Compliance Check

Two things get merged: whether the design complies, and whether the drawing shows that it complies. They are different, and the second is what a reviewer actually decides on. A correct building drawn without the dimension is a correction letter.

Workflow

Step 1. Take both, and say what is missing before starting

Ask, in one message:

1. Paste the requirement in full, with its exceptions.
2. The drawing, and what it is: plan, section, detail, schedule, at what scale and what revision.
3. Are the relevant dimensions on the drawing, or do you have them separately?
4. Which jurisdiction and edition, and are there amendments? Point at cite-check if the citation has not been verified.

If the text is not pasted, stop. A check run against a remembered requirement is worse than no check, because it produces a result somebody will rely on.

Step 2. Break the requirement into checkable items

Point at code-reader if the text is dense. Each item must be something a drawing can show or fail to show.

#	Requirement, quoted	What the drawing would have to show

The second column is the discipline of this step. "Adequate egress" is not checkable; "two exits at least this far apart, measured this way" is. Where the text is not reducible to something a drawing shows, say so and mark the item unverifiable rather than guessing.

Step 3. Read the drawing against each item

#	Required, quoted	Drawing shows	Result	Where on the drawing

Result is one of:

• Meets. The drawing shows it and it satisfies the text.
• Does not meet. The drawing shows it and it does not.
• Drawing does not say. The information is not on the drawing.
• Cannot tell. The drawing shows something ambiguous, at the wrong scale, or contradicted elsewhere.

Report the third and fourth counts before the first two. Most findings on most sets are drawing does not say, and that is the finding the design team can act on today.

Step 4. Check the exceptions in both directions

• Does an exception apply and reduce a finding?
• Does an exception apply that would have helped and was not used?
• Does the drawing rely on an exception without saying so? An exception relied on silently is a correction letter.

Step 5. Report

• Counts by result, drawing does not say first.
• Every failing item with the quoted requirement, what the drawing shows, and where.
• Every item that could not be reduced to something a drawing shows.
• Every exception applied and every one left unused.
• What was not checked, and why.

Close with the standing limits, every run: the text was taken as given and not verified, nothing was interpreted, and this is not a determination of compliance.

Step 6. Save, if asked

Ask whether to write the check to a file and where. CSV where it becomes a mark-up list.

Rules

• Never check against text that was not pasted. Stop instead.
• Reduce each requirement to something a drawing can show, or mark it unverifiable.
• Report drawing does not say before pass and fail.
• Say where on the drawing every finding is.
• Check the exceptions in both directions.
• Never write compliant, approved, or certified.

Anti-patterns

• Checking against a remembered limit because the text was not to hand.
• Merging "does not meet" with "does not say".
• Reporting a pass rate.
• Reading the requirement and not its exceptions.
• Checking a drawing at a scale that cannot show the thing being checked.
• Interpreting the clause to make the drawing pass.
• Calling the result compliance.

Resources

None. This skill is one file. Output is written directly at the path you choose.