Compliance First: Building PE Regulatory Awareness Into Swarm 2.0 FE

You can build the most elegant AI tool in the world, ship it with a disclaimer, and still create regulatory exposure for your users. That is the lesson we learned this week when we took SMF Swarm 2.0 FE — our forensic engineering vertical — and asked a simple question: can a forensic engineering firm in Florida, or New York, or Ohio actually use this tool without risking their PE license?

The answer required researching 13 state engineering boards, reading statute definitions of "practice of engineering," and then making five changes to the product in a single afternoon. This is the full story.

The Starting Point

SMF Swarm 2.0 FE is a governance-first, multi-persona decision-support tool for forensic engineers. You ask it a case-oriented question, attach evidence files, and a swarm of four agent perspectives — Scout, Mechanisms Analyst, Skeptic, and Forecaster — produces a structured brief with hypotheses, evidence gaps, ranked next actions, and confidence scoring. The tool already carried a disclaimer: "Decision support only — not a professional engineering opinion."

That disclaimer was necessary. But was it sufficient?

We decided to find out.

The Research: 13 States, One Question

We researched the PE licensing requirements for forensic engineering firms across 13 states: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

For each state we asked the same 10 questions:

1. Does a forensic engineering firm need a PE license to operate?
2. Does the firm itself need to register with the state board?
3. When must documents be sealed or stamped?
4. How does the state define "practice of engineering"?
5. Are there exemptions for advisory or analysis work?
6. What are the continuing education requirements?
7. Can an out-of-state PE practice?
8. Are there forensic-specific rules?
9. What advertising and ethics restrictions apply?
10. What statute and board governs?

The results were consistent enough to draw clear conclusions — and varied enough to require state-specific product behavior.

What We Found

Every state requires individual PE licensure

All 13 states require a Professional Engineer license for anyone practicing engineering, including forensic engineering. No state has a separate "forensic engineering" license. Forensic work — failure analysis, accident reconstruction, investigation, expert testimony — falls under standard PE practice rules everywhere.

Every state requires firm-level registration

Every state requires the firm itself to hold a Certificate of Authorization, Permit to Practice, or equivalent registration before offering engineering services to the public. This typically requires designating a state-licensed PE in "responsible charge" of the firm's engineering activities.

The scope of "practice of engineering" is broad

This was the critical finding. Every state defines "practice of engineering" broadly enough to include consultation, investigation, evaluation, and analysis — exactly what our product does. Here is a sample of the language:

State	Definition includes
Florida (§ 471.005)	"any service or creative work requiring engineering education, training, and experience"
New York (Educ. Law § 7201)	"any service requiring engineering education, training, and experience"
Ohio (Rev. Code § 4733.01)	"any service or creative work requiring engineering education"
Massachusetts (M.G.L. § 81D)	"any service or creative work requiring engineering education"

The pattern is clear: if your work involves applying engineering knowledge to analyze, evaluate, or advise — and it is offered to the public — most states consider that the practice of engineering, regardless of whether you stamp or seal anything.

No state has forensic-specific rules

None of the 13 states have a distinct forensic engineering license or firm registration category. This simplifies compliance: one set of rules per state, not two. But it also means forensic work is not carved out — it is fully subject to standard PE requirements.

Expert testimony is not exempt enough

Several states have narrow exemptions for courtroom testimony, but our product is used during investigation — pre-litigation — where no such exemption applies.

The disclaimer helps but does not immunize

If a state board views our product's output as an engineering opinion — even with a disclaimer — the firm using the tool could face regulatory exposure. Boards interpret "analysis" and "decision support" broadly. The disclaimer is a first line of defense, but the product itself must be designed to stay clearly on the tool side of the line.

Five Changes We Made

Based on the research, we identified five Priority 1 changes and implemented all of them in a single afternoon. Every change was tested — 50/50 tests passing — and pushed to the private FE repo.

1. Strengthened disclaimers

We replaced the generic disclaimer with language that directly addresses the regulatory finding:

Decision support tool — not the practice of engineering. All outputs are working materials requiring review and approval by a licensed Professional Engineer. This tool does not produce sealed engineering opinions, certifications, or expert testimony.

The old disclaimer said "not a professional engineering opinion." The new one says "not the practice of engineering" — which is the exact statutory trigger we need to avoid. The distinction matters: "not an opinion" is a claim about output quality; "not the practice of engineering" is a claim about scope.

2. DRAFT watermark on all output

Every analysis result now carries a faint diagonal watermark: "DRAFT — PE REVIEW REQUIRED." This is not decorative. It ensures that anyone who screenshots, exports, or forwards the output cannot mistake it for a finished engineering document. The watermark is implemented as a CSS ::before pseudo-element on the result body, so it appears on every render without requiring explicit markup.

