  We develop a method for treating the consistency relations of inflation that
includes the full time-evolution of the state. This approach relies only on the
symmetries of the inflationary setting, in particular a residual conformal
symmetry in the spatial part of the metric, along with general properties which
hold for any quantum field theory. As a result, the consistency relations that
emerge, which are essentially the Slavnov-Taylor identities associated with
this residual conformal symmetry, apply very generally: they are true of the
full Green's functions, hold largely independently of the particular
inflationary model, and can be used for arbitrary states. We illustrate these
techniques by showing the form assumed by the standard consistency relation
between the two and three-point functions for the primordial scalar
fluctuations when they are in a Bunch-Davies state. But because we have
included the full evolution of the state, this approach works for a general
initial state as well and does not need to have assumed that inflation began in
the Bunch-Davies state.
