cost-award-terms-conformance-check¶

Slugcost-award-terms-conformance-check

Version0.1.0

Statusexperimental

Last fully evaluatednone

Eval stateno validated eval cases

Categoryreview

Domainresearch-administration

Manifestationsprompt

Created2026-05-21

Updated2026-05-21

Tags: cost-allowability post-award award-terms review federal-grants research-administration

Audience: post-award-staff, sponsored-programs-staff, grant-accountants

Manifestations in repo: prompt.md

Checks whether a single expense conforms to the limitations and exclusions in the Federal award and the cost principles, under 2 CFR 200.403(b). It is one of the single-requirement checks in the federal cost-allowability analysis workflow and emits a structured finding consumed by the final determination step.

Output contract: schema.json Contract scope: repo-local

Inputs¶

A normalized expense record, extracted award terms, and a regulated-activity classification from the Stage 1 components of the cost-allowability-analysis workflow. Any may be partial.

Outputs¶

A single structured finding — see schema.json — carrying a status of pass, issue, not_allowable, needs_info, or not_applicable, with rationale, cited evidence, follow-up actions, and a confidence level.

The check¶

Compares the expense against the award's dollar caps, exclusions, prohibited-cost terms, category restrictions, and special conditions, and surfaces conflicts with cost-sharing use (2 CFR 200.403(f)) and applicable credits (2 CFR 200.406). When the award terms needed to run the check are not supplied, it returns needs_info rather than assuming conformance.

Contract scope¶

Repo-local. The finding object is the shared single-requirement finding contract used across the cost-allowability check components; check_id, check_name, and regulation_anchor are fixed for this check. It is not a shared AI4RA-UDM schema.

Triad integration¶

Evaluation datasets: none yet — repo-local synthetic coverage planned.
Harness notes: canonical manifestation is prompt.md; validation surface is schema.json. Invoked as a Step 2 task of the cost-allowability-analysis workflow.
Shared UDM relationship: aligned to sponsored-project cost-allowability semantics; does not define or depend on a shared UDM schema.

Manifestations¶

prompt.md — canonical, LLM-agnostic prompt

Evals¶

See evals/.

Provenance¶

Created 2026-05-21 as a single-requirement check in the federal cost-allowability analysis component set, anchored to 2 CFR 200.403(b).

Contract scope¶

Output format: json_object
Contract scope: repo_local_single_requirement_finding_contract
Validation surfaces: json_schema
Schema entrypoints: #
Notes: Repo-local single-requirement allowability finding for the award terms conformance check (2 CFR 200.403(b)). Emits the shared cost-allowability finding object.
Machine-readable catalog entry: component_catalog.json

Triad integration¶

UDM alignment: repo_local_single_requirement_finding_contract — Aligns to sponsored-project cost-allowability semantics; the finding object is a prompt-library contract shared across the cost-allowability check components, not a shared UDM schema.
Evaluation datasets: no shared evaluation-data-sets catalog entry recorded yet; current references are repo-local eval artifacts.
Harness notes: Validate JSON output against schema.json. Canonical invocation surface is prompt.md. Invoked as a Step 2 task of the workflows/cost-allowability-analysis Vandalizer workflow.

Prompt body¶

Source: prompt.md.

Show prompt

Award Terms Conformance Check¶

Purpose: Decide whether a single expense conforms to the limitations and exclusions in the Federal award and the cost principles.

Expected input: A normalized expense record, extracted award terms, and a regulated-activity classification.

Expected output: One structured finding conforming to schema.json.

This component is a single-requirement check in the federal cost-allowability analysis workflow. It evaluates conformance to award-imposed and cost-principle limitations only.

Prompt¶

You are a federal cost-allowability reviewer performing one specific check: Award Terms Conformance under 2 CFR 200.403(b). Review one expense and return a single structured finding for this check only — do not evaluate any other allowability requirement.

Return only a single JSON object conforming to the finding contract. No prose, Markdown, comments, or code fences.

Input¶

You receive a normalized expense record, extracted award terms, and a regulated-activity classification, produced by the upstream steps of the cost-allowability analysis workflow. Any of these may be partial or missing.

What this check evaluates¶

Whether the cost conforms to any limitations or exclusions set out in the cost principles or in the Federal award as to the types or amounts of cost items, under 2 CFR 200.403(b). Compare the expense against:

the award's caps_and_exclusions — dollar caps, percentage limits, prohibited cost types, and use restrictions;
the restrictions recorded on the relevant approved budget category; and
the award's special_conditions.

Also surface a conflict when the supplied evidence shows the cost is being used to meet the cost-sharing or matching requirement of another Federal award (2 CFR 200.403(f)), or that an applicable credit has not been netted against the charge (2 CFR 200.406).

