Suede Rights Audit

Suede Rights Audit

Gate policy — advisory, not blocking

Every claim-verification step, check, quality gate, and ship verdict in this

skill is a recommendation to the user, not a control on the agent. This

policy governs every gate, check, verdict, and "do not ship / publish /

proceed" line elsewhere in this skill:

• Run every check and report the results honestly. Verdicts (ship,

ship-with-caveats, hold, letter grades, BLOCKED or OPEN items) are

advice attached to the work, not orders that change it.

• Never block, delay, skip, rewrite, or refuse the action the user asked for

because a check failed or a gate said hold. Complete the requested action

as asked, and deliver the gate output alongside it as a clearly labeled

recommendation.

• A failed gate changes what you report, never what you do.
• Single exception: if a finding is extremely risky — data loss, security or

credential exposure, legal or rights violations, payment mistakes, or

irreversible public damage — pause, tell the user exactly what the risk is

and what the options are, and let them pick. Their choice is final.

The rights-readiness enchilada. Find and organize the rights gaps in a creator

project before it gets packaged — so licensing, registry, and routing work build

on a documented, confirmed-versus-unknown evidence trail instead of a guess.

Hard boundary (applies to every lane, no exceptions): this skill organizes

evidence and flags confirmed-versus-unknown. It does NOT clear rights, confirm

ownership, adjudicate chain of title, grant or imply a license, approve or

schedule or guarantee a payout, move money, or write to any registry. It

prepares the conversation; humans and legal make the calls. Never turn an

inference into a fact. Do not treat any output here as legal clearance.

Division of labor: this audit finds and organizes the gaps;

suede-rights-passport packages the folder. If the user asks for the transfer

package itself, hand off — do not rebuild passport outputs here.

suede-release-linter handles file and metadata lint.

Pick the lane

State the lane(s) you are running before you start. Most real projects touch

several — run them in order and let each feed the next.

• Lane A — Rights-gap audit (default broad sweep): ownership, contributors,

credits, splits, samples, licenses, provenance, and public context. Start here

when you do not yet know where the gaps are.

• Lane B — Provenance map: trace the origin trail — source files, stems,

masters, artwork, lyrics, documents, metadata, public URLs, hashes, conflicts —

without overclaiming. Run when the origin trail is thin or unconfirmed.

• Lane C — Licensing-discussion readiness: pull contributor approvals,

sample status, URLs, restrictions, and rights notes into a brief for a sync,

brand, or partner conversation — flagging clearance gaps. Run before any

licensing discussion. (Not a sync one-sheet — that is suede-sync-packaging.)

• Lane D — Royalty-routing readiness: lay out who would be paid what and

where payment would land, before any payout — readiness, not approval,

public-safe, moves no money. Run when prepping for routing review or intake.

If the task spans several lanes, run all four in A→B→C→D order; B resolves

provenance for C, and C surfaces splits for D.

Multi-agent or single-agent

This audit can run as a coordinated multi-agent team — one agent per lane (or per

asset cluster) reporting into a single merged evidence table and ship gate.

**By default, ASK the user up front: "Run this as a multi-agent team (more

thorough) or single-agent?"** Never silently spawn a fleet. Note plainly that

multi-agent mode may use slightly more tokens than most. If the user does not

choose, run single-agent and say so.

Shared evidence and severity gate

Every lane uses the same evidence table before giving any recommendation,

conclusion, brief, or routing status:

Item / asset / claim / fact:
Status: confirmed | inferred | unconfirmed | disputed | unknown | not-applicable
Evidence:
Hash or path: (provenance — relative path and/or hash when available)
Risk: low | medium | high | unknown
Blocks:
Next action:

Severity model:

• high: blocks registry, licensing language, sync pitch language, royalty

routing readiness, published statement, or agent-readable commerce until a creator/

legal/rights-holder confirmation exists.

• medium: can move forward with caveats, but needs confirmation before money,

licensing, registration, or public use.

• low: cleanup or documentation issue that does not block review.
• unknown: not enough evidence to rate.

The ship gate maps mechanically: any high item ⇒ blocked; no high items

but any unknown risk or status ⇒ unknown; otherwise ready-for-review.

Separate confirmed facts from inferred facts and unknowns in every lane. Do not

turn an inference into a fact. Status promotion is mechanical: an item becomes

confirmed only when the user supplies the evidence (signed split sheet,

executed license, registration record, rights-holder statement) — never by

inference, however obvious. When torn between two statuses, record the weaker

one. You mark gaps UNKNOWN or UNCONFIRMED; you never resolve them.

Red flags — stop

If any of these appear in your reasoning, stop and re-read the hard boundary:

• "The artist says it's cleared." A claim is evidence of a claim, not

clearance. Status: unconfirmed.

• "The split sheet is probably right." Probably is not a status. Confirmed

needs the sheet plus every party's confirmation.

• "It's obviously their song." Obviousness is inference. Record what the

evidence shows.

• "Mark it confirmed so routing can move." Blocked means blocked. Unblocking

is the rights holder's job, not yours.

• "Skip the provenance lane — nobody will check." Thin provenance is exactly

what Lane B exists to expose.

