Hard Facts Mandates
Non-negotiable truths that SI must always respect
What It Is
A Hard Facts mandate declares statements that are unconditionally true about your business and that SI must never contradict, soften, or creatively reinterpret. These are the factual guardrails of your AI communication.
Every fact in the mandate includes a statement, a category (pricing, capabilities, limitations, legal, compliance, integrations, or process), a confidence level, a flag indicating whether it can ever be violated, and guidance for what SI should do if a contact pushes back or questions the fact.
For example: "Our platform does not currently support HIPAA compliance. This is a limitation, not a roadmap item. If a contact asks about HIPAA, acknowledge the limitation directly and do not imply it is coming soon." That is a Hard Fact. SI will never claim HIPAA compliance, regardless of what a contact says or how the conversation flows.
Why It Matters
AI language models are optimized to be helpful. That is usually a good thing — but it can become a liability when helpfulness leads to overstatement. Without Hard Facts mandates, SI might infer capabilities from your brand context that do not actually exist, or soften a limitation to avoid disappointing a prospect.
This is especially critical in regulated industries. A financial advisor cannot have SI imply guaranteed returns. A healthcare provider cannot have SI suggest clinical capabilities that do not exist. A SaaS company cannot have SI promise integrations that are not built yet.
Hard Facts mandates prevent these situations by creating factual boundaries that SI treats as absolute. They are the one mandate type that cannot be overridden by any other mandate — except Contact Status safety rules. If a Hard Fact says "we do not offer refunds after 30 days," no Comms Flow mandate or Objection Handling mandate can instruct SI to suggest otherwise.
How It Works
Each Hard Fact in the mandate schema contains:
Statement — The factual claim in clear, unambiguous language.
Category — What domain the fact belongs to: `integrations`, `pricing`, `capabilities`, `limitations`, `process`, `legal`, `compliance`, or `other`.
Confidence — Whether this is an absolute fact or a current-state fact that may change.
must_never_be_violated — A boolean flag. When true, SI treats this as an inviolable constraint. When false, SI treats it as strong guidance that can be softened in edge cases.
if_user_questions_or_pushes — Instructions for how SI should respond if a contact challenges the fact. This prevents SI from backing down under pressure. For example: "If the contact insists we integrate with Salesforce, acknowledge their need, confirm we do not currently integrate, and offer to log a feature request."
The mandate also includes conflict resolution rules — what SI should do if a Hard Fact appears to conflict with other knowledge in the system, and a caution flag about updating facts (since changing a Hard Fact has system-wide implications).
Examples
A SaaS company needs to prevent AI from overstating integrations
Hard Fact: "We integrate with Zapier, Google Calendar, and Stripe. We do not integrate with Salesforce, HubSpot, or Slack natively." Category: integrations. If a prospect asks about Salesforce, SI responds: "We do not currently have a native Salesforce integration. We do connect through Zapier, which covers most common workflows. I can also log this as a feature request for the team." SI never implies native Salesforce support.
A financial advisor must enforce regulatory language
Hard Fact: "Past performance does not guarantee future results. We are a registered investment advisor, not a broker-dealer. We do not provide tax advice." Category: legal. must_never_be_violated = true. If a contact asks about expected returns, SI responds with historical context but always includes the regulatory disclaimer. It never makes forward-looking performance claims.
A coaching business must be transparent about what is included
Hard Fact: "The Starter package includes 4 sessions per month. It does not include Voxer access or emergency sessions. Upgrades to the Growth package are required for those features." Category: pricing. If a prospect assumes Voxer is included, SI corrects the assumption clearly and offers to explain the Growth package — without apologizing or offering a workaround that contradicts the pricing structure.
