## Core Principle

**Evidence over assertion.** Prefer findings that ship a reproducible proof-of-concept (PoC) over unproven "potential" findings. A PoC sharply reduces false positives but does NOT guarantee correctness: an LLM-driven pipeline can still hallucinate impact, mis-read a response, or fire in a test-only configuration. Treat every automated finding as a *lead*, not a verdict.

**Manual validation is mandatory for any finding that drives a security decision** — not only Critical/High. Before you file a ticket, block a deploy, or tell anyone "you are vulnerable," reproduce the PoC yourself against the in-scope target and confirm real impact (see section 4 — False Positive Identification).

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