# Architecture Guardrails

## Hard boundary for UX tasks

When a task is described as UI, UX, layout, styling, loading feedback or
presentation work, do not modify:

- reasoning algorithms;
- unknown selection;
- reasoning-pattern selection;
- question formulation;
- atomicity or answerability assessment;
- graph mutation;
- graph schemas;
- API request or response contracts;
- reconstruction prompts;
- provider configuration;
- confidence propagation;
- compatibility validation.

If a UX request appears to require one of those changes, stop and report the
dependency rather than changing it silently.

## Reasoning invariants

Preserve these invariants:

- The LLM proposes information; deterministic code owns graph mutation.
- Every user-facing question comes from an explicit unresolved graph node.
- Questions contain one primary concept and seek one coherent answer.
- Unknowns must be atomic or decomposed.
- Atomic wording alone is insufficient; a selected unknown must be independently
  answerable.
- Question family must match the active reasoning pattern.
- Active investigation nodes must be compatible with the reasoning pattern.
- Relationship classification cannot outrun comparability assessment.
- Ambiguity remains explicit rather than being resolved alphabetically.
- Parent unknowns do not resolve before their completion rule is satisfied.
- Confidence must not outrun evidence or completeness.
- Duplicate evidence must not increase confidence.
- Conflicting evidence caps conclusion confidence.
- A successful update must rerun deterministic next-question selection when
  eligible unknowns remain.
- No question is preferable to an unjustified question.

## Current architecture, simplified

Scenario
→ reconstruction
→ situation graph
→ unknown selection
→ atomicity
→ answerability
→ reasoning pattern
→ investigation strategy
→ question family
→ question formulation
→ complexity validation
→ user answer
→ proposed graph update
→ deterministic validation/application
→ propagation
→ confidence/completeness update
→ next unknown

## Compatibility discipline

Do not expand schemas merely because a model emits a synonym.

Prefer:

1. identify the source;
2. determine whether it is a synonym;
3. normalise deterministically when justified;
4. retain strict validation.

Do not weaken validation globally to fix a single malformed response.