes. The Foreword, Introduction, Scope, notes, and examples shall not contain requirements.

6.3 Every annex shall declare its normative or informative status in its heading.

6.4 AR sector standards (XXX-0xx) shall use the universal sector template (Framework Design Brief §6.3) and shall express sector-specific variance only through normative annexes drawn from the closed module set: continued-validity, clinical-evidence, qualification-test, public-exposure and restricted-evidence. Sector assessment protocols (XXX-2xx) shall use the criterion clause layout of 6.5.

6.5.1 Every IR category standard (family GEN-1xx) and every sector assessment protocol (family XXX-2xx) shall place its criteria in Clause 6, one subclause per criterion, numbered in table order: criterion k is §6.k. Criteria shall not appear in any other clause. Derived documents (information packs, demonstration protocols) cite criteria by this clause number (“Required by VRS-GEN-101 §6.4”).

6.5.2 Each criterion subclause shall consist of a heading of the form “6.k [Criterion ID] [Criterion name] (0–N)” followed by a table with exactly the following rows, in this order:

6.5.3 Each criterion clause shall be preceded, in Clause 5 or in the introductory text of Clause 6, by a summary table listing every criterion with its ID, name, point range and the three tier ceilings, and by the totals — the sum of point ranges and the sum of each tier’s ceilings. The totals shall be reproducible from the criterion subclauses by addition; a document whose totals do not reproduce is malformed.

6.5.4 Sector assessment protocols shall additionally state, in Clause 5, the contributing IR criteria (by document and clause number) that form part of the sector pool, and in Clause 7 the tier-ceiling sums for the whole pool and the best attainable letter at each tier (VRS-GEN-006 §8).

6.5.5 Criterion tables shall not carry weights, multipliers, confidence factors or normalisation rules. A criterion’s influence on the rating is its point range and nothing else.

NOTE — Rows 3–5 name evidence in plain language deliberately. The mapping from that language to Veyrum’s internal evidence and demonstration catalogues lives in a traceability matrix outside the standards, so that the standards remain readable by a manufacturer without access to any internal document and so that catalogue revisions never force a standards edition.

7 Drafting rules

7.1 Verbal forms

7.1.1 Drafters shall use: “shall”/“shall not” for requirements; “should”/“should not” for recommendations; “may” for permissions; “can”/“cannot” for capability or possibility.

7.1.2 “Must” shall not be used to state VRS requirements (reserved for quoting external legal obligations). “May not” shall not be used to express prohibition — use “shall not”.

7.2 Verifiability

7.2.1 Every requirement shall be objectively verifiable. A requirement whose fulfilment cannot be determined by inspection, measurement, test, or documented evidence is malformed and shall be redrafted or downgraded to a recommendation. NOTE — This rule is what makes VRS documents ratable against. It is the single most important drafting rule in this Standard.

7.3 References

7.3.1 A reference shall be dated when the citing document depends on the specific technical content of the cited edition (e.g., a grade-band table, a test parameter).

7.3.2 A reference shall be undated when the citing document intends to track the cited document’s evolution (e.g., vocabulary, governance policy).

7.3.3 References indispensable to conformance shall appear in Clause 2; all other cited material shall appear in the Bibliography.

7.4 Rating semantics

7.4.1 Every statement of an IR value shall carry its edition stamp (e.g., IR 292 (VRS 2026)), and every statement of an AR letter shall carry its edition stamp and rating tier (e.g., Industrial AR: A (VRS 2026) — Verified). Raw IR values from different editions shall not be compared.

7.4.2 AR letter grades shall be expressed only on the scale C < B < A < AA < AAA (AAA best). Documents shall never present the absence of a grade (not-applicable, not-covered or no-applicable-pool states) in a form that could be read as a poor grade.

7.4.3 Dataset evidence grades (A–D data-quality vocabulary) shall never be typeset in a form confusable with AR letter grades; wherever both appear, the evidence grade shall be explicitly labelled “evidence grade”.

7.5.1 Ceilings equal rungs. Every ceiling (Unverified, Verified, Certified, company-wide) shall equal the value of a rung that is reachable with the evidence available at that tier. A ceiling that no rung reaches, or that only a rung requiring higher-tier evidence reaches, is malformed.

7.5.2 No catalogue identifiers. Criterion text shall not contain identifiers of Veyrum’s evidence or demonstration catalogues, nor of information-pack line items or demonstration-protocol step numbers. Evidence shall be described by kind.

7.5.3 Certificate rung. Every criterion for which a recognised third-party certificate or accredited test report can plausibly exist shall carry a rung “certified by an accredited third party (publicly verifiable)” placed one step below the witnessed or demonstrated rung. A publicly verifiable certificate may reach the Unverified ceiling; no “certificate discount” below the ceiling shall be drafted or applied. A statement of certification without a verifiable certificate or register entry is documentation, not a certificate.

