What a Source Readiness Review Actually Checks
June 27, 2026
A source readiness review is not a long compliance exercise. It is a short, honest conversation that happens before any deployment, and it answers a small number of questions that turn out to matter a lot.
What is the assistant for?
Every readiness review starts here. An assistant for client-facing summaries is a different product than an internal lookup tool, and the source map should reflect that.
Skipping this question is the most common reason an assistant feels vaguely useful and specifically dangerous at the same time.
Which sources matter, and where do they live?
Most teams know which documents the assistant should rely on. The readiness review captures that list explicitly, along with where those documents currently live — a shared drive, a wiki, a file server, a regulator's website.
Naming where sources live makes the next step concrete: connecting them, in the right order, with the right approvals.
What should never be exposed?
Equally important is naming the material that should never make it into answers. Personal files, regulated content, draft contracts, internal HR records, anything covered by a non-disclosure boundary.
Writing this down up front prevents the awkward conversation where the assistant turns out to know something it was never supposed to.
Who approves the source map?
A source map without an owner is a source map waiting to drift. The readiness review identifies the person who decides what becomes available and what stays blocked.
After review, that person — or a small group — owns the standing decision and the next round of changes.
SourceLedger begins with readiness because the safest AI systems are built from known, reviewed, and approved source boundaries.
Next step
Map the sources your AI should rely on.