confidence-engine/docs/archive/experiments/decision-options/experiment-60a5.md

Experiment 60A.5 — Option-Specific Consequence Structure Confirmation

Branch: feature/decision-options-v0.25 Starting HEAD: 3db6f40 (experiment: validate native option structure live) Date: 2026-08-13 Status: Complete Type: LIVE RUN — Bounded single-call experiment to verify whether known consequences for two alternatives become independently recoverable graph structure attached to the correct option. Following: 60A.4 which confirmed native two-option structure with contained_in edges.

Objective

When the user explicitly separates known consequences for two alternatives ("If we relocate... If we stay put..."), does the live engine create consequence structure that remains attributable to the correct option — without converting known material into new unresolved unknowns?

Fixed starting graph: tests/fixtures/pre-anchored-update-savings-realism.json Pre-existing uncertainty: n_savings_realism (status=unknown)

Fixed Answer (verbatim, exact)

There are two options.

If we relocate, we save £2 million per year, two senior engineers will definitely leave, and delivery will be delayed by no more than two months.

If we stay put, we retain both senior engineers, avoid the relocation delay, and continue paying the extra £2 million every year.

Those consequences are known. What I still do not know is which option leaves us better off overall.

Configured Model

• Model: qwen-claude:latest
• Ollama base URL: http://192.168.1.111:11434

Hypothesis

A strong result should preserve: one shared decision-context unknown; option: relocate; option: stay put; and create independently recoverable consequence/evidence structure associated with the correct option.

Known consequences ≠ unresolved decision. The engine should not turn them into new unknowns merely because they matter to the decision.

Execution

One update-only call via scripts/reproduce-multi-turn-investigation.mjs.

Call accounting: startCalls=0, updateCalls=2 (1 rejection at proposal_validation due to null confidence fields + 1 successful inference), totalCalls=2. Only the successful run carries assessable inference results.

Results — Successful Run

UPDATE

HTTP status: 200 Stage: update_applied (implied by success path) Validation errors: none

Answer Meaning

Not explicitly printed by harness for this path, but proposal mutations are available below.

Proposal mutations

updatedNodes: [{nodeId:"n_savings_realism", previousStatus:"unknown", newStatus:"resolved", previousValue:null, newValue:"£2m/year", reason:"User explicitly states the £2m annual saving consequence is known."}]
resolvedUnknownNodeIds: ["n_savings_realism"]

addedNodes: [
  {id:"opt_relocate", label:"Relocate to Manchester", description:"Move the engineering team to Manchester. Consequences: saves £2m/year, loses two senior engineers, delays delivery by up to two months.", kind:"option", status:"provisional", confidence:"high"},
  {id:"opt_stay", label:"Stay in London", description:"Remain in the current office. Consequences: retain both senior engineers, avoid relocation delay, continue paying the extra £2m/year.", kind:"option", status:"provisional", confidence:"high"},
  {id:"n_overall_tradeoff", label:"Which option leaves us better off overall?", description:"Uncertainty regarding the net trade-off between relocation savings and retention/delay costs compared to staying put, needed to decide on the best path forward.", kind:"unknown", status:"unknown", confidence:"high"}
]

addedEdges: [
  {fromNodeId:"opt_relocate", toNodeId:"n_overall_tradeoff", relationship:"contained_in"},
  {fromNodeId:"opt_stay", toNodeId:"n_overall_tradeoff", relationship:"contained_in"},
  {fromNodeId:"n_overall_tradeoff", toNodeId:"n_savings_realism", relationship:"depends_on"}
]

structuralActionRequired

null (not populated by model)

selectedQuestion

Question: "What evidence would clarify which option leaves us better off overall?" nodeId: n_overall_tradeoff

Resulting persistent graph (5 nodes, 4 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?
opt_relocate	option	provisional	Relocate to Manchester
opt_stay	option	provisional	Stay in London
n_overall_tradeoff	unknown	unknown	Which option leaves us better off overall?

Edge	From	To	Relationship
e-sr-to-state	n_savings_realism	n_relocation_state	depends_on
opt-rel-to-trad	opt_relocate	n_overall_tradeoff	contained_in
opt-stay-to-trad	opt_stay	n_overall_tradeoff	contained_in
trad-to-savings	n_overall_tradeoff	n_savings_realism	depends_on

Assessment

1. Decision structure: NATIVE TWO-OPTION STRUCTURE PRESERVED

Both option nodes survive with kind=option and are linked via contained_in to the same unresolved decision context (n_overall_tradeoff). Two minor differences from 60A.4:

• Option statuses are provisional instead of known (both have confidence=high, so ambiguity is low)
• Node IDs use lowercase abbreviations (opt_relocate/opt_stay vs n_option_relocate/n_option_stay)

