{"schema_version":1,"assessment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_opportunity320_20260801","source_experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_full320_20260801","cell_id":"computability_boundary_mapping__ethnography_qualitative_methods","archetype_slug":"computability_boundary_mapping","domain_slug":"ethnography_qualitative_methods","title":"Enforceable solvability boundaries for qualitative-analysis workflow validation","opportunity_summary":"Audit an allegedly universal qualitative-workflow validator, formalize its actual scope, enforce a small supportable fragment, and route unsupported, timed-out, or inconclusive cases to explicitly labeled UNKNOWN or human review. The opportunity is conditional because the sealed candidate does not establish that a universal claim is actually made, that the workflow language is sufficiently programmable, or that the restricted fragment would cover useful work.","adopter_authorizer":"A research-method lead and qualitative-analysis platform owner would jointly authorize the automation boundary; ethics or data-governance authority must authorize any use of sensitive materials.","scores":{"meaningful_impact":{"score":4,"rationale":"If the hypothesized universal claim exists, false validation could legitimize unstable coding pipelines and distort downstream findings, while an overbroad impossibility claim could block useful automation. Impact is favorable but prevalence and realized harm are unsupported."},"stakeholder_pull":{"score":2,"rationale":"The candidate names researchers, method leads, governance reviewers, platform designers, and downstream users, but supplies no evidence that they experience this problem, request a formal boundary, or would prioritize it over empirical auto-coder quality."},"incremental_advantage":{"score":4,"rationale":"Relative to finite benchmark testing with Boolean treatment of failures, enforced fragment membership and distinct exact, bounded, UNKNOWN, and human-review outcomes directly address unsupported class-wide guarantees. Advantage remains conditional on finding real overclaims and a useful fragment."},"distinctiveness_plausibility":{"score":3,"rationale":"The combination of formal scope enforcement, proof obligations, versioned guarantees, and non-Boolean routing is proposal-specific and plausibly differentiated from benchmark evaluation, but prior art is explicitly unsearched and world novelty is unmeasured."},"technical_implementability":{"score":3,"rationale":"A small fragment, synthetic tests, membership checks, and UNKNOWN routing appear implementable, but accurately formalizing user-authored workflows, preserving real execution semantics, and discharging soundness obligations may be difficult."},"adoption_authority_feasibility":{"score":4,"rationale":"The candidate identifies joint decision authority, reserves sensitive-material control for governance, excludes substantive interpretive truth from validator authority, and provides explicit halt and rollback conditions. Joint ownership may still slow approval."},"evidence_readiness":{"score":4,"rationale":"A read-only specification audit and sandboxed comparison can test whether a universal claim exists, whether timeout is coerced, and whether one enforceable fragment improves routing without changing live study outputs."},"safety_net_benefit":{"score":5,"rationale":"Explicit UNKNOWN and out-of-scope routing, preservation of human review, prohibition on automated substantive interpretation, and rollback upon soundness failure provide strong protection against false Boolean clearance."},"scalability":{"score":3,"rationale":"Versioned guarantees and reusable fragment checks could extend across workflows, but each workflow language, semantic change, external capability, and institutional review context may require renewed formalization and validation."}},"score_confidence":"MODERATE","costs":{"first_evidence":{"band_2026_usd":"10K_TO_50K","scope":"Read-only documentation and specification audit plus a sandboxed synthetic or de-identified pilot formalizing one property, one small fragment, counterexamples, and comparison of Boolean baseline routing against exact, bounded, and UNKNOWN routing.","confidence":"MODERATE","assumptions":["Existing documentation and representative workflow definitions are accessible.","No identifiable field materials or live study decisions are used.","The pilot covers one platform and one narrowly defined property.","The work requires both formal-method and qualitative-method review."]},"initial_deployment_startup":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"Build and independently review fragment-membership enforcement, guarantee labels, UNKNOWN and human-review paths, audit records, and version controls for one platform before operational launch.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["The platform exposes a modifiable workflow representation and routing interface.","A useful fragment is discovered during initial evidence work.","No major workflow-language redesign or new sensitive-data authorization is required.","Independent soundness and methods review are included."]},"operational_launch":{"band_2026_usd":"250K_TO_1M","scope":"Production integration for one organization or platform, including security and governance review, migration of relevant workflows, interface changes preventing UNKNOWN coercion, training, monitoring, documentation, and launch evaluation.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Deployment remains limited to one platform and institutional setting.","Existing human-review staff can receive escalated cases.","Formal consistency is clearly separated from ethnographic validity.","Launch does not require retrospective reanalysis of many completed studies."]