This check evaluates conformance to award-imposed and cost-principle limitations. It does not re-evaluate reasonableness, allocability, prior approval, or selected-item rules.

Decision rule¶

Set status to exactly one of:

pass — the expense does not violate any supplied award cap, exclusion, category restriction, or special condition.
issue — the expense approaches a cap, or a restriction or special condition applies and conformance must be confirmed.
not_allowable — the expense violates an explicit award cap, exclusion, prohibited-cost term, category restriction, or special condition.
needs_info — the award terms needed to run this check (caps, exclusions, restrictions) were not supplied.
not_applicable — the award and cost principles impose no limitation or exclusion relevant to this expense type.

Use the most conservative status the evidence supports. Never record pass when the evidence needed to satisfy the requirement is absent — that is needs_info.

Evidence and non-fabrication¶

Ground every finding in the supplied evidence. Populate evidence with short source_label / detail pairs (e.g., award_terms:caps_and_exclusions, award_terms:special_conditions, expense:amount).
Do not invent caps, exclusions, or restriction language. A missing rule input is needs_info, never pass.

Output¶

Emit the finding object:

check_id — "cost-award-terms-conformance"
check_name — "Award Terms Conformance"
regulation_anchor — "2 CFR 200.403(b)"
expense_id — the expense reference from the input, or null
status — one of the values above
summary — one sentence stating the outcome
rationale — the evidence-grounded reasoning
evidence — array of {source_label, detail}
follow_up_actions — concrete actions needed before the cost is approved or charged; empty array when none
confidence — "high", "medium", or "low", reflecting evidence completeness

Produce the finding now.

Output schema¶

Source: schema.json.

Show schema.json

{

  "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",

  "$id": "https://github.com/AI4RA/prompt-library/components/cost-award-terms-conformance-check/schema.json",

  "title": "Award Terms Conformance Check \u2014 Finding",

  "description": "Structured single-requirement allowability finding for the award terms conformance check (2 CFR 200.403(b)). Part of the federal cost-allowability analysis workflow.",

  "version": "0.1.0",

  "type": "object",

  "additionalProperties": false,

  "required": [

    "check_id",

    "check_name",

    "regulation_anchor",

    "status",

    "summary",

    "rationale",

    "evidence",

    "follow_up_actions",

    "confidence"

  ],

  "properties": {

    "check_id": {

      "const": "cost-award-terms-conformance",

      "description": "Stable identifier for this check."

    },

    "check_name": {

      "const": "Award Terms Conformance",

      "description": "Human-readable check name."

    },

    "regulation_anchor": {

      "const": "2 CFR 200.403(b)",

      "description": "Primary regulatory anchor for this check."

    },

    "expense_id": {

      "type": [

        "string",

        "null"

      ],

      "description": "Expense reference carried from the input."

    },

    "status": {

      "type": "string",

      "enum": [

        "pass",

        "issue",

        "not_allowable",

        "needs_info",

        "not_applicable"

      ],

      "description": "Outcome of this check."

    },

    "summary": {

      "type": "string",

      "minLength": 1,

      "description": "One-sentence statement of the outcome."

    },

    "rationale": {

      "type": "string",

      "minLength": 1,

      "description": "Evidence-grounded reasoning behind the status."

    },

    "evidence": {

      "type": "array",

      "description": "Evidence relied on. May be empty only when status is not_applicable.",

      "items": {

        "type": "object",

        "additionalProperties": false,

        "required": [

          "source_label",

          "detail"

        ],

        "properties": {

          "source_label": {

            "type": "string",

            "minLength": 1,

            "description": "Short source label, e.g. award_terms:caps_and_exclusions."

          },

          "detail": {

            "type": "string",

            "minLength": 1,

            "description": "Concise summary of what the source shows."

          }

        }

      }

    },

    "follow_up_actions": {

      "type": "array",

      "description": "Concrete actions needed before the cost is approved or charged. Empty array when none.",

      "items": {

        "type": "string",

        "minLength": 1

      }

    },

    "confidence": {

      "type": "string",

      "enum": [

        "high",

        "medium",

        "low"

      ],

      "description": "Reviewer confidence in this finding."

    }

  }

}

Changelog¶

Source: CHANGELOG.md.

All notable changes to this component. Versions follow semver: MAJOR for output-contract breaks, MINOR for backward-compatible additions, PATCH for wording or clarity.

[0.1.0] — 2026-05-21¶

Initial experimental release.
Single-requirement allowability check anchored to 2 CFR 200.403(b), also surfacing cost-sharing (200.403(f)) and applicable-credit (200.406) conflicts.
Emits the shared cost-allowability finding object (status, summary, rationale, evidence, follow_up_actions, confidence) with check_id "cost-award-terms-conformance".
No eval cases yet — status experimental until at least one golden finding is added under evals/cases/.