Experiment 60B.80 — Confirmation-Gated Model Closure Ownership (IMPLEMENTED)

Date: 2026-08-15
Branch: feature/decision-closure-ownership-v0.47
Preceded by: Experiment 60B.79 (closure enforcement boundary design)
Type: Bounded implementation — production + tests

Objective

Implement the deterministic decision-closure ownership gate: a parent decision can become terminal only when the user's raw answer contains explicit confirmation that no other material uncertainty remains. The normaliser strips the model's attempted closure while preserving all other proposal work.

What Was Built

Production (lib/graph/apply-proposal.js)

reconcileDecisionClosureOwnership(graph, proposal, answer) — new function:

Boundary B: Called between reconciliation and compatibility validation (after line 3679)
Receives raw answer for confirmation detection via isUserConfirmationOfNoRemainingUncertainty()
Builds parentNodeIds set from unknown nodes with incoming contained_in edges (decision-context mechanism from 60B.75)
Phase A: Strips terminal status → "unknown", newValue → null on parent entries in updatedNodes
Phase B: Strips parent from resolvedUnknownNodeIds; reverts reconciler-forced "resolved" → "unknown"; creates minimal no-op update when reconciler synthesized one

Prompt (lib/graph/prompt-builder.js)

Rule #143 rewritten:

OLD: If evidence sufficient, resolve decision context.
NEW: May not resolve unless user explicitly confirms no other material uncertainty remains. Direct model to use possibleInference for directional conclusions instead.

Tests (60B.80 — 15 new tests)

T1–T3: Three closure-strip scenarios (resolved/null, known/directional, resolved/directional)
T4: Explicit confirmation allows closure through deterministic gate
T5: Child non-parent resolution unaffected by stripping
T6: Customer resolution preserved alongside stripped decision
T7: answerMeaning survives normalisation (structuralActionRequired required per validator)
T8: Resolved bookkeeping consistency post-strip
T9: State B becomes reachable (activeUnknownNodeId = decision after strip)
T10: Ordinary decision_threshold behavior unchanged for non-parent scenarios
5× prompt-builder tests confirming Rule #143 text

Regression Preservation

Original	Treatment	Result
60B.43 lifecycle invariant	Added `answer: "no remaining material uncertainty"` + confirmation phrase to fixture answers	✅ PASS — terminal closure confirmed
60B.49 reconciliation auto-add	Same addition; structural reconciliation verified under confirmed flow	✅ PASS

Why This Design

Per 60B.79 analysis (Model E choice):

Deterministic stripping prevents premature closure — no retry loop risk
All non-parent proposal work preserved independently
State B questioning fires naturally when parent stays "unknown"
Direction preserved in answerMeaning fields as the canonical non-terminal channel
No hybrid unknown+value states created (semantically safe)
No schema changes required

What Is Now Guaranteed

Model cannot close parent decision without explicit user confirmation
Customer and non-parent updates always preserved regardless of confirmation state
Parent removed from resolved bookkeeping when stripped; no inconsistent states
State B reachable deterministically after no-confirmation stripping
Explicit user confirmation still authorizes closure through deterministic gate
Prompt rule requires confirmation rather than evidence-only sufficiency

Verification

Focused test run: 64 tests passed (including all new + regression preservation)
Full suite: 265 passed, 16 failed — all 16 pre-existing baseline failures (zero new regressions)

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