An experiment in trustworthy automation

The model has spoken.
Who checks the verdict?

SIGNAL is an evidence-first evaluation studio exploring what happens between an automated decision and a judgment you can actually trust.

Built by Nguyen Quynh PhuongPrototype, not a deployed model
signal / decision_trace / sample_04● LIVE EXPLAINER
01 / OBSERVED EVIDENCESYNTHETIC
Avg video views71,000 ✓
Historical 1M+ videoVERIFIED ✓
Claims-compliance gateNOT CHECKED
↓
02 / AUTOMATED VERDICTRUBRIC V1
APPROVEHuman reference: REJECT

Quantitative criteria pass, but claims compliance was not evaluated.

↳
The missing criterionOne overlooked rule changes the decision.
01Evidence before scores
02Explainable criteria
03Human final judgment
04Test, learn, repeat
01 / The problem

A high score is not proof.

During creator and content operations, I saw why automated screening alone is not enough. Clear-looking scores can conceal gaps in evidence, criteria or judgment.

01 / DATA?

Missing ≠ failing

A creator’s highest observed video among 20 recent posts is not necessarily their all-time highest. Unknown evidence should stay unknown.

02 / CRITERIA≠

Different rules, different answers

A threshold-only rubric might approve a case that fails a content or compliance condition it never evaluated.

03 / TRUST!

A verdict needs a reviewer

For ambiguous or high-impact decisions, the system needs a way to surface uncertainty and capture a human rationale.

02 / Product walkthrough

Go inside the system.

Six checkpoints transform raw creator evidence into a traceable decision. Tap each step to see the corresponding SIGNAL interface and its role in the workflow.

SELECT A STAGE

Built with Cloudflare Workers, Google Apps Script and Google Sheets. Optional LLM and external metric providers are separate integrations.

signal.studio / ai-judge / input
Actual SIGNAL AI Judge content input interface
01 / Input evidence

Provide a creator profile, campaign requirements and a video transcript or caption. Imported metrics are available only with a connected provider; this screenshot uses a synthetic case.

ACTUAL PROTOTYPE SCREENSHOT · INPUT PANEL
✦All images in this walkthrough are cropped from actual SIGNAL prototype screenshots, not imagined product UI.
03 / Interactive evaluation lab

One case.
Two rubrics.
A different verdict.

Try the exact type of failure the prototype is designed to surface: the numeric requirements pass, but the first rubric forgets to check a risky product claim.

synthetic_case_04.jsonINPUT / LAB FIXTURE
VIDEO TEXT / SAMPLE TRANSCRIPT

“This serum cures acne overnight for everyone — 100% guaranteed.”

FOLLOWERS53,000
✓ within sample tier
RECENT AVG VIEWS71,000
✓ above 50K threshold
HISTORICAL VIRAL VIDEOVerified
✓ meets sample condition
QUOTED FEE$700
✓ under $800 cap

Synthetic creator and campaign example. These fields are fabricated for evaluation testing, not scraped live from TikTok.

evaluation / v1 vs v2RUBRIC V1
Follower requirementPASS ✓
Average views ≥50KPASS ✓
Historical viral proofPASS ✓
Creator fee ≤$800PASS ✓
Claims-compliance gateNOT IN RUBRIC
RULE-BASED VERDICT
APPROVE

All active requirements pass. Missing claims gate is an untested quality risk.

HUMAN REFERENCE LABELREJECT / FLAG CLAIM
WHY IT MATTERS

The system's initial approval disagrees with the human reference because the rubric did not ask about claims.

Content-risk detection is not independent medical-claim fact checking. Both verdicts are deterministic prototype logic, not real model accuracy or API inference.

04 / Evidence, not hype

What changed —
and what didn't.

Two distinct kinds of evidence belong in this story. SIGNAL's own synthetic test results are kept separate from my professional operational experience.

SIGNAL / HAND-CRAFTED QA TEST SET
4/5 → 5/5
Reference-label matches after rubric change

One error fixed by adding the missing claims-compliance condition. Same five synthetic fixtures before and after; no held-out validation.

Rubric v1
4 / 5
Rubric v2
5 / 5
WHERE THE ERROR WAS
One missing criterion.

The initial rubric did not evaluate a potential unsupported product claim. A human reference label disagreed. The updated rubric changed that example's decision.

Synthetic testV1V2Human label
All criteria metApproveApproveApprove
Missing viewsReviewReviewReview
Fee exceeds capRejectRejectReject
Claims oversightApproveRejectReject
Viral history unknownReviewReviewReview

Illustrative five-case matrix. A matched label is not proof of real-world model reliability.

The experience behind the experiment.

PROFESSIONAL WORK · NOT CAUSED BY SIGNAL
4AM / CREATOR OPERATIONS20K+Profiles screened

Evaluated TikTok/Instagram profiles using audience, relevance and historical performance criteria.

4AM / WORKFLOW AUTOMATION60%Less reporting time

AI-assisted Airtable reporting reduced ~5 hours to 2 hours per ~30 creators.

MERCEDES-BENZ / ANALYTICS372K+Records analyzed

Historical aftersales data across 16 dealerships to examine retention patterns.

4AM / DEAR, KLAIRS CAMPAIGN2M+Views · 6.78% engagement

Results from a 21-creator campaign; not a metric produced by SIGNAL.

05 / Under the hood

Built to expose uncertainty,
not cover it up.

The design uses a lightweight web stack and deliberately keeps rule-based checks, optional AI assessment and reviewer judgment as separate layers.

Architecture at a glance

Cloudflare
UI + API gateway
→
Apps Script
Workflow logic
→
Google Sheets
Cases + audit

Rule-based criteria operate on recorded fields. Optional third-party providers supply public creator data when available; an optional external AI API can evaluate supplied text. Neither integration is required to show the offline synthetic case.

What remains unproven

Live external AI-provider inference has not been independently production-validated.
Five hand-written synthetic fixtures are insufficient to estimate generalization or real accuracy.
Audience demographics, commercial conversions and full creator history are not guaranteed from public profiles.
Next: multiple reviewers, adjudicated labels, held-out test cases and failure segmentation.
The takeaway

The interesting part begins when automation is wrong.

I built SIGNAL to learn how to turn operational judgment into transparent evaluation criteria—and how to keep humans accountable for the final call.

© 2026 NGUYEN QUYNH PHUONGSIGNAL · INDEPENDENT PROTOTYPE · NO INVENTED PRODUCTION METRICSDESIGNED FOR CLEARER DECISIONS