Evidence Format

Each invocation creates a unique directory under evidenceRoot. Evidence is structured for comparison across reruns and sanitized before serialization.

Run metadata

run.json contains:

{
  "runId": "20260830-060000-1a2b3c4d",
  "startedAt": "2026-08-30T06:00:00.0000000Z",
  "sourceCommit": "0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef01234567"
}

sourceCommit is present when supplied through -SourceCommit or SETUPCM_SOURCE_COMMIT. Any run containing Marker requires a full 40-character commit and records the validated lowercase value in both run.json and marker-state.json.

Stage result schema

Every selected stage writes stage-<stage>.json:

{
  "name": "Acquire | Sql | Mecm | Marker | Health",
  "state": "Succeeded | Skipped | Failed",
  "startedAt": "ISO 8601 UTC",
  "finishedAt": "ISO 8601 UTC",
  "message": "string"
}

Skipped means Test returned Compliant and Apply was not invoked. Succeeded means Apply ran and independent Verify returned Compliant. Failed covers a conflict, an Apply error, or failed verification.

Component artifacts

File	Produced by	Purpose
`acquire-state.json`	Acquire Test/Verify	Per-artifact compliance, reason, size, hash, version, and architecture.
`acquisition.json`	Acquire Apply	Bounded identity and hash metadata for every artifact evaluated during Apply, distinguishing reused `Verified` entries from `AcquiredAndVerified` entries.
`sql-state.json`	SQL Test/Verify	Overall state plus SQL component state and reasons.
`mecm-state.json`	MECM Test/Verify	Overall state plus site, role, prerequisite, service, content-library, and client components.
`marker-state.json`	Marker Test/Verify	Exact boundary, payload, application/DT, content/distribution, collection/member, assignment/policy, client projection, and per-device server compliance.
`health.json`	Health Test/Verify	Fresh Boolean read-only checks in deterministic key order.
`client-install.json`	Typed client command	Sanitized client-install evidence for the separate manifest workflow.

Component entries use Compliant, NotCompliant, or Conflict and include a bounded reason. Private source locations and source bytes are excluded.

Marker corroboration

marker-state.json records ConfigMgr object identities and revisions, content and package identity, reviewed hashes, DP state, exact collection membership, assignment intent, policy revision, projected client state, and the exact per-device server compliance row. Its evaluatedAt and the corresponding stage-Marker.json start/end times establish freshness.

Release acceptance separately checks the client application revision, installed/evaluation/error state, marker existence and SHA-256, and marker last-write time over an authenticated management channel. Store only the bounded results and hashes, never raw client logs or policy.

Sanitization

Serialization recursively omits password, secret, token, authorization, credential, private-key, source-URI, vault-path, SAS, and API-key fields. It also redacts credential assignments, bearer values, URLs, and UNC paths embedded in otherwise safe strings.

Do not put any of the following in source, evidence, commits, PR output, or release notes:

credentials, recovery material, keys, certificates, tokens, or SAS values;
private configuration or source URLs;
generated unattended files or policy XML;
raw log bodies or installer media.

Retention

Evidence is not removed automatically. Preserve failed runs until resolved. For release acceptance, retain both complete run directories, their archive hashes, and the final independently verified client/server summary. The second bundle must be fresh even though every stage is Skipped.

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