CONTRIBUTING.md

# Contributing to the hw-verify dataset

## The data is generated, never hand-edited

Do not edit anything under `data/`. Every record is computed by `build.py` from the
packages' real artifacts, and `python build.py --check` fails if the committed files
differ from a fresh build. A hand-edited record is a record that no longer matches the
tool that supposedly produced it — which is the one thing a dataset like this cannot
survive.

To change the data, change the source of truth (a fixture, a gadget, a defect class in
the upstream package), then regenerate:

```bash
python build.py
pytest tests -q
```

## Every split needs controls

The RTL split pairs each constant-time design with a leaky twin of identical interface.
The masking split contains gadgets that genuinely recombine a secret. The patch split
contains a fix that blocks one witness and a fix that rejects everything.

If you add records, add the counterexamples too. A one-sided corpus rewards a classifier
that always answers the same way, and the tests enforce this: `test_every_pair_has_both_halves`,
`test_masking_includes_real_leaky_probes`, `test_demos_are_genuinely_broken`.

## Document every field

`test_card_documents_every_field_of_every_split` fails if a record has a field the card
does not explain. This caught three undocumented fields the first time it ran. Keep it.

## Licences stay per-record

Four RTL fixtures derive from picorv32 and remain under ISC; the rest are CC-BY-4.0; the
masking and patch records are Apache-2.0 outputs of the tools. Do not flatten this into a
single dataset-level licence — it would misstate the terms on 4 of 27 files.

## Keep the scope statements

`out_of_model`, `model`, and the mean-vs-distribution split are in the data on purpose.
They are the difference between a consumer reading a label as "secure" and reading it as
what it actually says.

## Style

`ruff check .` clean, `pytest tests -q` green.