Understanding TrustScore

## Understanding TrustScore

TrustScore is SyntaxValid’s unified signal for understanding codebase risk.

It answers a simple but critical question:

Is this code safe to move forward?

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## What TrustScore is

TrustScore is a weighted score that reflects the overall health, safety, and risk profile of a project.

It is designed to:

- Reduce complex analysis results into a single signal

- Highlight merge-blocking risks

- Support confident technical decisions

TrustScore is not a vanity metric.

It is a decision signal.

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## What TrustScore is not

TrustScore is not:

- A style or formatting score

- A measure of developer productivity

- A replacement for code review

- A static or cosmetic metric

It focuses strictly on risk and reliability.

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## What affects TrustScore

TrustScore is influenced by multiple factors:

### Blocking issues

Blocking issues have the strongest impact.

Any unresolved blocking issue significantly lowers the TrustScore.

### Issue severity

Higher severity issues reduce the score more than low-severity findings.

### Risk concentration

Clusters of related issues in critical areas increase risk impact.

### AI-generated code risk

AI-generated or AI-assisted code is evaluated for reliability and safety signals.

### Analysis scope

Full repository analyses and diff-based analyses may produce different TrustScore movements.

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## Blocking vs non-blocking issues

Blocking issues represent unacceptable risk.

They indicate that:

- A merge is unsafe

- A release should be paused

- Immediate action is required

Non-blocking issues are informational.

They should be addressed over time but do not prevent progress.

TrustScore makes this distinction explicit.

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## How to interpret TrustScore

### For developers

Use TrustScore to:

- Understand the impact of your changes

- Identify what must be fixed before merging

- Validate AI-generated patches safely

### For tech leads and CTOs

Use TrustScore to:

- Assess project health at a glance

- Enforce consistent quality standards

- Make risk-based merge and release decisions

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## Improving TrustScore

TrustScore improves when:

- Blocking issues are resolved

- High-severity risks are eliminated

- Risk concentration is reduced

- Unsafe AI-generated patterns are corrected

Re-running analysis after fixes will reflect improvements immediately.

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## Why TrustScore works

Traditional tools overwhelm teams with raw findings.

TrustScore works because it:

- Prioritizes decision-critical issues

- Aligns analysis with real engineering workflows

- Makes risk visible without hiding detail

- Encourages safe, incremental improvement

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## Next steps

- Issues and severities

- Fix with AI workflow

- Integrating TrustScore into pull requests