Present technology is directed to preferred processing and the verification of diagnostic signatures for a plurality of network defect. The disclosed optimization process is based on expressing each Diagnostic Signature as a minimal sum of product Boolean function of associated network commands, followed by ranking of each command reference in the product terms of the Boolean expression as well as each Boolean product terms of the SOP Boolean expressions, and constructing a decision tree based on the provided rankings to thereby determine a minimum set of commands along with an preferred command dispatch sequence for evaluating a Diagnostic Signature. Further aspects include the translation of both the optimization computation (interpretation of network conditions associated with a network defect) and the computed workflow (dispatch of the command) into a series of declarative rules that can be processed by a machine reasoning engine to thereby automate the optimization process.