Observed finding
An observed finding is supported by retained repository/provider evidence and a versioned detector or methodology. It describes what was seen. It is not automatic permission to edit a workflow or skip verification.
Potential opportunity and eligible intervention
A potential opportunity expresses where an observed condition might matter economically or operationally. An eligible intervention requires additional evidence: sufficient history, compatible policy, a measurable affected workload, acceptable risk, and a rollback/verification plan.
Actual prevented work
Actual prevented work exists only after a real intervention and authoritative post-change observation establish that jobs or runtime did not execute because of that intervention. Shadow-mode 'would skip' or estimated runtime reduction is not actual prevented work.
Verified savings
A verified-dollar claim additionally requires an authoritative pricing or accounting basis and a replayable receipt connecting the baseline, intervention, post-change observations, prevented work, pricing version, and calculation methodology.
If pricing is unavailable, PipelineSpend may be able to establish actual prevented jobs/runtime while leaving verified dollars unknown. Unknown is not zero.
Evidence coverage and provenance
Every Audit is limited by the evidence it can actually observe. PipelineSpend preserves history/evidence quality, source and artifact digests, repository/run scope, and engine/method versions so later agents and humans can distinguish retained facts from assumptions.