Everyone talks about the model. The part that kept breaking on me was the handover.
I work on the deployer side of a high-risk AI system. Under the EU AI Act, Article 13 puts an obligation on the provider to supply instructions for use, and Article 26 puts matching duties on deployers. But the obligation is written from the provider's point of view: it tells them what to write, not me what to ask for. The first time I drafted the procurement questions, I had a running system, a marketing datasheet, and an API reference, but no list of what "complete" even meant.
The obligation is written for the other side of the table
A rule that says "the provider shall supply X" is, from my chair, a list of things I should be able to demand and check off. Nobody hands you that inverted list; you build it yourself before you can evaluate anything the provider sends. I tried by hand in a spreadsheet: one row per item, three columns for what the obligation asks, what we received, and whether we hold a document that proves it. That third column was the useful one. The gap was never "the provider is non-compliant" but "we have no artefact for this row", which is a problem I could act on.
The manual version was slow and it drifted. Every new system meant starting from memory, which is work that should be a template, not a craft.
What I actually built
I built InstructPack to produce that ask-list as a draft. You paste how you deploy a provider system, and it returns an Article 13 instructions-for-use demand pack: a readiness read, a demand list aimed at the provider, and the evidence gaps where your handover has nothing behind it. That is the whole feature set. It does not read your contract, open the provider's PDF, or score whether the provider met the article.
The output is deliberately boring: a demand list, a readiness summary, a set of gaps. I did not want a verdict, because a verdict would imply the tool had seen evidence it has no access to. A one-sentence input cannot produce a serious deployment description, and a thin draft is itself feedback.
Why the evidence-gaps column is the useful one
If you have been through an assessment, the question is rarely "is this correct" but "show me the artefact". A demand pack that only lists obligations gives you a reading list; one that marks whether you hold a document for each item gives you a work queue. It turns a legal reading exercise into an engineering backlog: three documents to request, one owner to assign, one row where the honest answer is "we don't know yet". That is a fine state for a draft to report and a bad one to discover during a review.
The limits, stated plainly
This is a decision-support tool. It is not legal advice, it is not a certification, and it is not a live audit harness. It does not observe your system, connect to the provider, or decide whether your system is high-risk. Whether Articles 13 and 26 apply depends on classification under the Act, including the Annex III use cases, and that question belongs with someone who can read your actual deployment. If your system is not high-risk, most of this work does not apply.
I am referencing a real obligation, not a deadline, not a fine, and not a promise that a filled-in form makes anything compliant. Article 13 requires the provider to make information available to the deployer; InstructPack helps the deployer articulate what to request. Those are different jobs, and I would rather be honest about that boundary than useful in a way that misleads. If your handover is a datasheet and a hope, the paste-first draft at InstructPack gives you a place to start.
FAQ
What exactly does InstructPack produce?
An Article 13 instructions-for-use demand pack: a readiness read, a demand list for a provider, and the evidence gaps where your handover has no artefact. You paste a description and get a structured draft back.
Does it check whether the provider is compliant?
No. It has no access to the provider's documents or your contract. It drafts what to ask for and where your evidence is thin; judging compliance is a separate task for someone holding the documents.
Is this legal advice or a certification?
Neither. It is a decision-support draft, not legal advice, not a certification, and not a live audit harness. Whether the obligations apply depends on classification the tool does not determine.
Do I need this if my system is not high-risk?
Probably not. Article 13 and the related deployer duties are tied to high-risk systems, including the Annex III categories. If that is not your situation, most of the demand list will not apply.
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