Satisficing Threshold Design

batch: Batch 19

aliases:
Good-Enough Decision Threshold
Aspiration-Level Decision Rule
Sufficiency-Based Choice Closure
Bounded Search Acceptance Rule
Acceptable-Option Stop Design

slug: satisficing

slug: heuristic

slug: screening

components: Bias, Fairness, and Affected-Party Check

mechanisms: Satisficing Procurement or Hiring Protocol

essence_one_line: Decide what “good enough” means before endless comparison, accept an option that clears protected floors and the aspiration threshold, and stop searching with an auditable path to reopen.

compression_statement: Satisficing Threshold Design converts bounded rationality from an excuse into a governed decision rule. It names the decision and needs; separates mandatory safety, rights, legality, and feasibility floors from compensable preferences; defines measurable sufficiency thresholds and confidence; specifies the candidate population and search order; budgets time, information, and review; records each candidate consistently; manages uncertainty, multiple qualifying options, and exceptions; accepts and commits when the rule is met; and monitors real performance. Search can continue when the cost of a false acceptance is high, a better option is plausibly near, the sample is biased, or evidence is weak. It stops when a qualifying choice exists and expected improvement no longer justifies opportunity cost. Thresholds are reviewed after outcomes, distributional effects, strategic gaming, or context change. The archetype does not equate cheap, familiar, first, average, minimally compliant, or politically convenient with sufficient.

core_intuition: Optimization is costly and often impossible because options arrive sequentially, attributes are incomparable, information has a price, conditions change, and attention is finite. Yet “good enough” is unsafe when nobody defines good, enough, for whom, for how long, and with what evidence. A mature satisficing rule makes aspiration explicit, protects floors that cannot be traded away, prevents the first convenient option from winning by default, and treats closure as a reversible commitment under declared assumptions.

canonical_formula: accept candidate c when every mandatory_floor_i(c) is satisfied, aggregate_or_vector sufficiency(c) meets declared aspiration_threshold, confidence(c) meets evidence_requirement, unresolved_exception_risk is within authority, and expected_value_of_further_search <= remaining search_cost + delay_cost + opportunity_cost; reopen when performance, context, evidence, fairness, or assumption triggers invalidate that conclusion.

structural_problem: A decision system either searches indefinitely for the best option or closes opportunistically on the first plausible one. Criteria are vague, added after favorites emerge, or collapsed into a single score that lets high performance compensate for safety, rights, feasibility, or access failures. Search order favors incumbents and well-connected candidates. Time pressure is invoked without a predeclared budget. Uncertainty is ignored, minimum compliance is confused with real sufficiency, and nobody records what would reopen the choice. The result is analysis paralysis, decision fatigue, excessive comparison, arbitrary closure, lock-in, or low-quality acceptance.

trigger_conditions: option comparison expands while likely decision improvement becomes small

trigger_conditions: no feasible global optimum is knowable within available time information or computation

trigger_conditions: candidates arrive sequentially and delaying choice has material cost

trigger_conditions: stakeholders use “good enough” without a shared threshold or protected floor

trigger_conditions: requirements continue growing after viable options appear

trigger_conditions: teams repeatedly revisit a decision because closure and reopen rules are absent

trigger_conditions: a first-fit rule creates order dependence or incumbent advantage

trigger_conditions: optimizing a proxy degrades robustness fairness adaptability or human value

trigger_conditions: emergency or capacity limits require proportionate bounded choice

symptoms: analysis paralysis and missed opportunity windows

symptoms: escalating information and comparison cost

symptoms: preference drift and criteria manipulation

symptoms: incumbent first-order and presentation bias

symptoms: acceptance of options that violate noncompensable needs

symptoms: hidden inequity and inaccessible qualification paths

symptoms: fragile commitments and repeated reopening

symptoms: overoptimization complexity and loss of adaptability

symptoms: unaccountable “good enough” rationalizations

anti_signatures: A request that only calls for first option is good enough without the complete parent lifecycle.

anti_signatures: A request that only calls for lowest cost equals sufficient without the complete parent lifecycle.

anti_signatures: A request that only calls for minimum compliance equals real need without the complete parent lifecycle.

anti_signatures: A request that only calls for weighted score offsets every harm without the complete parent lifecycle.

anti_signatures: A request that only calls for define threshold after seeing favorite without the complete parent lifecycle.

anti_signatures: A request that only calls for use urgency to skip authority and review without the complete parent lifecycle.

anti_signatures: A request that only calls for reduce search without checking candidate access without the complete parent lifecycle.

anti_signatures: A request that only calls for keep searching because more data is possible without the complete parent lifecycle.

anti_signatures: A request that only calls for accept without implementation capacity without the complete parent lifecycle.

anti_signatures: A request that only calls for treat satisficing as permanent low expectation without the complete parent lifecycle.

anti_signatures: A request that only calls for automate thresholds without construct or fairness review without the complete parent lifecycle.

structural_intervention: Define the decision boundary, affected parties, needs, and decision horizon; separate mandatory floors from preferred dimensions; set aspiration thresholds and evidence requirements; specify the candidate population, search order, and resource budget; evaluate candidates consistently with uncertainty; apply the acceptance and stop rule; handle multiple qualifiers and exceptions; review bias, fairness, and strategic gaming; commit and transfer implementation; monitor outcomes; and revise or reopen when assumptions, performance, or thresholds fail.

action_logic: define the decision the commitment horizon the cost of delay and who bears consequences

action_logic: inventory needs obligations constraints and preferences with affected-party input

action_logic: classify noncompensable safety rights legality feasibility and interoperability floors

action_logic: define good-enough thresholds for remaining decision dimensions and state aggregation rules

action_logic: justify aspiration levels using need evidence history benchmarks capacity and consequence

action_logic: define evidence quality uncertainty margins and what counts as threshold satisfaction

action_logic: define candidate eligibility search scope order channel and inclusion safeguards

action_logic: allocate time information computation and review budgets plus an emergency fallback

action_logic: test whether search order access or presentation systematically changes who can qualify

action_logic: accept only when floors threshold confidence and exception authority are satisfied

action_logic: compare expected benefit of more search with delay attention and opportunity cost

action_logic: review realized sufficiency distributional effects gaming and threshold drift

decision_rules: if any noncompensable floor fails reject or escalate regardless of aggregate score

decision_rules: if evidence is insufficient to distinguish threshold passage require a bounded probe or conservative margin

decision_rules: if the first qualifier appears under a biased search order apply the declared sampling or minimum-comparison guard

decision_rules: if multiple candidates qualify use the predeclared tie rule based on preference cost risk or randomization

decision_rules: if no candidate qualifies before the budget expires revise scope capacity or threshold only through authorized review

decision_rules: if the threshold cannot be met because a protected requirement is infeasible escalate the conflict rather than silently lowering it

decision_rules: if expected gain from more search is smaller than search delay and opportunity cost stop

decision_rules: if consequence is irreversible or catastrophic require stronger evidence and independent review

decision_rules: if a temporary emergency threshold is used attach expiry retrospective review and ordinary-threshold restoration

decision_rules: if monitoring shows floor breach or persistent insufficiency activate fallback and reopen

target_invariants: Every accepted option clears all noncompensable floors.

target_invariants: Acceptance and search stopping remain separate, explicit tests.

target_invariants: Exceptions have legitimate authority, reasons, safeguards, expiry, review, and remedy.

target_invariants: Commitment transfers resources, ownership, monitoring, fallback, and reopen triggers.

expected_outcomes: criteria floors thresholds and search budgets documented before selection

expected_outcomes: reduced comparison time and candidate churn without more floor breaches

expected_outcomes: consistent evidence treatment and fewer post-hoc criteria changes

expected_outcomes: accessible exception and challenge use without retaliation

expected_outcomes: explicit tie handling and lower hidden optimization after qualification

expected_outcomes: accepted options meet declared needs over the commitment horizon

expected_outcomes: decision delay opportunity cost and review burden decline proportionately

expected_outcomes: no increase in safety rights legality accessibility or feasibility failures

expected_outcomes: distributional outcomes remain within protected bounds

expected_outcomes: reopen and fallback actions occur when triggers are met

expected_outcomes: thresholds improve from outcome evidence rather than drift downward silently

prose_essence: Satisficing Threshold Design turns “good enough” from an excuse into a governed decision-closure rule. It defines the decision and affected needs, separates noncompensable safety, legality, rights, feasibility, accessibility, and interoperability floors from compensable preferences, states an aspiration level and evidence burden, governs the candidate population and search order, and accepts a sufficiently supported option when further comparison no longer justifies delay and opportunity cost. Closure transfers resources and responsibility and remains conditional on real performance, changed context, fairness, and explicit reopen triggers.

prose_when_to_use:
Use this archetype when optimization is unknowable, unstable, disputed, or too expensive; candidates arrive sequentially; comparison consumes material time or attention; or a group repeatedly oscillates between endless search and opportunistic first-fit closure. It is most valuable when stakeholders can state needs and protected floors but cannot justify pursuing a global optimum.

- option comparison expands while likely decision improvement becomes small
- no feasible global optimum is knowable within available time information or computation
- candidates arrive sequentially and delaying choice has material cost
- stakeholders use “good enough” without a shared threshold or protected floor
- requirements continue growing after viable options appear
- teams repeatedly revisit a decision because closure and reopen rules are absent
- a first-fit rule creates order dependence or incumbent advantage
- optimizing a proxy degrades robustness fairness adaptability or human value
- emergency or capacity limits require proportionate bounded choice

Do not use it to lower a duty of care, normalize scarcity, or bypass legitimate review. It is also not the same as defining the smallest artifact, pruning impossible search branches, bounding the option universe, or stopping marginal effort. Those interventions can compose with satisficing at different decision stages.

prose_structural_problem:
Without a governed threshold, criteria remain vague or move after a favorite appears; a single score compensates for protected harm; incumbent access determines which candidates appear first; time pressure is asserted without a budget; point estimates near the threshold are treated as certain; and acceptance produces no funded handoff or monitoring. The system then alternates between analysis paralysis and arbitrary convenience. “Good enough” hides whose need counts, who bears residual risk, how long sufficiency must last, and what evidence would reopen the choice.

