2026-05-17Correction
During Phase 2.6 review, two Cuyana brand-level claims (repairPolicy two-year warranty, shipsToUs) were attached to the /our-leather sourceUrl. Those quotes actually live on Cuyana's product page and homepage, not /our-leather.
Affected/brand/cuyana source ledger
ActionRetired both fields from the /our-leather review (status: rejected, currentValue: null). The underlying facts remain true on Cuyana's site — they just need a dedicated review of /policies or /care-guide to re-attribute. The brand record's repairPolicy and shipsToUs values revert to seed data until that re-attribution happens.
Why it mattersSource attribution matters. A claim ledger that links to the wrong source URL — even when the underlying fact is right — undermines the trust contract. Better to retire the misattribution publicly than to leave it hidden.
2026-05-17Source update
DeMellier added a "Base Width: 32cm/12.6"" measurement to the Florence product page after our original review. Stored source quote no longer matched verbatim.
Affected/brand/demellier/florence source ledger · /compare
ActionDrift detected by sources:check. Triaged via sources:triage. The claim values (dimensions, fitsLaptop13/15) are unchanged — same W × H × D are still published. Updated the stored source quote across widthCm, heightCm, depthCm, fitsLaptop13, fitsLaptop15 to the new wording that includes Base Width. No claim retired.
Why it mattersBrand pages drift. Cousure must catch the drift, decide whether the claim is still supported, and update the quote — without auto-deleting valid claims. This is the maintenance loop working as designed.
2026-05-17Pipeline safeguard
The interactive phrase decoder used substring matching that incorrectly matched "Certified" to "LWG certified" and "Grain" alone (as in "Fine Grain") to "Full-grain".
AffectedLeather Guide · /decode-claims
ActionTightened the matcher: single-word decoders require exact token equality (Grain ≠ Full-grain). Multi-word decoders require the token to be a distinctive word AND every other decoder word to appear in the broader phrase. Stop-words (leather, certified, in, the) never match alone.
Why it mattersA decoder that tells users the wrong thing about what their phrase proves is worse than no decoder. The matcher discipline is now strict enough that Cuyana's "Italian Leather Made in Turkey" correctly attaches the Italian-leather decoder to "Italian" but not falsely to "leather" or "Turkey".
2026-05-17Methodology change
Editorial ratings (tier, logoVisibility, leatherTransparency, productionTransparency) were extracted as values but no brand source actually stated them.
AffectedAll 4 reviewed brand profiles
ActionThese fields are now nulled with a derived_field_logic_issue semantic flag. The rendering code handles null gracefully (renders "Not disclosed" instead of crashing). No editorial assessment is presented as a brand-stated fact.
Why it mattersCousure's rule: if the brand didn't say it, we don't say it. Subjective ratings invented by the extractor would have been the largest single class of un-verifiable claims.
2026-05-17Data-model fix
Cuyana /pages/our-leather slot was being inferred as a product_detail instead of a policy_page.
AffectedCoverage registry · /brand/cuyana
ActioninferSourceKind() now recognizes our-leather, leather, our-materials, care-guide as policy_page. Coverage update marks Cuyana's our-leather slot correctly as imported (brand-level), not as a fake product.
Why it mattersBrand-level material disclosure pages are valuable evidence. Misclassifying them as products would have either created a fake "our-leather" product record or hidden the disclosure entirely.
2026-05-17Source update
First-pass Leather Naturally URLs returned 404. Discovered correct URLs by inspecting the live homepage.
AffectedLeather Guide source-bible
ActionUpdated source registry from /education/the-basics/... to the actual /about-leather/..., /faqs/, /a-guide-to-modern-leather-making/ URLs. All 5 sources then fetched cleanly. The fetcher's "blocked" status correctly tracked the failure in the first run.
Why it mattersA pipeline that quietly falls back to fake data when URLs fail is worse than no pipeline. The blocked-status flow keeps failures visible so they get fixed instead of hidden.
2026-05-17Pipeline safeguard
Catalog/list pages can no longer accidentally become fake product records.