7.5.4 Null-result rung. Every field-record criterion whose Unverified evidence is a search of public registers shall carry a rung for a documented null result (search performed, coverage stated, nothing found), distinct from both “no evidence” (0) and “record clean” (top).

7.5.5 Regime-aware ceilings. Where a public reporting regime makes a field record genuinely public for the sector (medical adverse-event and recall databases, aviation occurrence databases, consumer recall databases, road-vehicle collision and disengagement reporting), the sector protocol may set the Unverified ceiling of the corresponding criterion at its full value; the criterion shall say so and name the regime by kind.

7.5.6 Not applicable by class. A criterion that does not apply to an application class shall say so in its Applicability row. Assessors shall not score an inapplicable criterion at 0; it is removed from the pool for that class.

7.5.7 Parent-company evidence. Where a criterion measures a company-level fact (quality system, vulnerability handling, going concern, warranty conduct), evidence held by the manufacturer’s parent or group may establish it only where the criterion’s Applicability row admits parent evidence and the parent’s scope demonstrably covers the rated model or its manufacturing entity.

7.5.8 Priors. A numeric threshold inside a rung (a failure rate, a lead time, an adherence percentage) whose value has not been calibrated against assessment data shall be marked (prior) in the rung text. Priors are changed by edition (VRS-GEN-004), never by assessor judgement.

7.5.9 Retired forms. Criterion clauses shall not use: hard letter caps (“shall not exceed B”), no-letter gates tied to a single criterion, weights or renormalisation, confidence bands, provisional flags, qualitative level names (Exemplary/Strong/Adequate/Marginal/Poor) or class/dataset medians as scoring inputs. Each of these has a criterion- shaped replacement (7.5.1–7.5.8); the rewrite inventory lists where each occurs.

8 Editions and change instruments — designation footprint

8.1 The governance of change (cadence, justification, transition) is specified in VRS-GEN-004. This clause specifies only how change is designated.

8.2 The change instruments and their designation footprints are:

8.3 Every document cover shall carry three lifecycle lines: Issued (first publication date), Revised (this edition’s date), and Superseding (the designation of the edition it replaces, or “—”). A confirmation without change (per VRS-GEN-004 review) shall be shown as a dated “Confirmed” entry in the change history.

8.4 No more than three amendments shall accumulate against an edition before a consolidating revision is issued.

9 Document maturity ladder

9.1 Every VRS document shall carry exactly one status: Draft (internal, not citable) → Provisional (published; ratings may be issued against it; content expected to mature) → Published (full status) → Withdrawn.

9.2 A rating issued against a Provisional document shall record the status of each governing document in the passport/registry record (VRS-GEN-009), so that a reader can see which edition and status the rating was determined under.

9.3 Status transitions shall be recorded in the change history with date and authority.

10 Naming layers

10.1 The designator is the technical identity of a document. Market-facing names are a separate layer owned by Communications and shall not be encoded into designators, serials, or family codes.

10.2 A designator shall never be changed to serve marketing; a market-facing name may change freely without touching the designator.

Annex A (normative) — Family code registry

NOTE — Sector code spellings are adopted per CEO decision D3 (2026-09-02) subject to a Communications collision/trademark check before first external publication.

Annex B (normative) — Serial range allocation

Within GEN:

Within each sector family:

Annex C (informative) — Worked examples

• VRS-GEN-005:2027 — the 2027 edition of the IR Methodology standard.
• VRS-IND-201 v2.0 — version 2.0 of the Industrial sector’s AR scoring (assessment protocol) document.
• VRS-IND-201 v2.0ε1 — the same, after one editorial correction.
• VRS-GEN-005:2027/Amd 1-2028 — an amendment to the 2027 IR Methodology.
• IR 292 (VRS 2026) — an Intrinsic Rating of 292 under the 2026 edition; not comparable raw to IR 292 (VRS 2029) if the maximum has been raised between editions.
• Industrial AR: A (VRS 2026) — Verified — a sector letter with its edition and rating tier.
• A robot rated AA in IND and shown — in AER: the dash means Aerial does not apply (no flight capability), never that the robot flies badly.

Bibliography

• ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 — principles and rules for the structure and drafting of ISO and IEC documents (structural model for Clause 6 and 7.1).
• ASTM Form and Style for ASTM Standards (“Blue Book”) — the enforced-style-manual precedent for this document.
• VRS Framework Design Brief v1.1 (internal) — the ruled decisions D1–D9 this Standard implements.
• VRS framework research dossiers 00–05 (internal) — precedent evidence.

Change history