# Human Index

> A human-readable index rendering the same current selection as the typed projection, so people and machines read one truth.

**Tier:** 1 · **Normative weight:** supports `TM-OBS-004`
**Requires:** [Typed Current Projection](/docs/truth-machine/kit/current-projection/)

## Problem it removes

Once current state lives in a TOML file, people stop reading it — and start
maintaining a parallel prose account that drifts. The machine answer and
the human answer part company, and each reader trusts whichever they saw
first.

## Mechanism

A markdown index — typically the README of the directory the projection
describes — that names every record the projection declares, with a short
status marker per row that parallels each document's status line. It is a
*rendering* of the projection, not a second source: `TM-OBS-004` requires
machine and human forms to resolve to the same declared meaning, and this
pattern is the cheap way to have a human form at all. The projection
declares the index's path (`human_index`) and the exact markers expected,
which is what lets a governed read assert the agreement instead of
trusting it.

## Cost

Authoring: an hour, mostly table layout. Per change: one table row edited
alongside each projection edit — the duplication is deliberate, because it
is checked. Per session: negative; it is the page people actually consult.

## Do not adopt when

The projection is small enough to read directly and no one but its
maintainer ever asks the question.

## Evidence

Assessed in [inference-ops](/docs/truth-machine/implementations/inference-ops/)
and [cloud-ops](/docs/truth-machine/implementations/cloud-ops/) (deployment
READMEs); the
[kinra-corpus](/docs/truth-machine/implementations/kinra-corpus/) index is
the same pattern over organizational records.

## Template

None — adopted by convention; the projection template's `human_index` field
names it.

## Related patterns

[Governed Read](/docs/truth-machine/kit/governed-read/) turns the
index-versus-projection agreement from discipline into a check.