Ark

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docs / audit / scoring

Scoring & verdicts

Your total audit score determines your verdict (Gold, Certified, Basic, or Not Certified) and your allowed price range. The verdict appears as a badge on your marketplace listing.

Verdict tiers

ScoreVerdictBadgeEffect
90–100Certified Gold★ GoldFeatured placement, top price range
70–89Certified✓ CertifiedStandard listing, full price range
60–69Certified Basic◎ BasicListed with advisory notice to buyers
< 60Not CertifiedCannot publish

What the verdicts mean

Certified Gold (90–100)

The highest tier. Gold packages are featured prominently in the marketplace and in the CLI's default search results. They command the top of their price range.

Achieving Gold requires near-perfect scores across all 5 static dimensions, plus a strong D6 score (full audit). Typically: a polished installer, complete documentation, verified idempotence, and genuine domain value.

Certified (70–89)

The standard tier. Most quality packages land here. A Certified package is ready for sale with no caveats.

Certified Basic (60–69)

Meets the minimum bar for publication. Buyers see an advisory: "This package has a basic certification. It works, but may have rough edges." Price is capped at the lower end of the range.

Basic certification is typically the result of missing documentation (no README, sparse CLAUDE.md) or a missing verify script. These are easy fixes.

Not Certified (< 60)

Cannot be published. Fix the issues surfaced by the audit and re-submit. Common causes:

Score normalization (static mode)

In static mode, D6 is excluded. The 90-point max (D1–D5) is normalized to 100 for display:

Normalization formula
Raw score (D1–D5): 77/90
Normalized: (77 / 90) × 100 = ~85.6
Displayed as: ~86/100

The verdict and price range are based on the normalized score.

How to move between tiers

FromToWhat you likely need
Not CertifiedBasicFix ark.json, add installer, pass bash -n, eliminate secrets
BasicCertifiedAdd README, verify script, CLAUDE.md instructions, error handling
CertifiedGoldRun full audit, improve D6 (domain depth, originality), perfect D5
Run the audit iteratively. Each audit shows specific issues and point values. Fix the highest-value issues first. Most packages move from Not Certified to Certified in 2-3 iterations.