Model Documentation
Model cards, intended use, limitations, and the record a regulator will ask for.
5 to work through
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beginner
A team is asked to produce documentation for a model that scores loan applications. They propose a technical write-up of the architecture and the training data. What is missing, who actually reads this document, and what is it not?
2 min answer -
intermediate
A model makes decisions affecting people. What documentation is actually required, and who is it for?
2 min answer -
intermediate Multiple choice
A support assistant answers questions by retrieving from an internal wiki and a ticket archive and passing the result to a hosted model. Your model documentation template has a training-data section you cannot fill because you did not train the model. Which section should replace it?
2 min answer -
intermediate
What should model documentation contain, and who is it actually for?
1 min answer -
intermediate
Your model documentation for a customer-facing assistant records the provider's model version it was validated against and the evaluation scores from that run. The Azure deployment of that hosted model is set to auto-update to the provider's default version. Overnight the provider's default changes. What happens next?
3 min answer
2 terms in this topic
Intended Use Statement
The part of model documentation that states what the model is validated for and what it must not be used for, so that a deployer can tell whether the…
toolModel Card
A structured document describing a model's intended use, training data, evaluation results, limitations and ethical considerations.
Neighbouring topics
Assurance, Audit & Model Risk
General material on assurance, architectural governance and risk oversight.
Control Design vs Operation
A control that is well designed and never runs fails exactly like one that is absent.
Audit Evidence
Producing durable, tamper-evident proof as a by-product rather than as a project.
Certification Impact on Architecture
What SOC 2 and ISO 27001 actually require of a design, and what they do not.
Continuous Controls Monitoring
Testing controls continuously instead of sampling them once a year.
Segregation of Duties
Splitting authority so no single actor can both make and approve a change.
Change Advisory vs Automated Gates
Replacing a weekly board with evidence a machine produces on every change.
Risk Appetite
The stated tolerance that tells you which risks you are allowed to accept.
Risk Assessment Methods
Qualitative matrices, FAIR and scenario analysis, and the illusion of a precise score.
Security Design Review
Reviewing an architecture for security while changing it is still cheap.
Architecture Compliance Checks
Automating conformance to standards so review effort goes to the genuinely novel.
Exception & Waiver Management
Time-boxed, owned deviations with a remediation date, rather than permanent silence.
Design Authority
How an ARB should decide, what it should not review, and how it avoids becoming a queue.
Three Lines Model
Ownership, oversight and independent assurance, and where architecture sits in it.
Model Risk Management
Inventory, validation, monitoring and challenge for models that make consequential decisions.
AI Risk Tiering
Classifying a use case by potential harm, and the obligations each tier triggers.
Model Evaluation & Red-Teaming
Adversarial testing of a probabilistic system with no fixed expected output.
Bias & Fairness Controls
Measuring disparate outcomes, choosing a fairness definition, and living with the trade-off.
Human-in-the-Loop Design
Meaningful review rather than a rubber stamp, and designing against automation bias.