The root tension is search and evidence have real costs, but closure becomes arbitrary or harmful unless “good enough” is tied to legitimate need, protected floors, evidence, fair access, and a reversible commitment.

- analysis paralysis and missed opportunity windows
- escalating information and comparison cost
- preference drift and criteria manipulation
- incumbent first-order and presentation bias
- acceptance of options that violate noncompensable needs
- hidden inequity and inaccessible qualification paths
- fragile commitments and repeated reopening
- overoptimization complexity and loss of adaptability

prose_intervention_logic:
The intervention separates two gates that are often conflated. The acceptance gate asks whether a candidate clears every floor, meets the aspiration threshold, carries adequate evidence, and uses authorized exceptions. The search-stop gate asks whether additional comparison has enough expected value to justify its cost, delay, and opportunity cost. A candidate can qualify while more comparison remains warranted because the order is biased or evidence weak; a search budget can expire with no qualifier, which triggers scope, capacity, threshold, or authority review rather than silent floor reduction.

1. define the decision the commitment horizon the cost of delay and who bears consequences
2. inventory needs obligations constraints and preferences with affected-party input
3. classify noncompensable safety rights legality feasibility and interoperability floors
4. define good-enough thresholds for remaining decision dimensions and state aggregation rules
5. justify aspiration levels using need evidence history benchmarks capacity and consequence
6. define evidence quality uncertainty margins and what counts as threshold satisfaction
7. define candidate eligibility search scope order channel and inclusion safeguards
8. allocate time information computation and review budgets plus an emergency fallback
9. evaluate each candidate through a consistent record without hiding missing or disputed evidence
10. test whether search order access or presentation systematically changes who can qualify
11. accept only when floors threshold confidence and exception authority are satisfied
12. if several options qualify apply the declared tie or preference rule rather than reopening optimization by stealth
13. compare expected benefit of more search with delay attention and opportunity cost
14. record acceptance rationale residual uncertainty rejected exceptions dissent and reopen triggers
15. transfer decision resources obligations monitoring and fallback to an accountable implementer
16. review realized sufficiency distributional effects gaming and threshold drift

The control loop observes candidate evidence, uncertainty, search coverage, delay, burden, and emerging alternatives; interprets whether apparent passage reflects real sufficiency or gaming, bias, missing evidence, or a moving standard; decides to continue, accept, apply a legitimate tie rule, escalate a conflict, or reopen; commits through a funded handoff; and verifies sufficiency against real outcomes rather than paperwork alone.

prose_key_components:
The sixteen components cover semantics, values, evidence, search design, closure, legitimacy, implementation, and learning. Floors and aspiration thresholds are distinct. Candidate access and order are distinct from candidate evaluation. Acceptance and search stopping are coupled but not identical. Exception authority does not erase fairness review. Commitment is not complete until ownership, resources, safeguards, fallback, monitoring, and reopening travel with the decision.

### Decision and Commitment Boundary

Define what choice is being closed, for whom, over what horizon, and which downstream commitments follow. Prevents one threshold from being reused across materially different decisions or time scales.

The exact choice to be closed, affected population, use context, commitment duration, dependencies, and downstream actions. Required fields: decision statement, affected parties, decision owner, use context, commitment horizon, delay cost, reversibility, dependency map. Validation questions: What becomes binding when the option is accepted? Who bears consequences without controlling the choice? When may the decision be revisited? Does delay change the feasible option set? Failure signals: scope ambiguity, hidden downstream commitment, wrong horizon, unowned consequence. Safeguards: decision charter, stakeholder map, horizon statement, dependency review.

### Need and Outcome Set

State the needs, outcomes, obligations, and affected-party interests the accepted option must address. Distinguishes actual sufficiency from convenient feature counts or stakeholder power.

The real needs, outcomes, obligations, service conditions, and stakeholder interests that make an option sufficient or insufficient. Required fields: core need, affected party need, required outcome, time requirement, quality requirement, burden limit, evidence source, need owner. Validation questions: Which need is essential and which is preference? Can the option meet the need over the full horizon? Are less powerful affected parties represented? Has scarcity lowered aspiration below legitimate need? Failure signals: feature proxy for need, omitted party, temporary fit claimed permanent, deprivation adaptation. Safeguards: need trace, affected party review, outcome measure, periodic revalidation.

### Noncompensable Floor Set

Identify safety, legality, rights, feasibility, accessibility, and interoperability conditions that cannot be traded away. A high aggregate score cannot compensate for a floor breach.

Safety, legality, rights, consent, feasibility, accessibility, interoperability, and other conditions that no compensatory score may override. Required fields: floor name, authority basis, test, evidence, pass rule, exception authority, remedy, review trigger. Validation questions: Why is this floor noncompensable? Is the pass test construct-valid and accessible? Can an exception be lawful and proportionate? Does one floor conflict with another? Failure signals: weighted offset of harm, hidden exception, weak floor measure, contradictory floor. Safeguards: conjunctive gate, independent review, exception record, conflict escalation.

### Aspiration and Sufficiency Threshold

Define the good-enough level for each compensable dimension and any valid aggregation or conjunctive rule. Records whose needs and evidence justify the aspiration level.

The good-enough level for each compensable outcome and the declared rule for combining dimensions. Required fields: dimension, threshold, unit, direction, basis, aggregation rule, owner, effective period. Validation questions: What evidence supports the aspiration level? Is the threshold need-based or incumbent-based? Can dimensions validly compensate one another? Is a different threshold needed across contexts? Failure signals: post hoc threshold, arbitrary number, hidden weight, moving goalpost. Safeguards: precommitment, benchmark review, versioning, sensitivity analysis.

### Evidence and Measurement Protocol

Specify measures, sources, uncertainty, missingness, validation, and the rule for deciding threshold passage. Prevents false precision and evidence standards that change after seeing candidates.

Measures, sources, sampling, validation, uncertainty, missingness, freshness, and the rule for determining threshold passage. Required fields: measure, construct, source, collection method, uncertainty, missingness rule, freshness, validation. Validation questions: Does the measure represent the need or only an easy proxy? Are sources comparable across candidates? How are missing and contested values treated? Can evidence be independently checked? Failure signals: proxy failure, selective evidence, stale measure, candidate specific standard. Safeguards: construct review, common evidence template, provenance, independent sample.

### Candidate Population and Search Order

Define eligibility, discovery channels, ordering, sampling, and inclusion checks for options considered. Makes first-fit order effects and access barriers visible.

Eligibility, discovery channels, sampling, ordering, presentation, and inclusion rules for options considered. Required fields: eligibility, candidate sources, coverage goal, order rule, presentation standard, accommodation, exclusion reason, reopening. Validation questions: Which plausible option classes are absent? Does order correlate with power or familiarity? Is minimum comparison necessary before first-fit acceptance? Can excluded candidates challenge an error? Failure signals: incumbent first, channel exclusion, presentation bias, nonrepresentative first fit. Safeguards: multi channel search, rotation or randomization, minimum set, access audit.

### Search Resource and Time Budget

Bound time, attention, information, computation, money, and delay while preserving high-consequence review. A budget is a decision input, not permission to ignore protected floors.

The planned limits on time, attention, information, computation, money, and delay for search and evaluation. Required fields: start, deadline, effort budget, information budget, computation budget, delay cost, reserve, extension authority. Validation questions: Is the budget proportionate to consequence and reversibility? Who bears the cost of delay and review? Can urgent constraints be independently verified? Is extension triggered by evidence rather than indecision? Failure signals: analysis paralysis, manufactured urgency, unequal review budget, unbounded extension. Safeguards: timebox, consequence tier, extension rule, emergency review.

### Candidate Evaluation Record

Apply criteria consistently and preserve evidence, missing data, exceptions, conflicts, and evaluator rationale. Supports audit and prevents invisible shifting of standards.

A comparable record of criteria, evidence, missingness, conflicts, floor tests, threshold results, exceptions, and rationale for each candidate. Required fields: candidate, evaluator, criteria version, evidence, floor results, threshold results, uncertainty, conflict, rationale. Validation questions: Were all candidates tested under the same current criteria? Are exceptions and missing evidence visible? Can a reviewer reconstruct the result? Were corrections preserved rather than overwritten? Failure signals: selective documentation, criteria version mismatch, hidden conflict, irreproducible result. Safeguards: common template, immutable revision, conflict disclosure, audit sample.

### Uncertainty and Confidence Margin

Define how close calls, noisy measures, model risk, and contested evidence affect acceptance. Can require conservative margins, probes, sensitivity checks, or independent verification.

The rule for incorporating measurement error, model uncertainty, missing evidence, variability, and disputed interpretation near a threshold. Required fields: uncertainty source, interval or grade, confidence requirement, conservative margin, probe rule, high consequence rule, reviewer, update. Validation questions: What uncertainty could reverse passage? Is a conservative bound or expected value appropriate? Can a cheap probe materially improve confidence? Does uncertainty differ systematically by candidate group? Failure signals: point estimate pass, asymmetric missingness, false precision, ignored model risk. Safeguards: confidence bound, sensitivity test, bounded probe, uncertainty disclosure.

