Concepts

Golden records & identity

Every device that survives ingestion becomes one golden record: a single identity-resolved row assembled from every source that saw the device, with per-field provenance. Identity is the mechanism that gets it there — and the foundation everything else stands on: classification, attribution, and disposition all inherit its confidence.

Discovery A ─┐
Discovery B ─┼→ identity scoring (0–100) → golden record
Discovery C ─┘                                  ↓
                                        source precedence
                                                ↓
                                         classification
                                                ↓
                                           IRE import

The identity score

Devices score 0–100 on weighted identifiers. Strong identifiers dominate: a serial number and a hostname each carry more weight than any circumstantial field, a MAC address slightly less, with device IDs and secondary identifiers contributing the remainder. The score is visible on every record — identity confidence is information, not internals.

Identity status

ELIGIBLE

Identity is strong enough to import.

BLOCKED_NO_IDENTITY (and related BLOCKED_* states)

Insufficient identity confidence. The record is held out of the import with the specific reason stated — never imported hopefully.

Cross-source merge

Records from different sources merge when their identifiers agree. The merged record keeps the full lineage: which sources contributed, which source won each field, and which conflicting values were beaten (see Source precedence).

Conflicts are surfaced, never absorbed

One serial, many hostnames — the same serial number reporting under multiple hostnames across sources.
One hostname, many serials — a hostname claimed by multiple physical identities.

Design Principle

Conflicts like these are flagged for human review with the evidence attached. Silently merging them is how duplicates breed; importing them unresolved is how they become someone else's migration problem.