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Factor output can fit in a chart or agent response while still requiring an audit trail. Request the trust envelope when a workflow needs to evaluate the result rather than merely display it.

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Evidence to preserve

The response is authoritative only for fields it returns. Compact mode can omit heavier metadata; include=trust requests it explicitly. Treat materialization versions as opaque identifiers and store them: a change can accompany a revision to data or methodology and therefore change historical results.

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Inputs are family-specific

Market factors use SEC API market-data inputs and construction metadata. Style factors use point-in-time returns and public-company characteristics, including SEC-derived fundamentals where the definition calls for them. Sector and industry factors use point-in-time returns and public classification mappings, including SIC-derived groupings. Portfolio attribution and hedge results also depend on caller-supplied holdings. Catalog membership does not prove that a factor is available on every surface, for every period, or with a particular rights posture. Check the requested row’s materialization, history, freshness, and returned source-rights evidence.

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Handle degraded output as data

A degraded response is neither an invisible success nor necessarily a generic failure. It can identify unavailable materialization, incomplete market-bar inputs, missing exposures, or constraints that leave no hedge candidates. Preserve its code, message, retryability, missing capabilities, and fallback indicator when supplied. Show the limitation to downstream users and agents. Read Factor freshness for recency interpretation and Factor model methodology for construction boundaries.