### Acceptance and Search-Stop Rule

State when a qualifying option may be accepted and when expected improvement no longer justifies continued search. Separates threshold passage from the optional value of more comparison.

The conjunctive conditions for accepting a candidate and the comparison of expected further-search value with search, delay, and opportunity cost. Required fields: floor pass, threshold pass, confidence pass, exception status, additional search value, cost, decision authority, timestamp. Validation questions: Did the candidate clear every required test? What plausible gain remains from more search? Are costs measured from all affected perspectives? Is closure reversible and monitored? Failure signals: qualifier without stop basis, stop without qualifier, hidden opportunity cost, status driven closure. Safeguards: conjunctive rule, marginal search review, decision record, reopen trigger.

### Multiple-Qualifier and Tie Rule

Choose among several sufficient options using a declared secondary preference, rotation, lottery, or other legitimate rule. Prevents optimization from returning through an undisclosed tie breaker.

A declared legitimate method for choosing among several candidates that all meet the sufficiency standard. Required fields: qualifier set, secondary dimension, tie method, conflict rule, randomization or rotation, rationale, authority, review. Validation questions: Is the secondary rule consistent with satisficing rather than a hidden full optimization? Does it create structural advantage? Could rotation or lottery improve legitimacy? Are conflicts disclosed? Failure signals: secret tiebreaker, prestige default, optimization by stealth, arbitrary lottery. Safeguards: predeclared rule, conflict review, fairness test, rationale.

### Exception and Escalation Rule

Route infeasible, urgent, disputed, or high-consequence threshold conflicts to authorized review. Records temporary deviations, authority, expiry, and remedy.

The authority and process for infeasible, urgent, disputed, novel, or high-consequence cases that cannot follow ordinary thresholds. Required fields: trigger, failed condition, necessity, authority, temporary rule, safeguards, expiry, review, remedy. Validation questions: Is the exception necessary and proportionate? Which protected floor is implicated? When does ordinary governance return? Can affected parties challenge the decision? Failure signals: exception as norm, urgency laundering, no expiry, inaccessible appeal. Safeguards: independent approval, time limit, retrospective review, public or bounded record.

### Bias, Fairness, and Affected-Party Check

Test threshold, search access, order, measures, and burden for systematic exclusion or capture. Includes accessible challenge and non-retaliation where the decision affects rights or livelihood.

Assessment of whether thresholds, measures, search access, order, evidence burden, exceptions, and outcomes systematically disadvantage actors or groups. Required fields: affected group, access path, pass rate, evidence burden, outcome burden, accommodation, challenge, corrective action. Validation questions: Who helped define good enough? Does access to qualification differ? Are historical proxies perpetuating exclusion? Is appeal safe and usable? Failure signals: disparate exclusion, inaccessible evidence, retaliation, stakeholder omission. Safeguards: impact test, accommodation, ombuds channel, nonretaliation, corrective threshold review.

### Commitment and Implementation Handoff

Transfer the accepted decision, resources, obligations, safeguards, monitoring, and fallback to an accountable owner. Satisficing is incomplete if a decision closes but never becomes usable action.

The transfer of the accepted option, authority, resources, requirements, safeguards, residual uncertainty, monitoring, and fallback to an accountable owner. Required fields: accepted option, owner, authority, resources, obligations, transition, monitoring, fallback, communication. Validation questions: Can the owner implement under the assumed conditions? Are safeguards and exceptions understood? What happens if readiness is absent? Are affected parties notified appropriately? Failure signals: unfunded choice, owner gap, paper acceptance, lost safeguard. Safeguards: readiness gate, funded plan, acknowledgment, fallback.

### Performance Monitor and Reopen Trigger

Observe whether the accepted option remains sufficient and activate fallback or renewed search when declared conditions fail. Protects against lock-in, threshold gaming, context change, and delayed harm.

Outcome, floor, burden, context, and evidence signals that test continuing sufficiency and initiate correction, fallback, or renewed search. Required fields: indicator, baseline, threshold, cadence, owner, trigger, immediate action, reopen authority, fallback. Validation questions: Does monitoring measure actual need rather than only contract compliance? Can delayed or distributional harm surface? Is reopening timely and funded? Are enhancements separated from true insufficiency? Failure signals: monitoring absent, trigger ignored, perpetual reopening, sunk cost lock in. Safeguards: outcome dashboard, protected signal, materiality rule, termination or change path.

### Threshold Review and Learning Cadence

Reassess aspiration, floors, evidence, search process, outcomes, and exception history at scheduled and event-based reviews. Prevents temporary scarcity or low expectations from becoming a permanent low standard.

Scheduled and event-based review of needs, floors, aspiration levels, measures, search order, budgets, exceptions, outcomes, and distribution. Required fields: cadence, trigger, evidence, participants, authority, option set, version, transition, next review. Validation questions: Did outcomes validate the original sufficiency claim? Have capacity or needs changed? Are exceptions showing a bad threshold or a bad process? Who is missing from review? Failure signals: downward threshold drift, obsolete measure, exception accumulation, temporary rule permanent. Safeguards: versioned review, affected party participation, benchmark, sunset, post change validation.

prose_common_mechanisms:
Checklists, matrices, confidence bounds, timeboxes, procurement protocols, and reopen reviews are mechanisms. They implement replaceable parts of the lifecycle and should never be mistaken for the parent or used alone to claim a defensible satisficing process.

### Acceptance-Criteria Checklist

Separate mandatory floors from preferred attributes and record evidence for each threshold. It is a evaluation control, not the archetype itself.

Selection and control: recurring_decision stable_minimum_needs multiple_evaluators audit_need Minimum configuration: criteria version and decision scope, floor versus threshold classification, evidence and uncertainty field, pass fail close-call and exception states, evaluator conflict and rationale, monitoring and reopen link. Implementation: derive criteria from needs and affected parties test with clear pass fail and ambiguous examples lock the version before favored candidates emerge require evidence not box checking sample decisions for gaming and drift Validate with: fewer post hoc criteria, consistent records, visible close calls, traceable exceptions. Misuse risks: checklist theater, proxy substitution, excessive rigidity, hidden weighting; safeguards: construct review, narrative rationale, exception process, periodic validation.

### Aspiration-Level Decision Rule

Accept the first adequately evidenced candidate meeting the declared aspiration subject to order safeguards. It is a sequential choice, not the archetype itself.

Selection and control: sequential_arrival costly_comparison reversible_choice measurable_sufficiency Minimum configuration: aspiration threshold and protected floors, candidate order rule, evidence confidence requirement, minimum search or coverage guard, acceptance authority, reopen condition. Implementation: set aspiration using need consequence and evidence diversify or randomize initial candidate access where order bias matters evaluate consistently record the first qualifying point and any continued-search rationale monitor accepted performance Validate with: bounded search duration, qualifying performance, controlled order effect, lower revisit rate. Misuse risks: first convenient wins, low aspiration, incumbent advantage, false certainty; safeguards: minimum set, confidence margin, fairness audit, threshold review.

### Minimum Service or Quality Floor

Establish noncompensable performance accessibility safety or rights conditions. It is a protected threshold, not the archetype itself.

Selection and control: public_service regulated_choice safety_critical_option vulnerable_population Minimum configuration: floor definition and authority, valid test and evidence, affected-party and accessibility check, noncompensation rule, exception authority expiry and remedy, breach response. Implementation: identify nontradeable obligations validate the test against actual outcomes publish material requirements separate ordinary preference scores audit outcomes and exceptions Validate with: zero unapproved floor bypass, usable access, timely breach response, stable outcomes. Misuse risks: minimum becomes ceiling, inaccessible standard, captured exception, paper compliance; safeguards: outcome test, independent review, appeal, improvement backlog.

### Timeboxed Search with Stop Gate

Allocate a comparison period then apply a governed accept continue or escalate gate. It is a bounded search, not the archetype itself.

Selection and control: delay_cost expanding_comparison decision_fatigue adequate_candidate_pipeline Minimum configuration: search start deadline and budget, candidate channels and coverage target, criteria and evidence standard, stop-gate decision options, extension authority and limit, emergency fallback. Implementation: estimate delay and additional-search value set the timebox before search begins monitor candidate and evidence coverage hold the gate with conflicts disclosed record any extension or reset rationale Validate with: fewer open ended searches, timely commitment, adequate coverage, bounded extensions. Misuse risks: manufactured deadline, rushed low quality search, automatic extension, sunk search cost; safeguards: independent urgency check, consequence tiering, one extension rule, fallback.

### Qualified Shortlist Then First Fit

Create a minimally representative eligible set before applying a sequential acceptance rule. It is a order bias control, not the archetype itself.

Selection and control: biased_arrival_order incumbent_market multiple_channels moderate_screening_cost Minimum configuration: eligibility and outreach channels, minimum shortlist size or diversity, common evidence package, order rotation or randomization, first-fit rule and tie handling, exclusion and appeal record. Implementation: map candidate access barriers source through independent channels verify eligibility without ranking prematurely apply the declared order rule audit pass and exclusion by channel and group Validate with: broader access, lower incumbent bias, stable quality, transparent exclusion. Misuse risks: token shortlist, arbitrary minimum, hidden preference order, excessive screen; safeguards: coverage metric, channel audit, randomization, affected party review.

### Threshold with Confidence Bound

Require the conservative evidence bound rather than the point estimate to clear the threshold. It is a uncertainty control, not the archetype itself.

