Experiment 57E — Irrelevant Decomposition Question Boundary

Date: 2026-08-10 Branch: feature/relationship-contract-v0.10 Model: qwen-claude:latest at http://192.168.1.111:11434 Live calls: 1 start + 1 update = 2 (within budget)

Objective

Identify the exact graph node that triggered the decomposition producing "How the two observations were measured", and determine whether the parent was genuinely about comparison/measurement/timing before decomposition.

Fixed inputs

Scenario: Should I relocate my engineering team from London to Manchester?
Answer 1: We're looking at this mainly for cost reduction — roughly £2M annual savings on office overhead.

Canonical execution route

Dev server: npx next dev → http://localhost:3000
Start: POST /api/cases/start
Update 1: POST /api/cases/update
Script: scripts/reproduce-multi-turn-investigation.mjs (temporarily instrumented, then restored)

Results

Selected question

Exact text: "What evidence would clarify how the two observations were measured?"
Node ID: np6zcaw
Reasoning pattern: comparison
Investigation strategy: evidence_gathering

Selected active unknown node (np6zcaw)

id: np6zcaw
label: How the two observations were measured
description: Need evidence about the measure used for each observation, because that could help explain Should I relocate my engineering team from London to Manchester.
kind: unknown
status: unknown
parentId: nagtgmg
childIds: ["nagtgmg"]

Parent node (nagtmgmg)

id: nagtgmg
label: Explanation for why Should I relocate my engineering team from London to Manchester
description: Need to understand what change or event could explain why these observations differ, because that is needed to investigate their relationship.
kind: unknown
status: unknown
parentId: null (top-level)
childIds: [none populated — children added via graph edges]

Sibling/decomposition children of parent nagtgmg

id: nlymgp2, label: Whether the two observations reflect different timing, description: Need to know whether the two observations reflect different timing, because that could help explain Should I relocate my engineering team from London to Manchester., kind: unknown, status: unknown
id: np6zcaw, label: How the two observations were measured, description: Need evidence about the measure used for each observation, because that could help explain Should I relocate my engineering team from London to Manchester., kind: unknown, status: unknown
id: ndya37c, label: Possible change mainly affecting engineering team is currently operational in london, description: Need to know whether a possible change mainly affected engineering team is currently operational in london, because that could help explain Should I relocate my engineering team from London to Manchester., kind: unknown, status: unknown
id: nmak7da, label: Possible change mainly affecting relocation to manchester is actively being evaluated by the decision-maker, description: Need to know whether a possible change mainly affected relocation to manchester is actively being evaluated by the decision-maker, because that could help explain Should I relocate my engineering team from London to Manchester., kind: unknown, status: unknown
id: nqajgbf, label: Possible one-off event during the period, description: Need to know whether a possible one-off event happened during the period, because that could help explain Should I relocate my engineering team from London to Manchester., kind: unknown, status: unknown

Decomposition diagnostic fields retained by API

None — the production API does not expose decomposition parent/child diagnostics in its response.

Pre-written decision rule (recorded before run)

Outcome A — decomposition trigger defect: parent is NOT genuinely about comparing observations/measurement/timing, yet decomposition generates those children
Outcome B — decomposition template defect: parent IS comparison-related but child template is over-specific
Outcome C — both
Outcome D — insufficient evidence

Classification: A — decomposition trigger defect

Rationale

The parent node nagtmgmg has NO semantics of comparison, measurement validity, or timing. Its description only references "these observations differ" in a generic explanatory sense (what change/event explains the difference between initial state and current state). It does not establish that there are two measured observations to compare. Yet decomposition produced five children including hardcoded "two observations" templates.

The parent itself is a generic "explanation for difference" unknown — structurally similar to any post-hoc explanation query — and does NOT contain comparison/measurement semantics. The "two observations" language in decomposition children originates from buildDecompositionTemplates() default template (line 1484–1510 of lib/graph/apply-proposal.js) which unconditionally injects these children for any unknown parent that doesn't match special-case regex patterns.

What this experiment established

The "two observations" decomposition children are template-injected regardless of parent meaning
They appear whenever buildDecompositionTemplates() runs for a generic unknown node that doesn't match special-case regex patterns
The selected question was assigned reasoning pattern "comparison" despite the parent having no comparison semantics
This is a decomposition trigger defect, not merely an over-specific template

What this experiment does NOT prove

That every decomposition is irrelevant (some parents genuinely concern comparison/measurement)
That fixing the trigger won't break valid decompositions elsewhere
Whether other template children (change affecting X/Y, one-off event) share the same defect pattern or have independent justification issues

Cleanup

Production code changed: NO
Canonical script restored after temporary instrumentation: YES
Retries/additional runs: 0
Ollama calls beyond budget: 0

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