# Experiment 59A.1 — Shift from Savings Realism to Worth-It Reasoning

**Branch:** `feature/question-formulation-v0.24`
**Date:** 2026-08-12
**Status:** Complete

---

## Objective

When the financial saving is accepted as real but the user introduces retention and delivery consequences, does the engine stop re-investigating the saving and shift the investigation toward whether the relocation is actually worth doing?

## Context route

Follows 58B.1 (unverified savings kept open) and 58B.2 (verified savings correctly resolved). This tests the semantic boundary *after* resolution: what does the engine do when the user says "the saving is real, but is it worth the cost?"

## Fixed starting graph

Fixture: `tests/fixtures/pre-anchored-update-savings-realism.json`

```
n_savings_realism — Are the projected office savings from relocation realistic? — status = unknown
```

## Fixed answer

> I am comfortable that the £2 million annual saving is real. What I am not sure about now is whether relocating is actually worth it if we lose key engineers or slow delivery for a year.

## Execution

**Host/model:** qwen-claude:latest at http://192.168.1.111:11434
**Calls:** startCalls=0, updateCalls=1, totalCalls=1

---

## Results

### UPDATE output

```
updatedNodes: [{"nodeId":"n_savings_realism","previousStatus":"unknown","newStatus":"resolved","previousValue":null,"newValue":"Confirmed realistic: £2M annual saving is real","reason":"User explicitly confirmed comfort with the projected savings."}]
resolvedUnknownNodeIds: ["n_savings_realism"]
addedNodes: [{"id":"n_relocation_net_value","label":"Does relocating provide net value despite potential staff loss or delivery slowdown?","description":"Uncertainty about whether the £2M annual savings outweigh the costs of losing key engineers or slowing engineering delivery for a year, so that we can determine if the relocation is actually worth pursuing.","kind":"unknown","status":"unknown","confidence":"low","value":null,"unit":null,"evidenceIds":[],"dependsOn":[],"affects":[],"parentId":null,"childIds":["n_relocation_state"]}]
addedEdges: [{"id":"e-net-value-to-state","fromNodeId":"n_relocation_net_value","toNodeId":"n_relocation_state","relationship":"depends_on","confidence":"medium","description":"Net value assessment depends on the relocation consideration state."}]
```

### Resulting graph (3 nodes, 2 edges)

| Node | Kind | Status | Label |
|------|------|--------|-------|
| n_relocation_state | state | provisional | Engineering team relocation consideration |
| n_savings_realism | unknown | **resolved** | Are the projected office savings from relocation realistic? |
| **n_relocation_net_value** | unknown | unknown | Does relocating provide net value despite potential staff loss or delivery slowdown? |

### Selected question

`"Does relocating provide net value despite potential staff loss or delivery slowdown?"` → nodeId: `n_relocation_net_value`

---

## Reasoning Assessment

| Criterion | Result |
|-----------|--------|
| Savings-realism question | CLOSED CORRECTLY |
| £2m/year saving | PRESERVED AS ACCEPTED EVIDENCE |
| Key-engineer retention risk | STRUCTURALLY REPRESENTED |
| Delivery slowdown | STRUCTURALLY REPRESENTED |
| Decision shift | SHIFTED TO WORTH-IT / CONSEQUENCE REASONING |
| Next question quality | GOOD |

### What the engine understood correctly

1. "Comfortable...real" triggered correct resolution of `n_savings_realism`
2. The £2m figure survived as accepted evidence
3. Boundary shift: formulated a consequence-based trade-off question, not another savings question
4. Both key consequences captured in one structural node
5. No redundant investigation of the resolved question

### What it lost or flattened

- Two distinct risks (staff loss, delivery slowdown) bundled into one unknown — structurally represented but loses independent resolution paths
- "£2 million annual" → `"£2M"` in newValue; precise form less granular than 58B.2's `"£2,000,000"`

### Classification: A — SUCCESSFUL DECISION SHIFT

---

## What this establishes

1. Engine can shift investigation boundary when explicitly told an existing uncertainty is resolved
2. Consequence-based trade-off unknown can be created in a single update call
3. Multiple consequences can be captured in one structural node

## What this does NOT prove

1. Stability across repeated runs
2. Whether the engine distinguishes between consequences that matter differently
3. Cross-domain generalisation

---

**Production code changed:** NO
**Prompt changed:** NO
**Ollama calls beyond harness count:** 0