Selection and control: measurement_noise model_uncertainty close_calls high_false_acceptance_cost Minimum configuration: outcome estimate and uncertainty model, required confidence or evidence grade, conservative direction, missingness and model-risk note, probe or additional-evidence rule, independent review threshold. Implementation: define consequence-specific confidence verify comparable evidence quality calculate or grade the conservative bound probe close cases where information value is high preserve residual uncertainty after acceptance Validate with: fewer false passes, consistent close calls, explicit uncertainty, efficient probes. Misuse risks: false precision, asymmetric evidence burden, overconservatism, model misspecification; safeguards: sensitivity analysis, qualitative review, fairness test, model validation.

### Good-Enough Option Matrix

Display floors, thresholds, evidence gaps, exceptions, and qualifying options without pretending to optimize. It is a transparent comparison, not the archetype itself.

Selection and control: multiattribute_choice stakeholder_review noncompensable_criteria several_qualifiers Minimum configuration: rows for candidates and columns for criteria, floor and aspiration labels, evidence uncertainty and missingness, pass fail close and exception states, tie rule and rationale, version and decision record. Implementation: define dimensions and noncompensation normalize evidence presentation without erasing context review close calls and missingness identify the qualifier set apply the declared tie and stop rule Validate with: visible tradeoffs, lower hidden weighting, reproducible qualifiers, understandable rationale. Misuse risks: color coding false certainty, covert weighting, information overload, cherry picked columns; safeguards: plain language notes, audit, affected party review, raw evidence link.

### Satisficing Procurement or Hiring Protocol

Close a selection when qualification, fairness, confidence, and bounded-comparison rules are satisfied. It is a institutional selection, not the archetype itself.

Selection and control: high_comparison_cost many_acceptable_options delay_cost recurring_selection Minimum configuration: role or need definition, legal and protected floors, job or service-valid thresholds, outreach and candidate-order guard, structured evidence record, conflict recusal challenge and monitoring. Implementation: validate requirements against actual need support accessible candidate participation create a minimum comparison pool apply structured evidence and confidence hand off onboarding or implementation with review Validate with: shorter cycle, sustained performance, fair access, fewer criteria changes. Misuse risks: credential inflation, discriminatory proxy, preferred vendor first, minimum quality ceiling; safeguards: validation, accommodation, conflict review, outcome and equity monitor.

### Emergency Temporary Threshold

Permit a proportionate temporary choice under urgency with expiry fallback and retrospective review. It is a time limited exception, not the archetype itself.

Selection and control: material_time_pressure temporary_capacity_loss reversible_interim_option explicit_authority Minimum configuration: emergency trigger and evidence, nonwaivable floor set, temporary aspiration and scope, authority duration and expiry, fallback monitoring and remedy, retrospective review and restoration. Implementation: verify urgency independently where feasible choose the least harmful reversible qualifier record deviations and notify affected parties monitor closely and maintain alternatives expire and review without automatic renewal Validate with: timely safe action, no floor breach, completed expiry, restored ordinary threshold. Misuse risks: emergency ratchet, manufactured urgency, permanent low standard, rights bypass; safeguards: sunset, renewal evidence, independent review, remedy.

### Performance-Triggered Reopen Review

Reopen search when realized performance, context, equity, or protected floors invalidate acceptance. It is a adaptive governance, not the archetype itself.

Selection and control: long_commitment uncertain_field_performance reversible_contract changing_context Minimum configuration: outcome and protected-floor signals, trigger materiality and cadence, monitoring owner and independent channel, immediate containment or fallback, reopen authority and option path, closure and learning record. Implementation: instrument real need and burden outcomes protect adverse-signal reporting evaluate triggers without sunk-cost bias activate fallback and bounded renewed search update thresholds and search design from evidence Validate with: timely reopen, reduced repeat failure, preserved fallback, threshold learning. Misuse risks: ignored trigger, perpetual reopening, punitive reporting, no alternative capacity; safeguards: independent signal, materiality rule, termination right, learning review.

prose_failure_modes:
Most failures come from a threshold that is illegitimate, a search process that is biased, evidence that is incomparable, or commitment that lacks monitoring and reopening.

### Threshold Set Too Low

**Cause.** Scarcity convenience or power defines aspiration below actual need. Consequence: Chronic underperformance becomes formally acceptable.

**Mitigation.** Need trace protected floors outcome review affected-party standing and upward revision trigger.

### Threshold Set Too High

**Cause.** Perfectionism or incumbent specifications make qualification impractical. Consequence: Search paralysis cost and exclusion persist.

**Mitigation.** Evidence-based aspiration feasibility review cost-of-delay accounting and scoped requirement challenge.

### First Fit Order Bias

**Cause.** Candidate order reflects access visibility or incumbent position. Consequence: A sufficient but systematically advantaged option always wins.

**Mitigation.** Minimum comparison set randomized or rotated order channel diversity and order-effect audit.

### Compensatory Floor Bypass

**Cause.** A weighted score offsets a safety rights or legality failure. Consequence: Serious harm is laundered through aggregate performance.

**Mitigation.** Conjunctive noncompensable floors exception authority independent review and remedy.

### Vague Good Enough Language

**Cause.** Criteria remain interpretive until a favored candidate appears. Consequence: Selection becomes unreviewable.

**Mitigation.** Predeclared measures examples evidence and close-call rules plus immutable revision history.

### Metric Gaming

**Cause.** Candidates optimize visible thresholds while degrading unmeasured needs. Consequence: Formal passage diverges from real sufficiency.

**Mitigation.** Countermetrics qualitative validation random audit and post-acceptance monitoring.

### Urgency Manufacture

**Cause.** Decision-makers create or exaggerate time pressure to narrow search and review. Consequence: Preferred options bypass comparison and safeguards.

**Mitigation.** Independent urgency basis emergency expiry retrospective review and conflict disclosure.

### Unsupported Uncertainty

**Cause.** Point estimates near the threshold are treated as certain. Consequence: False acceptance and unstable closure.

**Mitigation.** Confidence margin probe sensitivity analysis and conservative high-consequence rule.

### Aspiration Adaptation To Deprivation

**Cause.** Repeated scarcity lowers expectations rather than correcting capacity. Consequence: Inequity and poor service become self-reinforcing.

**Mitigation.** Benchmark need rights and peer outcomes; separately record capacity gap and investment obligation.

### Search Budget Capture

**Cause.** Powerful actors receive more time evidence and channels than others. Consequence: Qualification access becomes unequal.

**Mitigation.** Common process accommodation support transparent budgets and distributional audit.

### No Implementation Handoff

**Cause.** Decision closure is celebrated without resources ownership or safeguards. Consequence: The selected option fails for reasons unrelated to sufficiency.

**Mitigation.** Readiness gate funded handoff accountable owner fallback and monitoring.

### Lock In After Acceptance

**Cause.** Sunk cost status or contract blocks warranted reopening. Consequence: An option remains after it stops being sufficient.

**Mitigation.** Reopen triggers termination rights review cadence and alternative readiness.

### Perpetual Reopening

**Cause.** New preferences are mislabeled threshold failures. Consequence: Closure never creates stable action.

**Mitigation.** Commitment horizon materiality rule change control and separate enhancement backlog.

### Automated Threshold Discrimination

**Cause.** Historical measures or proxies encode unequal opportunity. Consequence: Automated closure scales exclusion.

**Mitigation.** Construct validity fairness testing appeal human review drift monitoring and audit access.

### High Stakes Satisficing Without Safeguards

**Cause.** Bounded rationality is invoked to shortcut irreversible safety rights or clinical decisions. Consequence: Avoidable severe harm.

**Mitigation.** Strong evidence independent review second check proportionality and nonwaivable standards.

prose_neighbor_distinctions:
Neighbor boundaries are stable by decision stage. Several may appear in one program, but each owns a different intervention object.

### Minimum Sufficient Solution

Implements the smallest scoped solution meeting a requirement after or around choice; this archetype governs decision acceptance and search closure.

### Marginal Stop Rule

Stops the next increment when marginal benefit no longer justifies cost; this archetype accepts a candidate that clears an aspiration level.

### Optimal Stopping Rule

Models expected reward of stopping versus future observations; this archetype supplies a governed sufficiency threshold even when probabilities are unavailable.

### Bounded Search Pruning

Excludes branches using proof or bounds; it does not define good-enough acceptance or commitment.

### Solution Space Bounding

Makes a large search space tractable; it does not say when a found option is sufficient.

### Overoptimization Guardrail

Prevents further optimization from damaging protected values; it may trigger use of a satisficing rule but does not own candidate acceptance.

### Heuristic Vs Algorithm Tradeoff And Selection

Chooses how to decide; this archetype is one specific closure rule that either a heuristic or algorithm may implement.

### Minimum Viable Learning Release

Releases a minimum artifact to learn from real feedback; this archetype can select such a release but does not define its learning lifecycle.

### Good Enough Option Design

Provisional option-presentation direction that should route to this parent after acceptance rather than create a competing full archetype.

prose_cross_domain_examples:
Cross-domain transfer depends on the same logic: needs and floors are explicit, candidate access is governed, passage is evidenced, closure is authorized, and real performance can reopen the decision.

### Procurement

Define mandatory security legality interoperability and service floors, then good-enough cost and usability thresholds; search a fair supplier pool; accept a qualifier under the tie rule; preserve conflicts implementation readiness performance and termination rights. It preserves the parent lifecycle across procurement constraints.

### Hiring And Admission

Use role-valid requirements accommodations structured evidence and a representative candidate channel; avoid pedigree proxies first-fit order bias moving standards and aggregate scores that offset essential or protected concerns. It preserves the parent lifecycle across hiring and admission constraints.

### Incident Response

Select the first safe workable containment or restoration option meeting time-bound floors, with explicit temporary authority monitoring fallback and post-incident restoration of normal criteria. It preserves the parent lifecycle across incident response constraints.

