How Hireposture produces a review

Hireposture is an automated structured review of a job description against a curated set of rules covering ADA Title I qualification-standard risk patterns. The output is a timestamped record of findings, a list of source-language matches with citations back to the triggering rule, and an append-only trail row recording who submitted the JD and when.

The product is not a verdict. It does not declare a JD compliant or non-compliant. It surfaces patterns and provides the source language so a human reviewer can decide what to do with them. The disclaimer in every record states this explicitly.

Hireposture runs a two-pass review for every submission, using Anthropic's Claude models.

Pass one (triage). A fast model classifies whether the submitted text is substantive enough to merit a structured review, or is too thin (a single sentence, an empty form, a copy-paste error). If triage rejects, the submission is recorded as failed-triage in the trail and the user is asked to re-submit.

Pass two (structured extraction). A larger model performs structured extraction against the rule library. The model receives the JD text and a structured representation of every active rule. It returns a list of findings, each carrying: the matching rule_id, a severity level inherited from the rule definition, the source language in the JD that triggered the rule, and a brief citation back to the source rule's reference material.

The two-pass design exists so that a thin or malformed input fails honestly at triage rather than producing a low-confidence finding set in pass two.

The Hireposture rule library is curated from public material. Source categories:

• EEOC enforcement guidance, technical assistance documents, and informal discussion letters
• Public consent decrees and conciliation agreements where the EEOC settled an ADA Title I qualification-standard matter
• Job Accommodation Network qualification-standards material
• Published case law on ADA Title I qualification-standard claims at the federal trial and appellate level
• Publicly filed disability-rights organization complaints and amicus briefs

Every rule cites the public source material it derives from. Employment-counsel review of the full rule library is scheduled before public availability of the product.

Every record produced by Hireposture carries the disclaimer: “Hireposture is an automated review tool. It is not legal advice and does not establish an attorney-client relationship. Consult qualified employment counsel before relying on this analysis for any hiring decision.”

The disclaimer is version-tracked. Each record stamps the disclaimer version it was issued under (env HIREPOSTURE_DISCLAIMER_VERSION). When the disclaimer text changes, prior records keep the version they were issued under. Changes do not retroactively rewrite the record.

Hireposture writes an append-only trail row for every state-changing event in the review lifecycle: submission, triage, extraction, record generation, export, and any review-status change. The trail is the product's defensible chain of activity.

Trail integrity is enforced at three layers:

• Application layer. No code path issues UPDATE or DELETE against the trail table. Insert-only.
• Build pipeline. A CI rule (CRIT-HP-AUDIT-TRAIL-APPEND-ONLY) blocks merges that introduce UPDATE or DELETE against the trail table from feature code. A second CI rule (CRIT-HP-AUDIT-TRAIL-RETENTION) blocks workspace-deletion paths from hard-deleting trail rows.
• Retention. The trail retention floor is 7 years, matching the EEOC charge-investigation lookback window. Customer offboarding marks a workspace inactive but does not delete trail rows. Statutory purges beyond 7 years are a scheduled job, not a customer-initiated action.

Every audit row stamps the rule library version (env HIREPOSTURE_RULE_LIBRARY_VERSION) at extraction time. A re-run under a new rule library version is a new audit row, never a re-stamp. This means the original review can always be re-derived from the original source text and the original rule library version, even after the rule library has been updated.

When the review pipeline cannot complete, the failure is recorded honestly in the trail. There is no silent default to a clean status.

• Triage rejection. Submission recorded as failed-triage with the triage reason. No findings produced. User asked to re-submit.
• Extraction error. Model error or timeout recorded as failed-extraction with the failure reason. No partial findings published. Submission can be retried.
• Rule library load error. If the rule library cannot be loaded (corruption, version-not-found), the submission is rejected before extraction. The failure is recorded.
• Record generation error. If the extraction succeeded but the record could not be generated (PDF render error, blob storage failure), the findings are preserved and the record generation can be retried.

A CI rule (CRIT-SV-NO-SILENT-PASS) blocks merges that default an audit status to clean / passed / compliant from a catch block.

The methodology covers what Hireposture does. It is at least as important to be clear about what it does not do.

• Hireposture does not certify a JD as compliant. No badge.
• Hireposture does not provide legal advice.
• Hireposture does not perform reasonable accommodation analysis for a specific applicant.
• Hireposture does not represent any party in an EEOC charge or in litigation.
• Hireposture does not store applicant data; the product reviews the JD itself, not applications received against it.

v0.1 (2026-04-26). Pre-MVP scaffold. The product is in active build; this methodology page documents the v1 design.

• 2026-04-26 — v0.1 published. Initial methodology document. Documents the planned two-pass pipeline, the rule library source categories, the disclaimer + versioning scheme, the trail integrity guarantees, the reproducibility model, and the failure modes. Honest about pre-MVP state: the audit pipeline, rule library, and trail are designed but not yet in production.