--- title: Values description: The figures Vythos reads out of a rule — day rates, payment terms, banned words — what confirming them does, and which of them a draft check can test. --- Core concepts # Values A rule is prose, and prose is what people read. But some of what a rule states is a *value*: 45 days, 25%, 1.5×, "never say synergy". Vythos pulls those out and keeps them beside the rule, so a tool doesn't have to interpret a sentence to know the number. ## What gets read, per category Vythos only looks for values that make sense for the rule's [category](/concepts/categories): | Category | Values it looks for | |---|---| | **Pricing & rates** | Day rate, payment terms in days, deposit percentage, overage multiplier, which roles a rate covers | | **Terms & commitments** | Notice period in days, how long data is kept, governing law | | **Brand & voice** | Words and phrases never to use, wording that must appear, preferred house vocabulary | | **Who decides** | The role that signs off, the spend above which approval is needed | | **How we work** | Revision rounds included, lead time in working days | Anything else stays as prose. That's deliberate: a value only earns its place if it can be read out of a document unambiguously. ## Confirmed and unconfirmed When you add a rule, the values Vythos read are shown to you with a checkbox: **These values are right.** | | Unconfirmed | Confirmed | |---|---|---| | Where it came from | Vythos read it from the document | Vythos read it, and a person checked it | | On the rule row | Plain chip | Green-edged chip | | When a draft contradicts it | Flagged as **worth a check** | Flagged as **breaking this rule** | Nothing is ever blocked either way — the difference is how seriously a deviation is reported. Confirm what you're sure of, and leave the rest; an unconfirmed value is still useful, it just doesn't accuse anyone. ::: tip Read the value before you tick Confirming is a statement that the number is right *and* that it means what its label says. A rate card line like "overage: 1.5× standard day rate" can be read as a multiplier of a day rate — which it is — or of an hour, which it isn't. Ticking a wrong reading makes it authoritative. If a line is ambiguous, the better fix is to make the document say it plainly. ::: ## What happens when the document changes The promise is *edit the document and the rule follows* — including its values. So when the wording changes: - **The new values come from the new text.** Whatever the document now says is what the rule now states. - **Your confirmation survives only while the document still says what you confirmed.** If every confirmed value is still there, the rule stays confirmed. If one changed, the rule's values become unconfirmed again — a new reading nobody has looked at yet — and go back to being advisory until someone confirms them. That's the safe direction: a changed number is reported for a look rather than silently enforced. ## What a draft check actually tests This is worth being precise about, because "checking a draft" sounds broader than it is. **Checked today:** - **Words never to use** — from *Brand & voice*. A draft containing a banned word is reported, citing the rule that bans it. - **Payment terms in days** — from *Pricing & rates*. A draft saying "net 30" or "payable within 30 days" when the rule says 45 is reported. **Not checked** — reported back as *unchecked*, by name, with the reason: - Day rates, deposits, overage multipliers, approval thresholds, notice periods, lead times, revision rounds. - House vocabulary you prefer (nobody is in trouble for not using it). - Required wording whose requirement is conditional. - Any value where two rules disagree — Vythos refuses to enforce a coin toss. A clean result means *nothing was found among the things that could be checked*. It does not mean the draft is compliant, and the tool is told so in those words. More checks are planned. ## Where values are used - **Draft checks**, as above — see [The four tools](/ai-tools/tools). - **Context for an AI tool**: values are sent beside the rule's text, each labelled with what it is, so a tool doesn't have to parse "1.5× the standard day rate" out of a paragraph and can quote the figure as stated. - **The rule row**, so you can see the current numbers at a glance without opening a document. Next: [Versions and history](/concepts/versions).