Minimal PoC Notes

A good proof of concept answers one question. When it tries to prove everything at once, it usually stops being useful.

I like PoC notes that someone else can read later without needing the whole story in my head. The note should separate what I believed, what I tried, what happened, and what I decided.

Fill-In Template

Field	Notes
Scope	What is authorized and what is excluded
Hypothesis	The specific assumption being tested
Source material	The code, docs, logs, or notes used
Setup	Safe preconditions needed for the check
Probe	The smallest action or review step that can produce evidence
Expected signal	What I expected to see
Actual signal	What happened
Interpretation	What the result means
Cleanup	State, data, or test artifacts to remove
Decision	Escalate, scope down, pivot, or stop

Evidence Rules

• One hypothesis per note.
• No live secrets in scripts, screenshots, or pasted output.
• Prefer harmless signals before stronger tests.
• Keep cleanup steps with the proof.
• Preserve failed attempts when they changed the theory.
• Do not mix confirmed evidence with guesses.

Interpreting Results

Result	Possible Meaning
Expected signal appears	The hypothesis may be valid; verify the path and scope before escalating
Output is literal	The input may not be interpreted on this path
Output is empty	The path may run, but state or syntax may be wrong
Validation rejects the check	A control is active; inspect what it enforces
No signal appears	Trigger, timing, observation point, or hypothesis may be wrong
Result changes unexpectedly	A sanitizer, encoder, cache, or async path may be involved

Cleanup Notes

Cleanup should be written before the test runs, not invented afterward.

Capture:

• What state was created.
• What should be deleted or reverted.
• How to confirm cleanup happened.
• Who needs to know if cleanup fails.

The best PoC note is useful to someone who was not there when it happened.