Returning Findings: The Smallest Supported Cut
An artifact passes its producer's checks and reaches two independent consumers. One succeeds; the other fails under a different Environment. That failure alone neither condemns the artifact nor proves that its producer caused the failure. Drift instead performs a bounded dependency walk across the exact Composition Suite and its retained evidence, stopping where observations can distinguish one responsible boundary from its rivals.
Returning findings are Designed; no feedback path runs, and reverse execution is forbidden. Maturity remains in State of Work; ADR 34 owns the evidentiary law, while Spellweaver owns any later executable admission.
Fix the graph under examination
Entry requires an exact, version-pinned Composition Suite graph; each member Composition and Pattern revision; retained artifact and Intent handoffs; the downstream failing observation; its Rubric, Evaluator, Environment, verdict, and uncertainty; and declared dependencies between artifacts and evidence.
The Composition Suite coordinates separately owned applications. It does not merge their domain rows, secrets, Sigils, approvals, policies, or effect authority. A finding must therefore preserve which owner produced each artifact, which consumer observed it, and which contract connected them.
Four inert records carry the result:
| Record | Contents |
|---|---|
CompositionSuiteFindingSet@1 |
Binds Rubric, Composition Suite, subjects, Environment, observations, measurements, Evaluator, verdicts, and uncertainty |
AttributionCandidate@1 |
Names a possible responsible boundary, supporting and conflicting evidence, rivals, and uncertainty; never causal certainty |
InvalidationSet@1 |
Names claims whose support no longer survives and claims whose complete evidence closure remains intact |
CorrectionRequest@1 |
Gives one owner a bounded target delta, preserved constraints, evidence, proposed scope, and repair budget |
None can grant authority, authorize spending, delete, mutate, publish, promote, or train. Return travels as evidence, not reverse Graph edges.
Walk only as far as evidence supports
Start at the failing observation and follow its declared dependencies backward. Stop at the narrowest boundary the evidence can distinguish from rival explanations: that is the smallest supported cut. The nearest producer is only one possible explanation. To reuse earlier evidence, check that its complete input closure, artifact revisions, Rubric, Evaluator, relevant Environment, and evidence contract still match.
The same artifact may still work for an independent consumer. The InvalidationSet@1 therefore
identifies the claims whose complete support has broken and preserves every intact closure.
Missing lineage, flaky measurements, shared-input contagion, Evaluator capture, or unresolved
rival explanations lead to UNKNOWN or DISPUTED. If policy allows further recovery, seek the
missing distinction through a broader bounded trial. Do not reconstruct unobserved history or
assign blame to fill the gap.
A deterministic localized regression with complete lineage is the positive control: it may
support a narrow AttributionCandidate@1 and CorrectionRequest@1. Negative controls vary the
downstream Environment, induce Evaluator failure, and compare independent consumers without
contaminating them. These comparisons defend against proximity attribution. Categorical
responsibility is refused when lineage or Evaluator independence is absent.
Trials owns the deeper control design.
Return through ordinary forward admission
Spellweaver may admit a CorrectionRequest@1 only as a new forward Invocation under ordinary
validation, budget, authority, consent, cancellation, and termination rules. It cannot resume an
old producer arbitrarily, mutate the retained artifact, or inherit authority from the failing
consumer. Prior Runs and Outcomes remain immutable lineage.
Branches qualify for reuse only while their complete evidence closure still matches. Exhausted repair budgets, repeated unsupported findings, or unresolved attribution terminate honestly. Any resulting capability claim follows Capability claims and must earn support from new retained evidence.