AffectedImport pipeline · /brand/demellier
ActionAdded explicit sourceKind classification (brand_home, brand_about, product_detail, catalog_list, policy_page, unknown). Catalog pages route to a separate catalog_evidence.json store. The DeMellier catalog became 1 catalog-evidence row, not 7 fake product records.
Why it mattersWithout this safeguard, "Demellier The Hudson — black small grain — $745" listed on a catalog grid could have been imported as a full product record with fabricated dimensions, leather origin, etc. The classification rules made that structurally impossible.
2026-05-17Review flag
Polène Cyme Raffia dimensions flagged as potentially variant- or packaging-specific.
Affected/brand/polene/cyme-raffia · /compare
ActionwidthCm, heightCm, depthCm now carry packaging_or_variant_dimensions semantic flags. The flag is visible inline on the compare table and on the product page source ledger.
Why it mattersThe Cyme bag family has multiple variants (Mini, standard, Raffia). A single quoted dimension may not be for the exact variant shown. We do not strip the data — we flag it.
2026-05-17Data-model fix
Null-valued reviewed fields were creating source rows containing extractor reasoning notes as if they were verbatim brand quotes.
AffectedProduct source ledgers · /compare
ActionImporter now skips approved fields whose currentValue is null. Source count dropped from 97 to 94. Strathberry Lana Hobo's leatherOrigin cell now correctly shows "Not disclosed" with no leaky quote.
Why it mattersA "source row" is supposed to mean a real verbatim quote from the brand. Allowing extractor reasoning to leak in would have eroded the central trust promise of the source ledger.
2026-05-17Source update
Mansur Gavriel Mini Bucket Bag upgraded from insufficient_evidence to approved via the brand's own Shopify product .json endpoint.
Affected/brand/mansur-gavriel/mini-bucket-bag-black · /bags · /compare · /brands
ActionPhase 2.9B re-fetched the product via the official Shopify product .json endpoint (200, full product detail: title, vendor, body_html, price, sku, color, availability). Imported with verbatim quotes — including "high quality vegetable-tanned leather sourced from a family-owned tannery in Italy." Leather origin disclosed; bag-made-in NOT disclosed. Dimensions, weight, hardware, and lining stay marked "not disclosed." A separate catalog_list slot now captures /collections/mini-bucket-bag as $595–$645 price-discovery evidence.
Why it mattersIn Phase 2.8B the static HTML fetch was redirected to the collection page and produced nothing extractable, so we marked the product insufficient_evidence rather than fabricate. The clean answer was not a heavier renderer — it was using the brand's own structured Shopify endpoint, which is part of MG's public server response and keeps provenance unambiguous.
2026-05-17Source update
Wandler added as reviewed brand #7 with the Ida Bag — Black as reviewed product #7, the most source-complete product in the Cousure index.
Affected/brand/wandler · /brand/wandler/ida-bag-black · /bags · /compare · /brands · brands-like rails
ActionSupervised deep extraction (Phase 2.9C). Fetched 5 brand-level slots and the Ida Bag product page via the brand's own Shopify .json endpoint. Imported 28 source rows with verbatim quotes covering: leather (100% Italian calf), leather origin (Italy), made-in (carefully crafted in Italy), hardware (golden), lining (micro-suede), dimensions (31×18×15 cm), handle drop (12 cm), strap drop range (50–60 cm), closure (zip), color, and brand facts (founder Elza Wandler, founded 2017, HQ Amsterdam, 14-day return policy, brand-level LWG certification). Critical discipline call: LWG is brand-level only — the product page does not restate it, so the strict LWG product filter correctly excludes Ida Bag. Weight and in-stock state both nulled (Shopify metadata, not body_html quotes). Hardware-from-Italy claim NOT generalized from Kate/Veneto to Ida.
Why it mattersWandler is the first brand in the index to publicly disclose LWG-certified leather sourcing at brand level, AND the first product where leather origin (Italy), assembly (Italy), dimensions, hardware finish, lining, strap drop, and closure are all simultaneously source-backed on the same page. Sets a new ceiling for what a "complete" product source ledger looks like on Cousure.