### Healthcare

Choose an acceptable option under clinical evidence safety patient values access and time, without equating cost convenience or population average with individual sufficiency. Preserve consent, escalation, second review, monitoring, and change of course. It preserves the parent lifecycle across healthcare constraints.

### Public Service

Set entitlement safety accessibility and timeliness floors, distinguish them from service enhancements, record capacity gaps, and prevent temporary resource scarcity from redefining rights. It preserves the parent lifecycle across public service constraints.

### Software And Product

Close a design or release decision when required user outcomes reliability security accessibility and evidence thresholds are met; keep enhancements separate and reopen on field failure or changed need. It preserves the parent lifecycle across software and product constraints.

### Automated Search And Recommendation

Use explicit acceptability constraints, confidence, diversity and fairness guards before early stopping; log the reason and allow correction when a later option reveals systematic order bias. It preserves the parent lifecycle across automated search and recommendation constraints.

### Extended example

A procurement team defines a two-year service decision, mandatory security, legality, accessibility, interoperability, and continuity floors, plus aspiration thresholds for reliability, support, transition effort, and total cost. It opens several discovery channels, standardizes evidence, audits order effects, and budgets six weeks of search. Two suppliers qualify. A declared tie rule selects the lower transition risk rather than reopening unrestricted optimization. The handoff funds implementation and fallback; field performance and a security breach trigger can reopen the choice. Annual review compares actual service with needs and checks whether incumbent familiarity lowered the threshold.

prose_non_examples:
These cases use “good enough” language or bounded work but do not satisfy the complete archetype:

- first option is good enough without the parent lifecycle.
- lowest cost equals sufficient without the parent lifecycle.
- minimum compliance equals real need without the parent lifecycle.
- weighted score offsets every harm without the parent lifecycle.
- define threshold after seeing favorite without the parent lifecycle.
- use urgency to skip authority and review without the parent lifecycle.
- reduce search without checking candidate access without the parent lifecycle.
- keep searching because more data is possible without the parent lifecycle.
- accept without implementation capacity without the parent lifecycle.
- treat satisficing as permanent low expectation without the parent lifecycle.
- automate thresholds without construct or fairness review without the parent lifecycle.

Minimum viable products, shortlists, screening tools, timeboxes, confidence bounds, and option matrices become satisficing only when they sit inside the whole governed decision-closure lifecycle.

prose_tradeoffs:
A lower threshold and narrower search can accelerate commitment but increase false acceptance and inequity. A higher threshold and broader search can improve assurance but produce paralysis, exclusion, and opportunity loss.

- Lower thresholds and narrower search reduce delay but increase false acceptance and the risk of normalizing low expectations.
- Higher thresholds and broader search increase assurance but can create paralysis, exclusion, and missed opportunity windows.
- Conservative confidence margins reduce close-call error but can impose unequal evidence burdens.
- Sequential first-fit selection saves comparison cost but amplifies discovery-channel and order bias.
- A single aggregate threshold simplifies choice but may hide noncompensable deficits and incommensurable needs.
- More affected-party input improves legitimacy but requires time, access support, and conflict handling.
- Frequent reopening improves adaptation but weakens commitment and can revive optimization by stealth.
- Automation improves consistency and scale but can reproduce proxy bias and remove accessible human challenge.

The appropriate setting depends on consequence, reversibility, evidence availability, option arrival, delay cost, and who bears residual risk. High-stakes decisions require specialist review and do not outsource legal, clinical, or ethical duties to a generic heuristic.

prose_invariants_to_preserve:
Every valid implementation preserves these conditions even when domains and mechanisms change:

- Every accepted option clears all noncompensable floors.
- Aspiration thresholds remain tied to actual needs, obligations, affected parties, and commitment horizon.
- Evidence and uncertainty rules are declared and comparably applied before candidate preference hardens.
- Candidate access, discovery channels, ordering, and presentation remain reviewable for bias.
- Acceptance and search stopping remain separate, explicit tests.
- Exceptions have legitimate authority, reasons, safeguards, expiry, review, and remedy.
- Commitment transfers resources, ownership, monitoring, fallback, and reopen triggers.
- Thresholds do not drift below protected need through scarcity, gaming, automation, or repeated emergency.

If closure becomes faster only because floors, candidate access, evidence, or challenge were weakened, the rule is convenience rather than satisficing.

prose_target_outcomes:
The target is proportionate closure: less search and delay without an increase in protected failure, exclusion, lock-in, or untested sufficiency.

- criteria floors thresholds and search budgets documented before selection
- reduced comparison time and candidate churn without more floor breaches
- consistent evidence treatment and fewer post-hoc criteria changes
- accessible exception and challenge use without retaliation
- explicit tie handling and lower hidden optimization after qualification
- accepted options meet declared needs over the commitment horizon
- decision delay opportunity cost and review burden decline proportionately
- no increase in safety rights legality accessibility or feasibility failures
- distributional outcomes remain within protected bounds
- reopen and fallback actions occur when triggers are met
- thresholds improve from outcome evidence rather than drift downward silently

Realized outcomes, distributional effects, exceptions, threshold drift, missed alternatives, and reopen behavior test the rule. Contract passage alone is not outcome evidence.

prose_parameter_dimensions:
Threshold design is a coupled choice among aspiration, evidence, search breadth, delay, consequence, and reversibility. Tightening one dimension can shift burden or exclusion into another.

### Aspiration level

Anchor the threshold in actual need, obligation, outcome, and horizon. Compare benchmarks, historical performance, capacity, and affected-party evidence, but do not let an incumbent baseline or deprivation define legitimacy by itself.

### Noncompensation rule

Declare which dimensions are conjunctive floors and which preferences may trade. Weighted scores are acceptable only where compensation is legitimate; safety, rights, legality, consent, accessibility, or core feasibility often require separate gates.

### Evidence and confidence

Tune measurement validity, provenance, freshness, missingness, close-call treatment, and independent verification to consequence and reversibility. A conservative margin can reduce false acceptance but may unfairly exclude candidates with less evidence access.

### Candidate coverage and order

Specify eligible classes, discovery channels, sampling, presentation, accommodation, minimum pool, and waiting period. Sequential first-fit rules save delay only when order and access do not systematically privilege incumbents or well-connected options.

### Search budget and stop sensitivity

Budget time, money, computation, attention, information, and delay. Compare the expected value of another search increment with those costs, but never interpret budget exhaustion as automatic permission to lower a protected floor.

### Tie and multiple-qualifier logic

When several options qualify, apply a declared secondary preference, rotation, lottery, diversification, or portfolio rule. Prevent optimization from returning through an undisclosed tie breaker after sufficiency has already been established.

### Exception authority and urgency

State who may authorize deviation, why it is necessary and proportionate, which floors remain nonwaivable, how long it lasts, what safeguards apply, and who receives remedy. Emergency thresholds require expiry and ordinary-threshold restoration.

### Commitment horizon and reopen sensitivity

Short horizons and reversible choices permit lighter evidence and faster reopening. Irreversible or catastrophic decisions require stronger review, fallback, and challenge. Reopen only for material trigger failure, not every new preference.

prose_variants_and_near_names:
The four variants change arrival, uncertainty, urgency, or multiattribute coverage while retaining the same protected-floor, aspiration, evidence, commitment, and reopening contract.

### First Qualifying Option

Candidates arrive sequentially and the first one that clears every protected floor, the aspiration threshold, the evidence requirement, and any minimum-comparison safeguard can be accepted. The variant saves delay and comparison cost but makes arrival order, access, and presentation especially consequential. This variant changes one bounded dimension of the parent's decision-closure contract while retaining threshold legitimacy, evidence, commitment, monitoring, and reopening.

Use it when Candidates genuinely arrive over time and reserving an acceptable option has value. Delay has a material and documented cost. Eligibility and discovery channels do not systematically hide plausible qualifiers. Rejection and acceptance evidence can be recorded consistently.

It remains under the parent because It still accepts a sufficiently evidenced option against protected floors and an aspiration threshold, then closes bounded search under a declared rule.

### Confidence-Bounded Satisficing

Acceptance depends on a conservative confidence bound, robust scenario result, or explicit probability of threshold passage rather than a point estimate. The variant is appropriate when measurement noise, model risk, sparse evidence, or close calls could reverse qualification. This variant changes one bounded dimension of the parent's decision-closure contract while retaining threshold legitimacy, evidence, commitment, monitoring, and reopening.

Use it when Evidence is noisy or uncertain enough to change pass or fail status. False acceptance has greater consequence than bounded additional evidence collection. A meaningful uncertainty model, sensitivity range, or qualitative confidence rubric exists. A small probe or independent check can improve the decision before closure.

It remains under the parent because It still accepts a sufficiently evidenced option against protected floors and an aspiration threshold, then closes bounded search under a declared rule.

### Emergency Temporary Satisficing

Verified urgency permits a temporary, reversible, narrowly scoped qualifying option under an explicitly time-limited aspiration rule. Nonwaivable floors remain protected, deviations are recorded, monitoring is intensified, and ordinary thresholds automatically return at expiry. This variant changes one bounded dimension of the parent's decision-closure contract while retaining threshold legitimacy, evidence, commitment, monitoring, and reopening.

Use it when Delay creates immediate material harm and an ordinary search cannot finish in time. A reversible or containable interim option exists. Emergency authority, scope, expiry, fallback, and remedy can be defined. Ordinary selection or service capacity can continue or restart in parallel.

It remains under the parent because It still accepts a sufficiently evidenced option against protected floors and an aspiration threshold, then closes bounded search under a declared rule.

