counterfactual-and-certification

# Counterfactual and certification Use this route when the request is about a contrastive explanation, a pertinent positive or negative, actionable recourse, a robustness/trust-region certificate, or an alternative matching under transport/order constraints. The route covers AIX360 0.3.0 APIs; it does not promise that every optional backend can be installed in the current environment. ## Route by goal - **CEM / CEM-MAF**: image or array contrastive explanations. A pertinent positive (PP) retains the minimum sufficient content for the original class; a pertinent negative (PN) is added content whose presence changes the class. Use the API and legacy-backend caveats in [api-reference.md](references/api-reference.md). - **Ecertify**: certify a scalar quality/fidelity callable in a neighborhood of one instance. This is black-box, query-budgeted, and probabilistic/empirical; it is not an exhaustive proof over arbitrary data domains. - **GLANCE**: generate local counterfactuals or global subgroup actions for a binary tabular model. Make favorable class `1`, numeric/categorical columns, immutable features, and the cost definition explicit before fitting. - **OTMatching**: produce alternative transport plans and salient changed positions while preserving row/column marginals within the configured error tolerance. The matching and costs must already be prepared by the caller. ## Do not route here - LIME, SHAP, GroupedCE, or nearest-neighbor contrastive explanations go to [../local-black-box/SKILL.md](../local-black-box/SKILL.md). - Rules, prototypes, IMD, or TED go to [../interpretable-models/SKILL.md](../interpretable-models/SKILL.md). - Time-series explanations go to [../time-series/SKILL.md](../time-series/SKILL.md). - Dataset-loader ownership and download lifecycle go to [../datasets-and-metrics/SKILL.md](../datasets-and-metrics/SKILL.md). ## Required inputs Before invoking an algorithm, record: 1. The input representation and shape, target/favorable class, and the model prediction interface. 2. Which features or pixels may change, hard lower/upper bounds, and whether categorical changes, monotonic directions, or immutable columns must be enforced outside the algorithm. 3. The expected output: counterfactual array, action table, certificate width, or list of matching alternatives; also record the acceptance test. 4. Optional-dependency and network policy. Never start a model, image, GAN, embedding, or dataset download as an implicit side effect. ## Safe decision flow 1. Validate shapes, dtypes, finite values, class semantics, and constraints with a tiny local fixture. For GLANCE, apply candidate actions and re-run the model; for matching, check non-negativity and marginal sums. 2. Prefer the CPU-oriented GLANCE action/cost primitives, a small synthetic Ecertify quality function, or a tiny transport plan for verification. 3. Treat contrastive image execution as optional until the TensorFlow 1.x and Keras stack, model assets, and input preprocessing have been independently confirmed. Do not substitute a modern TensorFlow result for that historical path. 4. Treat a returned candidate as a proposal: re-predict it, check bounds and actionability, and report fewer-than-requested or no-solution outcomes. 5. Summarize approximation, random seeds, query budgets, dependency failures, and unverified paths with the result. ## Output and handoff Return the requested artifact together with the input shape, target/favorable class, constraint policy, model-output adapter, dependency status, and a post-call validation result. Distinguish a valid candidate from a failed or empty search. For a certificate, include width, strategy, query budget, and confidence interpretation; for GLANCE, include effectiveness and cost semantics; for matching, include marginal residuals and salient positions. See [api-reference.md](references/api-reference.md) for signatures and output contracts, [workflows.md](references/workflows.md) for no-network recipes, and [troubleshooting.md](references/troubleshooting.md) for recovery boundaries.