How we know a rule is still true

1. Every fact carries a quote

An age limit, a qualification clause or a fee is stored with a verbatim sentence from the notification and the page it appears on. Where a value sits in a table cell rather than a sentence, the table's own heading is stored together with the numbers, and the check confirms that those numbers are still printed on that page.

On every run the pipeline downloads the document again (conditionally, when the server supports it), extracts its text layer and searches for the quotation. If the search fails, the examination is flagged: a warning appears on the page, the eligibility answer is withheld, and the build records the failure. Nothing is silently rewritten.

2. The change log is a diff, not a rewrite

The pipeline keeps the previous state of every exam: its document list (category, title, URL, upload date) and the raw date lines from the board dashboard. A new addendum, a changed exam-date line, a withdrawn document or a revised vacancy count is a difference. Differences become dated entries.

Where the document states the change explicitly — “the preliminary examination … has been postponed from 06.09.2026 to 27.09.2026” — the sentence is stored with the entry as evidence, alongside the PDF it came from.

3. Age is computed, not compared to a number

Every notification has an as on date, and the rule is “should not have completed N years”. ExamLens computes completed years on that exact date, applies the community ceiling, then applies the most favourable concession the candidate is entitled to (PwBD, ex-servicemen, destitute widow). Minimum-age failures show the date you turn eligible; maximum-age failures show how far past the cut-off you are.

The engine is a pure function with unit tests on real notification values, so the same input always produces the same answer — and the answer cites the paragraph it used.

4. What this cannot do

• It cannot read Tamil-language PDFs reliably. Some board PDFs have text layers that extract as garbage. Those are monitored by hash, not by quote, and labelled as such.
• It cannot know about a post-specific rule hidden in an annexure unless that rule has been transcribed and cited. Records without verified rules say “dates tracked only” and give no verdict.
• It cannot replace the notification. Fees, document formats, physical standards and certificate validity are not modelled.
• It can lag. If a board publishes between runs, this record is behind until the next scheduled check. Every page states when its sources were last read.

5. Corrections

The notification is the authority. Where this record disagrees with it, this record is wrong. Report the notification number and the paragraph through the repository's issue tracker; the entry is corrected and re-verified on the next run. Corrections pass through the same quotation check as every other entry.

Data licence: CC BY 4.0 for the compilation. Official notices and PDFs remain the copyright of their issuing authority. ExamLens is independent and not affiliated with TNPSC, TRB, TNUSRB or the Government of Tamil Nadu.