Citations and confidence

What "cited" actually means in Bucky — the status behind every fact, what an assumption is, and what to verify before you rely on a result.

"Cited" is doing a lot of work in these docs, so this page defines it once. Bucky is not the only tool now claiming citation-backed answers — the honest version of that claim is proving depth on a specific fact, not asserting it for the product as a whole.

Every fact carries a status, not just a value

A number without provenance is an opinion. Bucky attaches a status to zoning and feasibility values so you can tell a sourced fact from a cached guess:

Status	Meaning
`cited`	Extracted from the bylaw.
`cited_conditional`	Resolved from a conditional rule that applies to this site.
`conditional_unresolved`	Conditional tiers exist; none resolve for this site. Unknown, not unlimited.
`no_limit_in_bylaw`	The bylaw sets no zone-level limit. A real answer.
`unverified_default`	A cached value with no citation behind it. Indicative only.
`not_extracted`	Never extracted for this zone. Unknown.

You'll see this table applied on Zoning; this page is the canonical definition and covers what the table doesn't: assumptions, what to verify, and what "verified" would even mean.

Assumptions are not citations

Some feasibility figures are not extracted from a bylaw at all — they're a declared assumption Bucky used to produce a number where no cited value exists (for example, a typical setback pattern for a zone with not_extracted values). An assumption is not a hidden default: it should be visible on the result, not baked silently into the math.

Read the difference before you act on a figure:

Cited — traceable to a specific bylaw section.
Assumption — Bucky's stated placeholder, used because nothing is cited yet.
Unverified default — a cached figure carried from another source, no citation attached.

Only the first is a fact you can defend without further work.

How to inspect a citation

Every cited and cited_conditional value links back to the bylaw section it came from. Open it. The citation is what makes the value checkable — that is the entire point of citing it, not a formality to skip.

What to verify next

Before a cited_conditional, conditional_unresolved, or unverified_default value goes into a decision, a deliverable, or a hearing:

conditional_unresolved — confirm with the jurisdiction which conditional tier actually applies to your site; Bucky flags the ambiguity, it does not resolve it for you.
unverified_default — treat it as a planning estimate and check it against the current bylaw or a local professional before relying on it.
not_extracted — Bucky does not know yet. That is not the same as "no limit" — see Zoning.

What "verified" would mean

Bucky does not currently mark any fact verified, and does not use the word for a person, fact, or output without stating the standard behind it. If that changes, this page will say what verification means and who performed it — not just apply the label.

Where this shows up

Parcels — geometry and dimensions carry the same sourced-vs-unsourced distinction.
Zoning — the primary home of the status table above.
Feasibility — combines cited and assumed values; read the status behind each input before trusting the output.
Coverage — the jurisdiction-level status that determines whether any of this applies to an address at all.
How to read and export a feasibility report — a deliverable carries these statuses forward; it does not upgrade them.