The shippable bar

The publish-or-withhold gate behind the Cost Index. A reading ships only when it clears the bar — either a measured cross-market range where several public markets agree, or a single authoritative source whose direction is corroborated and whose noise is low. A lone, uncorroborated source is held back and shown as absent, not shipped as if it were solid.

Why it matters

It's the rule that keeps a price honest. Any data product can ship every number it touches; a disciplined one keeps a publish-or-withhold gate, so a thin, uncorroborated figure never reaches you wearing the confidence of a measured one. In the Cost Index it means an ingredient earns a public reading only when the data supports an honest one — otherwise it's named and explained as absent, never faked. Ship complete, or not at all.

Frequently asked

What is the shippable bar?

It is the publish-or-withhold gate behind the Cost Index: the rule that decides whether an ingredient earns a public price or stays blank. A reading ships only when the data supports an honest one — either a measured range where several public markets agree, or one authoritative source whose direction is corroborated and not pathologically noisy. The principle is general to any data product: have a gate, do not push every number live.

When does a reading clear the bar?

Two ways, and only these two. Either a measured cross-market range — several independent public markets agree on a wholesale dollar level — or a single authoritative source whose direction is corroborated by at least two independent reads and whose week-to-week noise is low. Anything less is held back. There is no third path where a lone, uncorroborated number gets dressed up as certain.

What happens to an ingredient that does not clear the bar?

It is shown as absent, not shipped. The dashboard carries no apologetic 'no published figure' prices. A below-bar ingredient lives only as an honest, expanding-coverage page — present, named, and explained with the structural reason it has no reading — never frozen at a stale value pretending to be current. Ship complete, or not at all.

What's the difference between the shippable bar and a confidence threshold?

A confidence threshold scores how trustworthy a number is; the shippable bar decides whether it gets published at all. They work together: a reading clears the bar only when the data supports an honest number — a measured cross-market range, or one corroborated source — and below the bar it is shown as absent rather than shipped with a low-confidence label.