| name | lamina-trust |
| description | Trust signals in contracts — transparency for payments, irreversible actions, and sensitive data. Use when actors hesitate on verify walks or scenarios lack honesty UX. |
| metadata | {"lamina":{"id":"trust","problems":["payment and sensitive action anxiety","opaque fees or consequences","actors abandon before commit"],"related":["lamina-feedback-and-status","lamina-content-design","lamina-controls-and-menus","lamina-product-behavior"]}} |
Trust Signals (agent-native)
Trust is observable honesty in product behavior — specified in scenarios and screen copy, verified when simulated actors attempt high-stakes workflows.
Contract encoding
For payment, PII, and irreversible operations:
surfaces[]: show fees, consequences, and final state before commitscenarios[]: false success, hidden charges, unclear irreversibility → category failure or findingworkflows[]: confirmation only when undo impossible (controls-and-menus)- Side effects visible before actor commits (
side-effects)
Checklists
- High-stakes step shows what changes in domain state (ticket issued, payment captured).
- No success UI before authoritative state confirmed (
consistency-guarantees).
- Error and delay copy honest — no fake urgency.
- Sensitive data: actor sees only what their role requires (
modularity-boundaries).
- Support/recovery path in scenario when trust-breaking failure occurs.
- Consequential sign-in proves account control in the runnable current slice; a public email or client-selected role is not authentication.
- Cookie-authenticated state changes declare
HttpOnly, appropriate SameSite/Secure posture, and CSRF token or trusted-origin validation. Development fallbacks are visibly limited and production fails closed without required identity configuration.
Verify checks
- Actor walk: payment/download/regenerate flows — actor reports hesitation or surprise → finding.
- Probe partial failure (payment ok, ticket pending) — UI must not claim complete success.
- Compare marketing copy in repo vs contract promises if user cites mismatch.
Anti-patterns
- Success toast before durable state.
- Hidden fees revealed after commit.
- Dark patterns (fake scarcity, trick confirm).
- Security theater copy without matching behavior in scenarios.
Related