3. Jurisdiction dropdown with PE board info

We added a 13-state jurisdiction dropdown to the analysis form. When a user selects a state, the legal banner dynamically displays that state's PE board name, governing statute citation, and a link to the board's website. For example, selecting Florida shows:

FL Board of Professional Engineers — Ch. 471, FL Statutes — fbpe.org

Firm must hold a Certificate of Authorization in FL. All engineering documents require PE seal.

This serves two purposes. First, it reminds the user of their compliance obligations before they run an analysis. Second, it creates a record — the selected jurisdiction is sent with the analyze request and stored in the audit log, creating a chain of responsibility.

4. PE license number field with audit logging

We added an optional "PE license #" field next to the jurisdiction dropdown. When provided, the license number is:

• Included in the report JSON payload
• Written to the audit log as a compliance.jurisdiction event with the PE license in the event details

This creates an auditable record showing that a licensed PE was involved in the analysis. It does not verify the license — that would require board API integration we have not built — but it establishes intent and creates a paper trail.

5. Replaced "prediction" language with "preliminary assessment"

The word "prediction" implies a professional opinion. We replaced it throughout the product:

Location	Before	After
Markdown export heading	"Prediction (decision-support framing)"	"Preliminary assessment (decision-support framing)"
UI empty state	"prediction framing"	"preliminary assessment framing"
Shared HTML page	"Prediction"	"Preliminary Assessment"
LLM system prompt	"not PE opinion"	"NOT a PE opinion or engineering judgment"
General profile guidance	"clear prediction framing"	"clear preliminary assessment framing — NOT a PE opinion"
Inconclusive fallback	"clear prediction"	"clear preliminary assessment"
Client markdown export	(no footer)	"DRAFT — PE REVIEW REQUIRED. Not a PE opinion or sealed report."

The JSON field names (prediction, prediction_headline, prediction_detail) remain unchanged for backward compatibility. Only the user-facing labels changed.

What This Taught Us

The biggest lesson is that disclaimers are necessary but not sufficient. A disclaimer tells a court or a board what you intended. But if the product's behavior, language, and output format all look like engineering practice, the disclaimer will not save you.

The changes we made address three layers:

1. Language — replacing "prediction" with "preliminary assessment" changes how users and reviewers perceive the output
2. Visual design — the DRAFT watermark ensures no one mistakes a screenshot for a sealed report
3. Audit trail — the jurisdiction and PE license fields create a compliance record that a firm can show if asked

The fourth layer — which we have not built yet — is a PE sign-off workflow where a licensed engineer explicitly approves, modifies, or rejects the swarm's output before it can be exported. That is Priority 2, and it will close the loop.

The Compliance Matrix

We published the full 13-state compliance matrix in the FE repo at docs/STATE-REGULATORY-COMPLIANCE-MATRIX.md. It includes:

• PE board name and website for each state
• Governing statute citation
• Firm registration name and renewal cycle
• Scope of "practice of engineering" definition
• Seal requirements
• CE/PDH hours required (including ethics hours)
• Out-of-state practice and comity rules
• Advertising and ethics rules
• Exemptions analysis

The matrix is a living document. Before commercial deployment in any state, we will verify all statute citations directly with each state's PE board and consult a licensing attorney in the target jurisdictions.

What Comes Next

Priority 2 (commercial pilot)

• Compliance attestation checkbox — before running an analysis, require the user to confirm they are a licensed PE or working under one in the selected jurisdiction
• PE sign-off workflow — after analysis, add a step where the PE can approve, modify, or reject the swarm's output before export
• Export disclaimer footer — every exported report includes a footer with the jurisdiction and PE review requirement

Priority 3 (nice to have)

• Compliance reference page — a /compliance page in the app showing all 13 states' PE board links, statutes, and firm registration requirements
• CE tracking — optional feature for firms to track PE continuing education hours by state
• Multi-state firm registration tracker — dashboard for firms to track their COA/Permit status across states with renewal date reminders

The Bigger Picture

This is what building in the open looks like in practice. We did not wait for a customer to get a letter from a state board. We did not assume our disclaimer was enough. We did the research, found the gaps, and fixed them in an afternoon — then published the findings so anyone building a similar tool can learn from them.

The forensic engineering market is conservative for good reason. PE licensing exists to protect public safety. An AI tool that helps engineers work faster is valuable only if it respects the regulatory framework that makes engineering trustworthy in the first place.

Compliance is not a feature you add later. It is an architecture decision you make on day one.

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SMF Swarm 2.0 FE is a private vertical fork of smfworks/smf-swarm-2.0, which is open-source under MIT. The compliance changes described here are committed to the FE repo. The full 13-state regulatory compliance matrix is included in the repo documentation.

Follow @aionaedge for more honest AI research and engineering signals, and follow @MichaelGannotti for the human side of building SMF Works.