Claims

Check what a manuscript states against the files it names.

The part of reproducible-science that reads a manifest of claims and checks each one: a number against a results file, a table cell against a table, a quotation against its source. It installs alone, and it runs no command of yours.

Install

pip install claims-cli

This installs claims and one dependency of ours, citations, which reads the documents a quotation is checked in. The optional readers are extras, each named for what it reads:

pip install "claims-cli[parquet,sheets]"

arrays, hdf5, netcdf, parquet, rds, sheets and stata-spss. Without the extra a format needs, a check of that format is unchecked and names the extra to install.

What it reads

repro.yaml, a manifest that pins a project’s files by sha256 and declares what the manuscript claims about them:

artifacts:
  - id: results
    path: analysis/results.json
    digest: {algorithm: sha256, value: 9f635f9a...}

claims:
  - id: primary
    text: The treatment reduced the primary outcome
    evidence:
      - kind: metric
        artifact: results
        name: p_value
        pointer: /primary/p
        reported: "0.031"

The file has the same name and the same format whichever command reads it. The specification defines every kind of evidence and every outcome.

The commands

claims manifest init

Writes a starter repro.yaml at the top of the project: each file it finds or is given, pinned, with example claims that verify as written. It never overwrites one.

claims verify

Checks every declared assertion against the file it names and prints one line per assertion: ok, MISS where the file holds another value, GONE where the address does not resolve, -- where the check could not run. It exits 1 where the policy fails, and --format json and --format sarif print the report as a document. With no repro.yaml it reports the result files and the manuscript claims manifest init would pin, and lists as guesses the numbers the manuscript prints that agree with a value in one of those files. It writes nothing, verifies nothing, and exits 2.

claims stale

Says which claims read a file that is no longer what a recorded re-run produced. It reads .repro/reproductions.jsonl and runs nothing.

claims why primary

For one claim: each assertion as claims verify evaluates it now, each file the claim rests on and the command recorded for it, and then what the record does not establish.

claims numbers

Counts every number the manuscript’s text prints and says which a claim accounts for.

claims export record

Writes one record per checked assertion, for another program to read. sarif and ro-crate write the same records in those formats. Each record names its version, reproducible.science/claim-check/0.1-experimental, and 0.6 also reads records under repro.check/0.1-experimental, the name 0.5.6 wrote. The JSON Schema is at https://reproducible.science/schemas/claim-check-0.1-experimental.schema.json, and the check record page describes the format.

claims origins --repo https://github.com/owner/study=../study

For each artifact copied from another repository, compares the pinned digest with the bytes of that path at that commit. The artifact names its source with origin:

artifacts:
  - id: indices
    path: artifacts/indices.json
    digest: {algorithm: sha256, value: 3db72e39...}
    origin:
      repository: https://github.com/owner/study
      commit: d4d6909cd7a99bec2416c2fe561b1a04d5bf5802
      path: results/indices.json

commit is the full 40-character id, and path is relative to that repository’s root; a branch, a tag, a short id or a path with .. is refused when the manifest is read. Here the copy was edited after it was taken:

  DIFFERS        indices: https://github.com/owner/study d4d6909cd7a9:results/indices.json
                 the origin's bytes do not have the pinned digest (read from /home/you/work/study)
                 pinned    3db72e396caeafded64ab436f341936577b90ad3767a6edb59dea9045d20c5e0
                 at origin 2ec7fab1cf2458f30591cc157b23cc50380644ee085a46b9b23237650456e4c4

  1 origins: 0 same, 1 differs, 0 absent, 0 unknown commit, 0 not checked

Each origin is same, differs, absent, unknown commit or not checked, with the reason. A clone given with --repo REPOSITORY=PATH, or a repository named by a local path, is read with git cat-file, so committed bytes are compared and never a working tree. With --fetch, a GitHub repository no clone is given for is read from raw.githubusercontent.com; without it nothing touches the network. It exits 0 where every origin is same, 1 where one differs or is absent, and 2 where one could not be checked and none failed, or where no artifact declares an origin. claims verify never reads an origin, and claims export record carries the declared origin on each file it read.

With repro

reproducible-science depends on this package and adds the commands that run things: repro reproduce, which runs each declared command again and writes the record claims stale reads, repro check and repro audit, which drive prereg, results and citations, and repro ci. Under repro, every command above has the same name, does the same thing and prints the same output: repro verify and claims verify are one function. A project that uses repro has no reason to install this by itself. It is separate so that checking a manuscript’s claims does not require installing something that executes commands a manifest names.

MIT licensed.