### Portfolio or Multiattribute Satisficing

A candidate or small portfolio must clear a vector of floors and aspiration levels across several attributes, affected groups, scenarios, or complementary roles. It avoids collapsing all dimensions into one compensatory score and can select multiple sufficient options when no single option legitimately covers the whole need. This variant changes one bounded dimension of the parent's decision-closure contract while retaining threshold legitimacy, evidence, commitment, monitoring, and reopening.

Use it when Several dimensions are legitimate and not fully commensurable. Coverage across groups, roles, regions, or scenarios matters more than a single winner. Complementary options can jointly satisfy the need within a bounded resource envelope. Noncompensation and aggregation rules can be stated before comparison.

It remains under the parent because It still accepts a sufficiently evidenced option against protected floors and an aspiration threshold, then closes bounded search under a declared rule.

Good-Enough Decision Threshold, Aspiration-Level Decision Rule, Sufficiency-Based Choice Closure, Bounded Search Acceptance Rule, and Acceptable-Option Stop Design are near names. The provisional good_enough_option_design identity collapses into this parent after acceptance.

First Qualifying Option

use_when: Candidates genuinely arrive over time and reserving an acceptable option has value.

use_when: Delay has a material and documented cost.

use_when: Eligibility and discovery channels do not systematically hide plausible qualifiers.

use_when: Rejection and acceptance evidence can be recorded consistently.

example_domains: procurement hiring sequential_offers

domain: procurement

example: Use First Qualifying Option while preserving floors, evidence, authority, and reopening.

domain: hiring

Confidence-Bounded Satisficing

use_when: Evidence is noisy or uncertain enough to change pass or fail status.

use_when: False acceptance has greater consequence than bounded additional evidence collection.

use_when: A meaningful uncertainty model, sensitivity range, or qualitative confidence rubric exists.

use_when: A small probe or independent check can improve the decision before closure.

example: Use Confidence-Bounded Satisficing while preserving floors, evidence, authority, and reopening.

Emergency Temporary Satisficing

use_when: Delay creates immediate material harm and an ordinary search cannot finish in time.

use_when: A reversible or containable interim option exists.

use_when: Emergency authority, scope, expiry, fallback, and remedy can be defined.

use_when: Ordinary selection or service capacity can continue or restart in parallel.

example: Use Emergency Temporary Satisficing while preserving floors, evidence, authority, and reopening.

Portfolio or Multiattribute Satisficing

use_when: Several dimensions are legitimate and not fully commensurable.

use_when: Coverage across groups, roles, regions, or scenarios matters more than a single winner.

use_when: Complementary options can jointly satisfy the need within a bounded resource envelope.

use_when: Noncompensation and aggregation rules can be stated before comparison.

example: Use Portfolio or Multiattribute Satisficing while preserving floors, evidence, authority, and reopening.


Saturation Avoidance

type: archetype

source: generated

batch: First Iteration/Batch 18

aliases:
Saturation Control
Capacity Saturation Prevention
Response Channel Saturation Avoidance
Attention Saturation Prevention
Receptor Saturation Management

slug: boundedness

slug: feedback

slug: observability

slug: threshold

slug: constraint

slug: resilience

slug: bioaccumulation

components:
Response Channel
Saturation Signal
Capacity Threshold
Marginal Response Metric
Input Reduction Rule
Alternate Pathway
Capacity Expansion Option
Priority Admission Rule
Recovery Buffer
Switch or Reroute Trigger
Saturation Budget
Secondary Saturation Check
Degraded Mode Boundary

mechanisms:
Channel Capacity Management
Attention Cap Management
Frequency Cap
Ad Frequency Cap
Worker Caseload Limit
Queue Admission Limit
Alternate Pathway Routing
Overflow Queue
Saturation Dashboard
Capacity Expansion Trigger
Graceful Degradation Mode

essence_one_line: Prevent a limited receptor, channel, resource, or attention capacity from becoming saturated where additional input no longer produces useful response.

compression_statement: When a system has finite response capacity, avoid saturation by detecting the flattening response early, protecting capacity thresholds, reducing or filtering input, adding headroom, rerouting demand, or switching modes before more input becomes wasteful or harmful.

core_intuition: More input is not always more intervention. Once a channel is saturated, extra pressure may produce delay, fatigue, noise, errors, avoidance, or no additional effect. Saturation avoidance treats response capacity as a bounded channel that must be protected, not an infinite sink that can absorb escalation forever.

canonical_formula: finite response channel + rising input + flattening marginal response → saturation risk → threshold, cap, reroute, expand, or switch mode

structural_problem: A receptor, queue, team, audience, service, resource, or response pathway is approaching a capacity limit. Decision makers continue to add the same kind of input because intake is still possible, but the channel no longer converts additional input into proportional response. The result is waste, overload, delay, degraded quality, fatigue, missed signals, or hidden transfer of burden downstream.

trigger_conditions: A bounded response channel must absorb repeated, intense, or concurrent input.

trigger_conditions: Additional input begins producing smaller marginal gains, slower response, worse quality, or more avoidance.

trigger_conditions: The system can detect at least one proxy for saturation, such as utilization, latency, attention loss, abandonment, error rate, fatigue, conversion decline, or queue growth.

trigger_conditions: Input can be reduced, prioritized, delayed, rerouted, transformed, or paired with capacity expansion before hard failure.

trigger_conditions: The cost of pushing more input through a saturated channel is higher than the value of the small residual response.

trigger_conditions: Downstream systems, people, users, learners, or environments would be harmed if saturation is allowed to persist.

trigger_conditions: There is a meaningful distinction between temporary high load and a plateau where more input no longer produces useful effect.

symptoms: People keep increasing reminders, staffing requests, messages, spending, tickets, training, or enforcement while the response curve flattens.

symptoms: Latency, abandonment, error rate, rework, missed signals, fatigue, or frustration rises even though total input or effort has increased.

symptoms: A queue, inbox, approval path, support channel, API, class, clinic, team, audience, or process accepts more work than it can usefully process.

symptoms: Raw volume metrics look successful, but outcome metrics such as resolution, comprehension, conversion, quality, safety, or trust stagnate or decline.

symptoms: The same channel becomes the default dumping ground because it is visible, familiar, or easy to access.

symptoms: Attempts to escalate through the same pathway create crowding, noise, alert fatigue, caseload overload, or capacity spillover elsewhere.

symptoms: The organization treats saturation as a motivation problem or throughput problem without checking whether the channel has reached a response plateau.

root_tension: Escalation logic says that a stronger push should create stronger response, while saturation logic says that the response channel is bounded and may already be unable to convert extra input into useful output.

anti_signatures: The main issue is cumulative retained exposure over time rather than a finite response channel reaching a plateau; cumulative_exposure_budgeting or bioaccumulation_prevention may be more central.

anti_signatures: The problem is a known acceptable operating range rather than a plateaued response channel; therapeutic_window_management may be more central.

anti_signatures: The intervention is only instantaneous rate control without evidence of flattened response or channel saturation; rate_limiting may be the better archetype.

anti_signatures: The decisive move is to drop low-priority work after overload has already occurred; load_shedding may be more central.

anti_signatures: The issue is general bottleneck diagnosis rather than preventing extra input from losing effectiveness at a response limit.

anti_signatures: The case requires domain-specific medical, legal, safety, or infrastructure thresholds that cannot be generalized without expert validation.

anti_signatures: The system can absorb arbitrary additional input without quality loss, queueing, attention loss, or diminishing marginal response.

structural_intervention: Name the finite response channel, monitor for saturation and marginal response decline, set thresholds with protective headroom, and choose a saturation response: reduce or filter input, prioritize access, reroute demand, expand capacity, degrade nonessential service, or switch intervention mode before additional input becomes wasteful or harmful.

action_logic: Identify the response channel that converts input into the desired output, attention, action, throughput, learning, recovery, or decision.

action_logic: Define what saturation means for that channel: flat marginal response, degraded quality, excessive latency, missed signals, error growth, fatigue, or unsafe load.

action_logic: Choose saturation signals that reveal the condition before failure is obvious, combining input volume with response quality and marginal output.

action_logic: Set warning and intervention thresholds that preserve headroom rather than treating theoretical maximum capacity as the operating target.

action_logic: Specify what happens at each threshold: filter input, cap frequency, prioritize high-value demand, defer low-value demand, reroute to alternate pathways, expand capacity, or enter degraded mode.

action_logic: Monitor alternate pathways and downstream systems so rerouting does not simply move saturation to a less visible location.

action_logic: Review whether marginal response improves after the intervention and adjust the threshold, routing rule, or capacity plan accordingly.

action_logic: When saturation persists despite protective controls, stop escalating through the same channel and hand off to plateau_detection_and_switching or another strategy-change archetype.

decision_rules: If additional input is still producing proportional benefit within safe quality bounds, continue monitoring rather than intervening prematurely.

decision_rules: If marginal response is flattening while cost, fatigue, error, or delay is rising, stop adding the same input and activate a saturation response.

decision_rules: If the channel is important but expandable, trigger capacity expansion before the operating threshold becomes the failure threshold.

decision_rules: If capacity cannot be expanded quickly, reduce, prioritize, defer, or reroute input according to explicit admission criteria.

decision_rules: If an alternate pathway is used, monitor the alternate pathway for secondary saturation and protect it with its own thresholds.

decision_rules: If saturation is attention-based, reduce noise and improve salience before adding louder or more frequent messages.

decision_rules: If saturation is safety-sensitive or human-affecting, use conservative thresholds and qualified review rather than improvised numerical limits.

decision_rules: If output has already plateaued and further escalation is being considered, transition from avoidance to plateau detection and switching.

