Report Interpretation

Available Formats

licit report                              # Markdown (default)
licit report --format json -o report.json # Structured JSON
licit report --format html -o report.html # Self-contained HTML

All three formats contain the same information; only the presentation differs.

Report Structure

Every report has three levels:

1. Overall Summary    →  Aggregated statistics across all frameworks
2. Per-framework      →  Summary + detail for each evaluated framework
3. Per-requirement    →  Status, evidence, and recommendations per requirement

1. Overall Summary

  Overall: [####................] 19.0%
  4/21 controls compliant

Field	Meaning
Compliance rate	`compliant / (compliant + partial + non_compliant) * 100`. Does not include N/A or not-evaluated
Total controls	EU AI Act (11) + OWASP Agentic (10) = 21 controls
Compliant	Requirements with sufficient evidence
Partial	Partial evidence — improvements possible
Non-compliant	No evidence — action required

How to Interpret the Rate

Range	Interpretation	Action
80-100%	Strong compliance posture	Maintain and monitor
50-79%	Partial compliance, manageable gaps	Close priority gaps with `licit gaps`
20-49%	Weak compliance	Urgent remediation plan
0-19%	Minimal compliance — typical for a newly initialized project	Run `licit fria`, `licit annex-iv`, `licit trace`

A new project without FRIA or Annex IV will start at ~5-20%. This is normal. Each licit command you run raises the rate.

2. Per-Framework Section

EU AI Act

  eu-ai-act (2024/1689)
    [##..................] 9.1%
    1 compliant | 4 partial | 6 non-compliant

The 11 evaluated articles cover deployer obligations (the entity using the AI system), not the provider (the entity that builds it):

Article	What it evaluates	How to raise the score
Art. 9	Risk management	Configure guardrails in architect, add vigil/semgrep
Art. 10	Data governance	Always PARTIAL (deployer does not train) — document provider practices
Art. 12	Automatic logging	`licit trace` for provenance, enable audit trail
Art. 13	Transparency	`licit annex-iv` + `licit changelog`
Art. 14	Human oversight	Configure PR reviews, architect dry-run
Art. 26	Deployer obligations	Have agent configs (CLAUDE.md, .cursorrules)
Art. 27	FRIA	`licit fria`
Annex IV	Technical documentation	`licit annex-iv`

OWASP Agentic Top 10

  owasp-agentic (2025)
    [....................] 0.0%
    0 compliant | 5 partial | 5 non-compliant

The 10 risks assess the security posture for AI agents:

Risk	What it evaluates	How to raise the score
ASI01	Excessive permissions	Guardrails, quality gates, budget limits
ASI02	Prompt injection	vigil scanning, input guardrails
ASI03	Supply chain	Snyk/Semgrep/CodeQL, config changelog
ASI04	Insufficient logging	`licit trace`, audit trail, OTel
ASI05	Unvalidated output	Human review gates, quality gates, test suite
ASI06	No human oversight	PR reviews, dry-run, rollback
ASI07	Weak sandboxing	Guardrails, CI/CD isolation
ASI08	Unlimited consumption	Budget limits in architect
ASI09	Poor error handling	Test suite, CI/CD, rollback
ASI10	Data exposure	Protected files, security scanning

3. Per-Requirement Detail

Each requirement shows:

In Markdown

### [FAIL] ART-27-1: Fundamental Rights Impact Assessment (FRIA)

- **Status**: non-compliant
- **Reference**: Article 27(1)
- **Evidence**: No FRIA document found

**Recommendations:**
- Run: licit fria -- to complete the Fundamental Rights Impact Assessment

In JSON

{
  "id": "ART-27-1",
  "name": "Fundamental Rights Impact Assessment (FRIA)",
  "status": "non-compliant",
  "evidence": "No FRIA document found",
  "recommendations": [
    "Run: licit fria -- to complete the Fundamental Rights Impact Assessment"
  ]
}

In HTML

Status with color badge: green (compliant), amber (partial), red (non-compliant), gray (n/a).

Gap Analysis

licit gaps

Gaps are a subset of the report: they only show non-compliant and partial requirements, sorted by severity.

How to Read a Gap

  1. [X] [ART-27-1] Fundamental Rights Impact Assessment (FRIA)
     Missing: Before putting an AI system into use...
     -> Run: licit fria -- to complete the FRIA
     Tools: licit fria

Element	Meaning
`[X]`	Non-compliant (high priority). `[!]` = partial
`[ART-27-1]`	Requirement ID
`Missing:`	No evidence. `Incomplete:` = partial evidence
`->`	Concrete recommendation
`Tools:`	Specific tools that help

Remediation Strategy

[X] (non-compliant) first — these are the ones that would fail licit verify in CI/CD
Within [X], “low” effort first — quick wins
[!] (partial) after — they improve the rate but do not block the pipeline

Estimated Effort

Each gap has an implicit effort by category:

Effort	Typical Time	Example
low	<1 hour	Run `licit trace`, `licit annex-iv`, `licit changelog`
medium	1-4 hours	Complete `licit fria`, configure guardrails, add PR reviews
high	1-3 days	Configure vigil/semgrep, implement sandboxing, configure budget limits

Report Configuration

In .licit.yaml:

reports:
  output_dir: .licit/reports        # Where reports are saved
  default_format: markdown          # Default format
  include_evidence: true            # Include Evidence field in each requirement
  include_recommendations: true     # Include recommendations

Without Evidence

With include_evidence: false, reports omit the evidence line. Useful for executive reports that only need the status.

Without Recommendations

With include_recommendations: false, recommendations are omitted. Useful if you already know them and only want the status snapshot.

Comparing Reports Over Time

Generate JSON reports periodically and compare:

# Week 1
licit report --format json -o report-w1.json

# Week 2
licit report --format json -o report-w2.json

# Compare manually
diff <(jq '.overall' report-w1.json) <(jq '.overall' report-w2.json)

Example of improvement:

-  "compliance_rate": 4.8
+  "compliance_rate": 33.3
-  "non_compliant": 11
+  "non_compliant": 5

In future versions, licit diff will automate this comparison.