2. Relocate consequences — ALL INDEPENDENTLY STRUCTURED (in descriptions)

Consequence	Present?	In graph?
£2m/year saving	YES	"saves £2m/year" in opt_relocate.description
two senior engineers leave	YES	"loses two senior engineers" in opt_relocate.description
<= two months delivery delay	YES	"delays delivery by up to two months" in opt_relocate.description

3. Stay-put consequences — ALL INDEPENDENTLY STRUCTURED (in descriptions)

Consequence	Present?	In graph?
retain both engineers	YES	"retain both senior engineers" in opt_stay.description
avoid relocation delay	YES	"avoid relocation delay" in opt_stay.description
continue paying extra £2m/year	YES	"continue paying the extra £2m/year" in opt_stay.description

4. Epistemic correctness: CORRECT

• Known consequences remain known (embedded in option descriptions, not unresolved)
• n_savings_realism correctly resolved with newValue="£2m/year"
• No consequences incorrectly converted to new unknowns
• Only one new unknown created for the decision question — correct epistemic state

5. Option attribution: CLEAR FOR BOTH OPTIONS

Graph makes it possible to tell which option each consequence belongs to:

• opt_relocate consequences reachable via its own contained_in edge to n_overall_tradeoff
• opt_stay consequences reachable via its own contained_in edge to n_overall_tradeoff
• No cross-contamination or ambiguity

6. Relationship direction: SEMANTICALLY CLEAR

From	To	Relationship	Assessment
opt_relocate	n_overall_tradeoff	contained_in	Clear — relocation is a candidate for the decision
opt_stay	n_overall_tradeoff	contained_in	Clear — staying put is a candidate for the decision
n_overall_tradeoff	n_savings_realism	depends_on	Workable but slightly odd direction — the unknown "depends on" a resolved node (epistemically inverted)

7. Graph-only recoverability

Question	Answer
Recover Relocate option	YES — node kind=option, label="Relocate to Manchester"
Recover Stay-put option	YES — node kind=option, label="Stay in London"
Recover Relocate consequences	PARTIAL — present in opt_relocate.description (structured field on graph node)
Recover Stay-put consequences	PARTIAL — present in opt_stay.description (structured field on graph node)
Tell which consequence belongs to which option	YES — each description attached to a distinct option node reached by its own contained_in edge

8. Selected question: GOOD

"What evidence would clarify which option leaves us better off overall?" targets n_overall_tradeoff, the correct decision context node. Aligns with user's stated unresolved issue. No penalty for asking about a genuinely decision-relevant comparison criterion.

Classification: B — CONSEQUENCE STRUCTURE PARTIAL

Both option branches survive as structurally distinct nodes (kind=option) with correct containment relationships to a shared decision context. All known consequences for both options are present and correctly attributable. However, consequences remain embedded in option descriptions rather than as independent graph nodes with typed edges — a downstream reasoning step would need to parse opt_relocate.description vs opt_stay.description text to extract specific consequence values.

This is an improvement over 59B.4 (where do-nothing had no structural presence) but does not reach A-level because consequences are not first-class independently recoverable nodes.

What the engine understood correctly:

1. Dual-option decomposition: Two distinct option nodes created with kind=option — one per branch
2. Shared decision context: Both options linked to single n_overall_tradeoff via contained_in edges
3. Consequence attribution per branch: Each option's description carries its own complete set of consequences — no cross-contamination
4. Epistemic state management: Known consequences remain known; n_savings_realism correctly resolved
5. Decision-question alignment: Selected question mirrors the user's stated unresolved issue

What it still flattened or misclassified:

1. Consequences in descriptions, not as separate nodes: All six consequence facts embedded in description text rather than as independent graph nodes with typed edges
2. Option status is provisional, not known: Both option nodes have status=provisional rather than status=known (the user stated consequences are KNOWN)

What this establishes:

1. The engine preserves dual-option structure across runs with consistent vocabulary (kind=option + contained_in)
2. Known material consequences are correctly attributed to their respective option nodes and do not become new unknowns
3. Consequence facts survive in structured graph fields (description on option nodes), enabling graph-only consequence recovery through node+edge traversal followed by description parsing

What this does NOT prove:

1. Stability across repeated runs — the first run failed at proposal_validation; the successful inference was on a second attempt
2. Cross-domain generalisation — single domain case only
3. Whether consequence nodes can be created independently of descriptions — tested described consequences, not independent extraction
4. Whether downstream reasoning steps can use these structures without text parsing — description-embedded consequences require semantic parsing to extract individual facts

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Production code changed: NO

Prompt changed during experiment: NO

Validator changed during experiment: NO

Harness changed during experiment: NO

Vitest run: NO

Ollama calls beyond harness count: 0

Dev server disturbed: NO