confidence-engine/docs/design-evolution/README.md

Design Evolution — Canonical Archive Index

Design Evolution is historical provenance.

It records what was believed, tested, rejected, learned, and changed over time.

It is NOT the source of current product truth.

For current product state use:

• docs/current-handoff.md
• docs/current-project-state.md

Historical material should be loaded only when a specific historical question requires it. This index enables progressive, on-demand loading of individual chapters.

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Chapter Index

All chapters are exact contiguous extracts from the former monolith at docs/design-evolution-log.md.

Era 1 — Early Interface and Investigation Exploration

Ch	Path	Source Lines	Summary
1	ch1/experiments-01-to-06-and-phases-1-to-4.md	1–352	Phases 1–4 and Experiments 01–06.
2	ch2/early-reasoning-and-provenance-discovery.md	354–1122	Experiments 07–20 and emerging-direction material.
3	ch3/phase-transition-and-emerging-directions.md	1124–1216	Phase transition, graph as source of truth, Experiments 21–22.

Era 2 — State Assessment and Passive Classifier Work

Ch	Path	Source Lines	Summary
4	ch4/passive-classifiers-and-explore-contract-validation.md	1218–1501	Experiments 23–25B and closeout material.
5	ch5/context-inventory-routing-and-handoff-infrastructure.md	1502–2052	Experiments 26–34 — context routing and handoff infrastructure.
6	ch6/handoff-validation-behavior-selection-and-assessor-audit.md	2053–2503	Experiments 35–41 and assessor audit.

Era 3 — Documentation and Context-Routing Evolution

Ch	Path	Source Lines	Summary
7	ch7/experiments-42-to-46.md	2504–3069	Experiments 42–46 — Clarify readiness, "Too Broad" boundaries.
8	ch8/experiments-47-to-51.md	3070–3534	Experiments 47–51 — coherence diagnostic, semantic decision-relevance.
9	ch9/experiments-52-to-52i.md	3535–4980	Experiments 52–52I — semantic generalisation, ambiguity normalisation.

Era 4 — Behaviour and Coherence Experiments

Ch	Path	Source Lines	Summary
10	ch10/experiments-54a-to-54k-provenance-audit.md	4981–6423	Experiments 54A–54K — provenance audit chain, grounding with live inference.
11	ch11/experiments-54l-to-54q-grounding-and-evidence-stability.md	6425–7824	Experiments 54L–54Q — grounding stability, evidence discrimination.
12	ch12/experiment-54r-clarification-requires-source.md	7825–8012	Experiment 54R — evidence vs. user-input disagreement classification.

Era 5 — Semantic Relevance Experiments

Ch	Path	Source Lines	Summary
13	ch13/54S-54V-clarification-target-and-answer-resolution.md	8013–8635	Experiments 54S–54V — clarification target identification, stability.
14	ch14/54W-54Z-clarification-chain-and-target-broadening.md	8636–9294	Experiments 54W–54Z — clarification chain integrity, target broadening.

Era 6 — Provenance and Grounding Experiments

Ch	Path	Source Lines	Summary
15	ch15/55A-preserve-uncertainty-from-weak-clarification-answers.md	9296–9529	Experiment 55A — preserving uncertainty from weak clarification answers.
16	ch16/55B-separate-answer-meaning-from-resolution-judgement.md	9530–9748	Experiment 55B — separating answer meaning from resolution judgement.
17	ch17/55C-resolution-from-preserved-answer-meaning.md	9749–9982	Experiment 55C — two-stage resolution from preserved meaning.

Era 7 — Reasoning Refinement and Recent Product Provenance

Ch	Path	Source Lines	Summary
18	ch18/55D-separate-stated-vs-inferred-meaning-through-v058-provenance.md	9983–10322	Experiments 55D–55F and v0.51–v0.58 product provenance.

Era 8 — Initial Decomposition Hardening (frozen)

Ch	Path	Source Lines	Summary
19	ch19/initial-decomposition-v0.61.md	—	v0.61 initial decomposition: repeated-same-input stability, Qwen/Terra comparison, focused-deconstruction plumbing fix. Status: frozen for current MVP stage.

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Structure Notes

• This index is the canonical routing entry point for Design Evolution provenance material.
• Physical archive files remain at docs/archive/experiments/vol-1-chapters/. Their locations are verified and stable.
• A later task may decide whether physical relocation is worthwhile. That decision is separate from this indexing step.

Historical Integrity

All chapter files are exact historical records. They were not rewritten, modernised, or reconciled during extraction or migration.