target_invariants: A named response channel must remain visible; otherwise saturation is mistaken for vague overload.

target_invariants: Thresholds must preserve useful response quality, not merely maximize utilization.

target_invariants: Marginal response must be checked; raw input volume is not evidence that the intervention is working.

target_invariants: Input reduction or filtering must be tied to the protected function and not become arbitrary exclusion.

target_invariants: Rerouting must not export saturation to a less visible or less empowered downstream group.

target_invariants: Capacity expansion must be paired with demand governance when new capacity would otherwise be immediately consumed.

target_invariants: Degraded modes must preserve essential function and communicate limits honestly.

target_invariants: High-stakes domains must use domain-qualified standards for thresholds and safety controls.

expected_outcomes: Finite response channels remain below saturation long enough to preserve useful response, quality, and trust.

expected_outcomes: Teams stop wasting effort by pushing more input through channels that can no longer respond proportionally.

expected_outcomes: Saturation becomes visible earlier through signals of marginal response, latency, fatigue, error, and quality decline.

expected_outcomes: Scarce response capacity is allocated to the inputs that most need it or benefit most from it.

expected_outcomes: Rerouting, throttling, capacity expansion, or mode switching happens deliberately rather than after failure.

expected_outcomes: Downstream systems are protected from hidden overload transfer.

expected_outcomes: The system distinguishes saturation avoidance from generic load control, cumulative exposure control, and plateau switching.

prose_essence:
Saturation Avoidance is the pattern of protecting a finite response channel before more input stops producing more useful response. The channel might be a human attention stream, a customer-support queue, an API, an approval process, a worker group, a classroom, a campaign audience, or a biological receptor used only as an analogy. The important structure is the same: a bounded channel can become so full that additional input produces less effect, lower quality, slower response, or outright harm.

The archetype does not say “never add more.” It says to check whether more of the same input can still be converted into useful response. When marginal response is flattening, the right move may be to cap, filter, prioritize, reroute, add capacity, enter a degraded mode, or switch strategy rather than escalate through the same saturated path.

prose_when_to_use:
Use Saturation Avoidance when there is a recognizable channel with finite response capacity and the system is still trying to push more through it. The clearest sign is a gap between input and effect: more alerts but fewer useful responses, more tickets but slower resolution, more messages but less attention, more cases but lower quality, more traffic but rising error rates, or more reminders but greater avoidance.

It is especially useful when decision makers still have time to act before hard failure. A saturation signal, even an imperfect proxy, lets the system intervene while capacity can still be protected. It is weaker when there is no meaningful response channel, no evidence of flattening marginal response, or no possible action other than accepting all input immediately.

prose_structural_problem:
The structural problem is that the system treats a bounded response channel as though it were infinitely elastic. Intake can continue rising after useful response has already begun to flatten. This creates a misleading situation: activity metrics rise while outcome metrics stagnate or decline. People may see more effort and assume the intervention is stronger, while the receiving channel experiences crowding, fatigue, latency, quality loss, or signal dilution.

A saturated channel often hides behind familiar explanations. Missed alerts are blamed on inattentive responders; customer delays are blamed on agent effort; low conversion is blamed on insufficient exposure; poor learning is blamed on weak motivation. Saturation avoidance asks a more structural question: has the response channel reached a point where additional input cannot be converted into useful output?

prose_intervention_logic:
The intervention begins by naming the response channel and defining what saturation would look like for it. In a queue, saturation may appear as latency, abandonment, rework, or backlog growth. In attention systems, it may appear as ignored signals, fatigue, irritation, or declining salience. In infrastructure, it may appear as error rates, timeouts, degraded service, or unstable latency. In staffing systems, it may appear as caseload overload, quality loss, burnout, or unsafe shortcuts.

Once saturation is defined, the intervention adds thresholds and response rules. At a warning threshold, the system may slow intake, filter low-value input, change priority, or add temporary capacity. At a higher threshold, it may reroute demand, enter a degraded mode, pause nonessential inputs, or switch strategy. The point is to preserve useful response, not merely to keep accepting input.

prose_key_components:
### Response Channel

A response channel is the bounded path that turns input into effect. It can be technical, organizational, cognitive, social, or physical. The draft must name the channel clearly because saturation is always saturation of something.

### Saturation Signal

The saturation signal shows that the channel is nearing a plateau. Good signals include marginal output, latency, errors, fatigue, missed signals, abandonment, degraded quality, or declining conversion. Raw input volume alone is not enough.

### Capacity Threshold

The capacity threshold defines where action begins. It should be below the failure point and should preserve headroom for bursts, uncertainty, vulnerable users, and recovery.

### Marginal Response Metric

The marginal response metric asks whether one more unit of input still produces useful additional response. It is the core diagnostic distinction between productive escalation and saturation.

### Input Reduction Rule

An input reduction rule specifies when to cap, slow, filter, batch, or pause new input. The rule should protect the response function rather than merely making work disappear.

### Alternate Pathway

An alternate pathway gives demand somewhere else to go when the primary channel is saturated. It might be self-service, asynchronous handling, another team, a different communication mode, or another technical route. It must be monitored for secondary saturation.

### Capacity Expansion Option

Capacity expansion can be the right response when the channel is worth expanding. It may involve staffing, bandwidth, tooling, automation, scheduling, process redesign, or additional attention structures. Expansion should not be the only response when demand itself is poorly governed.

### Priority Admission Rule

A priority admission rule decides which inputs receive scarce capacity first. It protects safety-critical, high-value, time-sensitive, or fairness-protected demand when the channel cannot serve everything equally well.

### Recovery Buffer

The recovery buffer keeps the channel from living permanently at the edge of saturation. Channels that never recover often lose quality and resilience even if they do not visibly fail.

### Switch or Reroute Trigger

The switch or reroute trigger defines when to stop adding more of the same input. It links this archetype to the next candidate, Plateau Detection and Switching, while keeping the boundary clear: this archetype protects the channel; the neighbor detects a plateau and changes strategy.

prose_common_mechanisms:
### Channel Capacity Management

Channel capacity management maps how much response capacity exists and where it begins to degrade. It implements the archetype by making practical limits visible before the channel is treated as infinite.

### Attention Cap Management

Attention cap management limits messages, alerts, prompts, and reminders so recipients can still notice what matters. It is not the archetype itself; it is a common implementation when attention is the saturated channel.

### Frequency Cap

A frequency cap limits repeated input to the same channel or recipient over a defined interval. It can prevent attention saturation, advertising fatigue, or overload from repeated reminders.

### Ad Frequency Cap

An ad frequency cap is a domain-specific frequency cap. It belongs in the mechanism layer because it implements saturation avoidance in advertising rather than defining the general pattern.

### Worker Caseload Limit

A worker caseload limit prevents an individual or team from being assigned more active cases than they can handle with quality. It implements saturation avoidance in human service, compliance, review, support, and operations contexts.

### Queue Admission Limit

A queue admission limit slows, rejects, delays, or prioritizes new work before the queue becomes a fake promise of service. It protects the response channel from accepting more work than it can meaningfully process.

### Alternate Pathway Routing

Alternate pathway routing moves input to a different channel. It is useful only when the alternate path can still respond and when secondary saturation is monitored.

### Overflow Queue

An overflow queue can protect the primary channel from uncontrolled intake. It is risky when it hides delay, transfers burden, or becomes a permanent backlog.

### Saturation Dashboard

A saturation dashboard displays the signals that reveal a flattening response curve: utilization, latency, abandonment, errors, fatigue, quality decline, or marginal output.

### Capacity Expansion Trigger

A capacity expansion trigger initiates staffing, tooling, bandwidth, or process expansion when saturation is persistent. It works best when paired with demand governance.

### Graceful Degradation Mode

Graceful degradation protects essential function by intentionally reducing nonessential service, fidelity, or scope. It is a saturation response when full service cannot be preserved.

prose_failure_modes:
A common failure mode is measuring input instead of response. Teams celebrate more tickets, more alerts, more impressions, or more messages while the useful effect flattens. The mitigation is to track marginal response and quality.

Another failure mode is setting thresholds at the maximum theoretical capacity. That leaves no buffer for bursts, errors, recovery, or vulnerable users. The mitigation is to set warning thresholds below failure thresholds.

A third failure mode is hidden burden transfer. Rerouting looks successful because the primary channel improves, while a downstream team, self-service path, or overflow queue becomes saturated. The mitigation is secondary saturation checking.

A fourth failure mode is arbitrary gatekeeping. A cap or queue limit may be framed as saturation protection even when it simply blocks inconvenient demand. The mitigation is transparent criteria tied to a protected response function and review for fairness.

A fifth failure mode is staying in avoidance mode after the response has already plateaued. At that point, the better move may be Plateau Detection and Switching: stop escalating and choose a different strategy.

prose_neighbor_distinctions:
Saturation Avoidance differs from Rate Limiting because rate limiting controls admission speed, while saturation avoidance asks whether the channel can still convert more input into useful response. Rate limiting can be a mechanism inside this archetype.

It differs from Load Shedding because load shedding typically rejects work under overload, while saturation avoidance can act earlier through thresholds, filtering, routing, capacity expansion, or degraded modes.

It differs from Load Balancing because load balancing distributes demand, while saturation avoidance determines whether a channel is nearing a response plateau and whether demand should be reduced or transformed.

It differs from Cumulative Exposure Budgeting because cumulative exposure budgeting tracks total load over time. Saturation avoidance focuses on a bounded response channel at or near capacity.

It differs from Bioaccumulation Prevention because bioaccumulation is about retained hidden stock. Saturation avoidance is about the flattening response of a finite channel.

