Written criteria stating in advance what will be decided, on what evidence, and where the threshold sits, so the same facts produce the same decision whoever applies them.

Cited in model cards and governance documents as proof of transparency, in documents that describe the existence of the rules without ever printing them.

• Undisclosed Explicitness: A rule described as explicit but never published is not available to the person it is applied to.
• Threshold Omission: The criteria get named while the numbers that actually decide outcomes stay internal.
• House-Cleaning Reality Check: Like telling your flatmates there are explicit rules about the thermostat and never saying what temperature.

The Hunger Games (2010s) where the Gamemakers announce the official rules to the tributes, then rewrite them mid-contest from the control room without publishing the change.

“Outcomes are governed by explicit decision rules to ensure auditability and fairness.”

“We published the rule: any invoice over ten thousand with no purchase order is rejected and sent for manual review.”