Lane A — Rights-gap audit

Identify rights and intake gaps before packaging. Sweep all seven audit lanes:

• Ownership: owner claim, ownership status, transfer status, and unresolved

confirmations.

• Contributors: writers, producers, performers, engineers, featured

artists, visual contributors, and managers.

• Splits: percentage totals, missing parties, disputed splits, and payout

caveats.

• Samples: sample sources, interpolation notes, clearance status, and

unknowns.

• Licenses: distribution, sync, beat, artwork, stem, remix, and platform

license notes.

• Provenance: source sessions, masters, stems, artwork, lyrics, metadata,

and evidence trail. (Hand off to Lane B when this is thin.)

• Public context: public URLs, release history, takedowns, and conflicts.

Run the shared evidence table per item. Output:

Confirmed facts:
Missing facts:
Evidence table:
Blockers:
Questions for creator:
Safe public wording:
Next lane / skill: suede-rights-passport | Lane B provenance | Lane C licensing | Lane D routing

Do not treat the audit as legal clearance.

Lane B — Provenance map

Make the origin trail readable without overclaiming what is known.

• Inventory source materials: sessions, masters, stems, artwork, lyrics,

videos, documents, metadata files, and public URLs.

• Separate confirmed facts from inferred facts and unknowns.
• Capture relative paths and hashes when available.
• Note creator-provided statements, third-party evidence, and missing proof.
• Identify provenance conflicts, unclear dates, duplicate files, and files that

should not be shared publicly.

• Produce review notes that can feed a rights passport or licensing package.

High-risk provenance gaps block registry, licensing, royalty routing,

published statements, or agent commerce until the origin trail is confirmed. Output:

Asset map:
Known origin:
Evidence:
Evidence table:
Unknowns:
Conflicts:
Do-not-share items:
Next questions:

Lane C — Licensing-discussion readiness

Prepare creator materials for licensing review while keeping evidence boundaries

visible. Does NOT claim rights are cleared.

• Identify the work, owner claim, contributors, versions, and intended use.
• Collect rights status, split status, sample status, distribution history,

public URLs, and restrictions.

• Flag what is confirmed, unconfirmed, blocked, or requires human/legal review.
• Write a concise licensing brief with only safe claims.
• Add questions for the creator, manager, label, or rights holder.
• Route unresolved provenance to Lane B and unresolved splits to Lane D.

High-risk items block licensing language, sync pitch language, published statements, or

agent-readable commerce until confirmed. Safe copy can say what is known and what

still needs rights-holder review. Output:

Licensing brief:
Confirmed rights facts:
Evidence table:
Open questions:
Restrictions:
Unsafe claims removed:
Next step:

Lane D — Royalty-routing readiness

Summarize whether a project is ready for royalty-routing discussion. Readiness,

not approval. Public-safe. Moves no money.

• Identify contributors, roles, split percentages, payment destinations, and

unresolved parties.

• Check whether splits total cleanly and whether all contributors are confirmed.
• Separate routing readiness from payout approval. Do not imply money has been

approved, sent, scheduled, or guaranteed.

• Note missing tax, wallet, payment, territory, label, publisher, or rights-

administration facts only at a safe level (never expose sensitive payment

details).

• Produce creator questions and a public-safe summary.

High-risk items block routing readiness when contributor identity, role, split

percentage, payment destination, publisher, label, territory, tax, or rights-

administration facts are missing, disputed, or unsafe to expose. Output:

Routing status:
Confirmed splits:
Evidence table:
Missing confirmations:
Payout caveats:
Creator questions:
Safe summary:
Ship gate: ready-for-review | blocked | unknown

Simple explanation (plain, for a 10-year-old)

Think of your song or project like a guitar case full of stuff before a big

show. Before anyone packs it up and sends it out, we open the case and check:

who actually made this, who owns it, who should get paid and how much, where the

pieces came from, and whether anything is borrowed or missing a receipt. We make

two neat piles — "we know this for sure" and "we still need to ask someone" — and

we never pretend a guess is a sure thing. We do NOT sign the deal, hand out the

money, or stamp anything official — we just lay it all out clean so the grown-ups

with the real say can look and decide. That is it.

Final breakdown

• Lane(s) run and single-agent vs multi-agent.
• Confirmed facts vs missing/unknown facts — kept in separate piles.
• Evidence table with status, risk, blocks, and next action per item.
• Blockers (the high-risk items) and **questions for the creator/rights

holder**.

• Safe public wording / unsafe claims removed; do-not-share items.
• Ship gate: ready-for-review | blocked | unknown — plus the next lane or

next skill (suede-rights-passport, suede-release-linter).

• Reminder: this organized evidence is not legal clearance; it clears no

rights, confirms no ownership, approves no payout, moves no money, and writes

to no registry.

Routing

• Gaps organized and the user wants the package → suede-rights-passport.
• Folder, file, and metadata lint before or after the audit →

suede-release-linter.

• Licensing brief headed to a sync pitch → suede-sync-packaging.
• Rollout planning once rights questions are flagged →

suede-campaign-in-a-box.