It differs from Plateau Detection and Switching because plateau detection is primarily a post-plateau decision pattern. Saturation avoidance is primarily a protective pattern that tries to prevent or manage the approach to saturation.

prose_cross_domain_examples:
In operations alerting, a team may reduce duplicate low-severity alerts and reserve paging for high-priority events. The goal is not fewer alerts for convenience; it is preserving responder attention so real incidents are seen.

In customer support, a center may activate triage, callbacks, self-service, and staffing triggers when live queues approach the point where agents cannot resolve cases with quality.

In software infrastructure, a gateway may throttle low-priority calls, route to cached responses, and degrade nonessential features when utilization, latency, and error rates show saturation risk.

In advertising, a campaign may cap impressions once the marginal response flattens and irritation rises. More exposure would then waste budget and damage receptivity.

In education, a teacher may limit simultaneous feedback streams and choose one next-action cue when a learner’s processing capacity is saturated.

In governance, an agency may stagger reporting requirements and use simplified pathways for low-risk cases when central review capacity is saturated.

prose_non_examples:
A system that is merely busy but still converts additional input into proportional useful output is not yet a saturation-avoidance case. It may need scaling, scheduling, or ordinary capacity planning.

A problem where small exposures accumulate invisibly over time is not primarily saturation avoidance. It belongs closer to Cumulative Exposure Budgeting or Bioaccumulation Prevention.

A frequency cap applied because it is easy to configure is not enough. The cap becomes saturation avoidance only when it protects a finite response channel from declining marginal response or quality loss.

A strategy that has already fully plateaued may need Plateau Detection and Switching rather than additional saturation prevention.

prose_tradeoffs:
Saturation avoidance often trades universal immediate access for preserved response quality. That tradeoff can be justified when the alternative is a saturated channel that accepts everything but serves little well. It must be governed carefully when access affects rights, safety, livelihood, health, or essential services.

The archetype also trades simplicity for explicit thresholds and routing rules. A single open channel is easy to understand, but it can become a dumping ground. Multiple pathways, priority rules, and degraded modes are harder to manage but can preserve meaningful response.

Capacity expansion has its own tradeoff. Adding capacity may relieve pressure, but it may also attract more demand and recreate saturation unless demand governance changes.

prose_invariants_to_preserve:
The first invariant is that the protected response function must remain explicit. Saturation avoidance is not about making inputs disappear; it is about preserving the ability of the channel to respond usefully.

The second invariant is that raw input is never enough evidence of success. The system must retain some measure of response quality, marginal effect, or outcome.

The third invariant is that saturation controls must not export overload invisibly. Rerouting, overflow queues, self-service, and degraded modes all need monitoring.

The fourth invariant is that human-affecting gates must be transparent and reviewable. A saturation control can be legitimate when it protects safety and quality, but it can become harmful if used as unaccountable rationing.

prose_target_outcomes:
The desired outcome is a response channel that remains useful under pressure. This means fewer missed signals, less wasted effort, better quality, faster meaningful response, less fatigue, and fewer cases where more input creates less effect.

A second outcome is better escalation discipline. Instead of pushing harder through the same channel, the system learns to ask whether the channel can still respond. If not, it changes the input, changes the route, adds capacity, protects headroom, or switches strategy.

A third outcome is clearer boundary management with neighboring archetypes. Frequency caps, rate limits, load shedding, and overflow queues become mechanisms rather than substitutes for thinking about saturation.

prose_parameter_dimensions:
The main tuning dimension is the saturation threshold: how close to capacity the channel may operate before intervention begins. Too low a threshold can restrict access unnecessarily; too high a threshold can allow quality collapse before action starts.

A second dimension is the marginal response cutoff. This defines how much additional effect is required before more input remains justified. For attention systems, this may be response, comprehension, or conversion. For operations systems, it may be resolution, throughput, or quality. For infrastructure, it may be latency and error behavior.

Other tuning dimensions include priority rules, size of recovery buffer, strictness of frequency caps, acceptable degraded-mode scope, rerouting criteria, capacity-expansion trigger, and review cadence. In high-stakes domains, these parameters require domain-qualified standards rather than improvised thresholds.

prose_variants_and_near_names:
Attention Saturation Avoidance is the variant for overloaded human or organizational attention. It appears in alerting, advertising, education, and internal communication.

Resource Saturation Guardrail is the variant for concrete resource exhaustion, such as staffing, service capacity, bandwidth, or review slots.

Alternate-Pathway Saturation Control is the subtype that reroutes demand when a primary pathway is saturated. It absorbs the roadmap’s `saturation_routing` candidate as a subtype/mechanism rather than a standalone draft.

Frequency-Cap Saturation Control is a mechanism-family variant. It preserves the retrieval value of “frequency cap” while keeping it below the archetype level.

Graceful-Degradation Saturation Mode preserves essential function by reducing nonessential service when the channel cannot sustain normal operation.

Near names include Saturation Control, Capacity Saturation Prevention, Receptor Saturation Management, Attention Saturation Prevention, and Plateau Prevention. Plateau Prevention should remain a near name only; Plateau Detection and Switching is still a separate promote-first candidate.

Attention Saturation Avoidance

short_definition: Prevents an audience, responder, learner, or decision maker from receiving more signals than they can notice, interpret, or act on.

distinctive_feature: The saturated channel is human or organizational attention, so quality, salience, and prioritization matter as much as volume.

distinct_from_parent: The parent applies to any finite response channel; this variant focuses on attention and signal-processing capacity.

still_same_parent_because: The intervention still detects saturation, caps or filters input, preserves headroom, and changes channels when more input no longer helps.

use_when: Important messages, alerts, requests, or prompts are being ignored because the recipient channel is crowded.

use_when: The limiting capacity is attention, salience, cognitive load, or response bandwidth rather than physical throughput alone.

use_when: More reminders, warnings, ads, or instructions are producing less response or more avoidance.

example_domains:
operations alerting
education
advertising
internal communications

domain: operations

example: A monitoring team reduces low-severity alerts so critical alarms are noticed.

domain: advertising

example: A campaign caps repeated impressions when extra exposure lowers response.

Resource Saturation Guardrail

short_definition: Protects a finite resource from being consumed to the point where additional demand creates queueing, quality loss, or failure.

distinctive_feature: The emphasis is preserving the operating envelope of a bounded resource rather than only preserving response salience.

distinct_from_parent: The parent covers receptor, channel, attention, and resource saturation; this variant emphasizes concrete resource exhaustion and service degradation.

still_same_parent_because: The central move is still to keep additional input from entering a channel after marginal response flattens or quality degrades.

use_when: A shared resource is approaching a load level at which service quality or throughput deteriorates.

use_when: The resource has a practical capacity limit even if nominal intake can still rise.

use_when: Inputs can be paused, prioritized, routed, or expanded before failure.

example_domains:
customer support
health-adjacent operations
cloud infrastructure
field service

domain: support

example: A team limits new case assignment when active cases exceed quality-preserving capacity.

domain: infrastructure

example: A service throttles low-priority calls before shared capacity saturates.

Alternate-Pathway Saturation Control

short_definition: Routes input away from a saturated primary pathway to a channel that can still respond effectively.

distinctive_feature: The distinctive action is rerouting rather than reducing total input or expanding the primary channel.

distinct_from_parent: The parent includes throttling, capacity expansion, filtering, and mode switching; this subtype emphasizes routing to a still-responsive path.

still_same_parent_because: It is one way to avoid saturation of the primary channel and is not a general flow-diversion archetype by itself.

use_when: The primary channel is saturated but other channels can absorb or respond to some demand.

use_when: The input can be translated, segmented, deferred, or matched to another path without losing its purpose.

use_when: Secondary saturation can be monitored rather than ignored.

example_domains:
service operations
education support
technical support
incident response

domain: service operations

example: Requests are routed to self-service, callback, or triage channels when live agents are saturated.

domain: education

example: A learner uses peer support or asynchronous resources when instructor attention is saturated.

Frequency-Cap Saturation Control

short_definition: Caps repeated exposure to prevent the receiving channel from becoming unresponsive, fatigued, or irritated.

distinctive_feature: The main difference is the use of a frequency cap as the implementation mechanism.

distinct_from_parent: The parent is the cross-domain intervention pattern; frequency caps are one common tool for applying it.

still_same_parent_because: The cap exists to preserve responsive capacity and should not become a standalone archetype.

use_when: Repeated input to the same recipient or channel creates declining response.

use_when: A simple frequency rule can prevent attention, tolerance, or channel saturation.

use_when: The cap is subordinate to the broader saturation signal and response policy.

example_domains:
advertising
notification design
training cues
communications

example: The same user stops receiving additional impressions after marginal response turns negative.

Graceful-Degradation Saturation Mode

short_definition: Temporarily reduces fidelity, scope, or service level to keep core response available under saturation pressure.

distinctive_feature: The intervention preserves core response by intentionally narrowing service before saturation causes uncontrolled failure.

distinct_from_parent: The parent prevents or manages saturation generally; this variant uses controlled degradation as the protective mode.

still_same_parent_because: It still depends on saturation signals, capacity thresholds, and protected headroom.

source_primes: resilience boundedness

use_when: The system cannot immediately reject, reroute, or expand enough input to maintain normal service.

use_when: A lower-fidelity response is safer than pretending the full response channel is still functioning.

use_when: Essential functions can be distinguished from nice-to-have functions.

example_domains:
software services
emergency operations
customer support
logistics

domain: software

example: A service disables nonessential features to preserve core transactions under load.

near_names:
Saturation Control
Capacity Saturation Prevention
Receptor Saturation Management
Attention Saturation Prevention
Plateau Prevention