Why are shipped and seen two separate questions?
Because they come apart in practice, and they are answered from different evidence. Execution — did the approved action happen, in full, on the asset it named — is answered by looking at your page. Exposure — did the environment we care about have a chance to see it — is answered by observing that environment, and often the answer is unknown.
A change can be live and unseen. Treating live as seen would quietly promote every shipped edit into an observed one, and the whole report would inherit that mistake.
Two checks, two kinds of evidence
- Execution is checked against the asset: the words are there, whole, where the mission said.
- Exposure is checked against the environment: a fresh reading that shows the material had a chance to be read.
- The first is ours to answer plainly. The second often returns unknown, and unknown is reported as unknown.
What this protects
The inequality the whole method rests on: Execution Success ≠ Exposure Success ≠ Outcome Success. Shipped is not seen, and seen is not the business getting better.
Where the two checks sit inside the loop: the product page.
What this answer does not claim
- Exposure unknown does not mean exposure absent. It means the evidence to say either way was not there, and the report will not pretend it was.
- Confirming exposure says an answer had the chance to read the change — not that any shopper acted on it.