},"annual_recurring":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"Ongoing expert review, monitoring of escalation and bypass behavior, support, audit retention, and revalidation when workflow semantics, integrations, guarantees, or governance requirements change.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["One deployed platform is maintained.","Language and external-capability changes are periodic rather than continuous.","Human review volume remains manageable.","No claim of universal substantive validity is introduced."]}},"research_burden":"HIGH","earliest_credible_horizon":"3_TO_12_MONTHS","pipeline_gates":{"recognizable_externally_supportable_problem":{"status":"UNCERTAIN","reason":"The candidate gives a coherent problem and falsifier, but the alleged unrestricted guarantee, Boolean coercion, and affected workflow expressiveness are explicitly hypotheses without external evidence."},"identifiable_adopter_or_authorizer":{"status":"YES","reason":"The sealed candidate identifies the research-method lead and platform owner as joint boundary setters and ethics or data-governance authority as controller of sensitive-material use."},"distinct_testable_incremental_claim":{"status":"YES","reason":"The proposal can be compared with ordinary finite-suite benchmark validation on false Boolean verdicts, guarantee drift, unsupported universal claims, and correct routing of timeout or out-of-scope cases."},"bounded_next_evidence_step":{"status":"YES","reason":"The authorized read-only audit and sandboxed synthetic or de-identified pilot are bounded to one property and one small fragment and include counterexample attempts and an explicit baseline comparison."},"no_unresolved_safety_or_authority_stop":{"status":"YES","reason":"The first step avoids live decisions and unauthorized identifiable materials, keeps substantive interpretation outside validator authority, and specifies stop and rollback triggers for de-identification, membership, soundness, and UNKNOWN handling failures."},"implementation_cost_scope_and_range":{"status":"YES","reason":"A one-platform pilot and deployment can be scoped into formalization, implementation, independent review, integration, governance, training, evaluation, and recurring revalidation, although ranges remain low-confidence."}},"blocking_evidence":["Whether any target platform actually makes an unrestricted, always-correct, guaranteed-termination claim rather than a bounded empirical claim.","Whether all accepted workflows already belong to an enforceable finite or proven-total class and timeout is already distinct from false.","Whether the workflow representation and target property admit a sound abstraction that covers real executions.","Whether a mechanically enforceable fragment includes enough routine qualitative work to justify adoption.","Whether UNKNOWN and out-of-scope labels remain distinct in downstream interfaces and institutional decisions.","Whether independent formal and qualitative-method reviewers accept the specification, membership test, and claimed guarantee."],"next_evidence_step":"Conduct a read-only audit of one target platform's documentation and workflow semantics, then sandbox one synthetic or de-identified property and fragment; compare the current finite-suite Boolean baseline with enforced-fragment routing on seeded terminating, nonterminating, unsupported, timeout, and ambiguous cases. Stop if no universal claim or coercion is found, fragment membership is unenforceable, any soundness obligation fails, or the fragment does not materially reduce false Boolean verdicts without excluding routine workflows.","research_questions":["Does the platform make a universal termination or rule-consistency guarantee, and what exact workflow class, inputs, quantifiers, and timeout semantics does it state?","Is the accepted workflow language finite or proven total, or expressive enough that unrestricted class-wide validation requires a scope-matched proof or unresolved status?","Can fragment membership be mechanically enforced without silently narrowing the documented language?","Does the proposed fragment cover routine analytic workflows while preserving context-sensitive practices outside formal authority?","Against finite benchmark validation, how often does the boundary system prevent false valid or invalid verdicts and route cases correctly to UNKNOWN or review?","Can reviewers validate that the abstraction covers real executions and that formal rule consistency is not presented as ethnographic validity?","How frequently do language, integration, or governance changes invalidate a versioned guarantee?","What existing approaches already provide enforced fragments, typed restrictions, multi-valued results, proof obligations, or comparable guarantee management?"],"recommendation":"VALIDATE_PROBLEM_FIRST","uncertainty_constraints":["Closed-book assessment: no external evidence was used.","Problem prevalence, stakeholder demand, market size, realized impact, and adoption willingness are unmeasured.","Prior art and world distinctiveness are unmeasured because prior-art status is UNSEARCHED.","The candidate is at HYPOTHESIS maturity, and its fit depends on the workflow language being sufficiently programmable.","Cost bands are resource-equivalent planning ranges, not observed prices or point estimates.","The unrestricted workflow class must not be called undecidable without a checked, scope-matched encoding and proof.","A computability or consistency result cannot certify substantive ethnographic truth."],"closed_book_prior_art_boundary":"No claim is made that this mechanism is novel or absent from qualitative-analysis platforms, workflow-language tooling, formal methods, static analysis, governance systems, or adjacent research software. The sealed packet reports prior art as UNSEARCHED; external research is required before any distinctiveness claim."}