{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_full320_20260801","cell_id":"layer_decay_and_expiration_management__law_governance","trajectory_id":"R","attempt_index":0,"archetype_slug":"layer_decay_and_expiration_management","domain_slug":"law_governance","decision":"CANDIDATE","problem_id":"stale_subregulatory_guidance_accumulation","causal_lever_id":"governed_guidance_lifecycle_state_transitions","proposal":{"problem":"Administrative agencies can accumulate circulars, staff memoranda, FAQs, manuals, waivers, and other subregulatory guidance whose current authority is unclear after governing law, programs, or institutional context changes. Obsolete documents may remain publicly discoverable or operationally active, while indiscriminate removal would erase reliance history, evidence, and accountability. Whether this occurs materially in a given agency is a HYPOTHESIS.","actors_substrate":["issuing agency offices","agency counsel and records officers","frontline officials applying guidance","regulated or governed parties","courts, auditors, and oversight bodies","public-records requesters and historians","repositories containing successive guidance artifacts"],"observable_state":"Multiple dated guidance artifacts address the same subject without consistently inspectable effective, superseded, withdrawn, archived, held, or review-due states; searches can return older instruments alongside current ones, and dependencies such as citations or pending matters are incompletely recorded.","consequence":"Officials or affected parties may rely on stale guidance, contradictory instructions may persist de facto, and cleanup may either be deferred indefinitely or destroy records needed to reconstruct past decisions.","affected_objective":"Make operative guidance identifiable and interpretable while preserving legality, notice, reliance evidence, historical reconstruction, and accountable records disposition.","structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"sequential deposits","domain_realization":"Successive circulars, FAQs, waivers, manuals, and memoranda form a dated guidance stack.","claim_kind":"INFERENCE"},{"archetype_element":"changed active usefulness or validity","domain_realization":"Amendments, program closure, new decisions, or replacement guidance can make an older artifact misleading without eliminating its evidentiary value.","claim_kind":"INFERENCE"},{"archetype_element":"stale layers mistaken for current truth","domain_realization":"An accessible document lacking an authoritative status marker may be treated as current by staff or the public.","claim_kind":"HYPOTHESIS"},{"archetype_element":"removal threatens reconstruction","domain_realization":"Past guidance may be needed to explain notice, reliance, enforcement, or institutional reasoning at an earlier time.","claim_kind":"INFERENCE"},{"archetype_element":"exception holds","domain_realization":"Litigation, public-records duties, investigations, and historical designation can suspend ordinary disposition.","claim_kind":"INFERENCE"},{"archetype_element":"managed lifecycle","domain_realization":"Each artifact moves through published, review-due, superseded, withdrawn, archived, quarantined, or lawfully destroyed states under named authority.","claim_kind":"HYPOTHESIS"}],"component_map":[{"component":"layer_inventory_and_identity_map","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Canonical register of guidance artifacts, identifiers, owners, subjects, and duplicates."},{"component":"deposition_order_and_age_index","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Issuance, effective, amendment, withdrawal, and version-lineage dates."},{"component":"retention_policy_matrix","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Guidance-class schedule with minimums, maximums, archival outcomes, and legal bases."},{"component":"decay_function_or_aging_rule","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Age increases review priority but never reduces legal authority by itself."},{"component":"expiration_trigger_definition","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Elapsed review date or predicate change triggers review, labeling, or archival eligibility—not automatic repeal."},{"component":"layer_value_and_risk_score","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Review ranking based on current use, public reliance, rights impact, evidentiary value, and contradiction risk."},{"component":"dependency_and_reconstruction_check","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Check citations, pending matters, incorporated procedures, litigation, and historical reconstruction needs."},{"component":"pruning_or_archival_pathway","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Refresh, supersede, withdraw, archive, quarantine, or authorized destruction."},{"component":"preservation_exception_register","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Named holds for litigation, investigation, public records, evidence, safety, or historical value."},{"component":"deletion_audit_and_rollback_window","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Logged withdrawal plus reversible quarantine where lawful."},{"component":"resource_budget_and_storage_tier","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Current guidance receives primary visibility; inactive material moves to lower-cost archival access."},{"component":"review_cadence_and_revalidation_loop","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Periodic owner certification and event-triggered review."},{"component":"legal_hold_or_compliance_override","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Counsel or records authority blocks disposition while an obligation applies."},{"component":"hot_warm_cold_access_state","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Current, limited-use, and archival publication tiers with conspicuous status."},{"component":"orphan_layer_detection","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Identify artifacts with no live citation, procedure, case, hold, or required reconstruction role."},{"component":"supersession_marker","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Persistent withdrawn/superseded notice linking to the successor."},{"component":"layer_compaction_candidate_flag","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Flag duplicative guidance for consolidation while retaining version lineage."},{"component":"rehydration_or_restore_procedure","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Documented retrieval and reconstruction of archived artifacts."},{"component":"deletion_impact_estimate","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Estimate effects on notice, reliance, proceedings, citations, and evidentiary completeness."},{"component":"stale_context_detector","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Flag references to amended authority, closed programs, departed owners, broken links, or contradictory current guidance."}],"mechanism_dispositions":[{"slug":"age_weighted_value_score","disposition":"selected_supporting","contribution_type":"OPERATIONAL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Use only to rank human review; authority, holds, and rights impact are vetoes, and the score cannot determine validity.","counterfactual_removal":"Triage becomes slower but the lifecycle remains viable."},{"slug":"archive_restore_test","disposition":"selected_supporting","contribution_type":"TEST_DESIGN","adaptation_or_rejection":"Sample archived guidance across age and format bands and test retrieval, readability, lineage, and citation resolution.","counterfactual_removal":"Archival recoverability would remain assumed rather than demonstrated."},{"slug":"cache_eviction_rule","disposition":"incompatible","contribution_type":"NONE","adaptation_or_rejection":"Access recency cannot legitimately determine which legal-governance artifact loses availability or authority.","counterfactual_removal":"No causal loss; excluding it avoids popularity-driven disposition."},{"slug":"dependency_safe_delete_check","disposition":"selected_load_bearing","contribution_type":"SAFETY_GUARDRAIL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Block destruction when live legal, procedural, evidentiary, citation, or reconstruction dependencies remain.","counterfactual_removal":"Cleanup could silently impair proceedings, reliance evidence, or accountability."},{"slug":"lifecycle_storage_tiering_policy","disposition":"selected_supporting","contribution_type":"OPERATIONAL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Demote noncurrent artifacts to clearly labeled archives while preserving access and lineage.","counterfactual_removal":"The system could still label status, but active search would remain cluttered or retention more costly."},{"slug":"log_rotation_and_cleanup_job","disposition":"considered_rejected","contribution_type":"NONE","adaptation_or_rejection":"Blind generational purging is unsuitable because significance and obligations are not determined by position in a sequence.","counterfactual_removal":"No loss; class-based governed disposition replaces it."},{"slug":"retention_schedule","disposition":"selected_load_bearing","contribution_type":"CORE_CAUSAL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Map guidance classes to retention duties, disposition paths, exceptions, and holds under cited authority.","counterfactual_removal":"Lifecycle decisions revert to inconsistent, potentially unauthorized judgment."},{"slug":"soft_delete_quarantine_window","disposition":"selected_load_bearing","contribution_type":"SAFETY_GUARDRAIL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Withdraw from ordinary use first, preserve an audit entry, and retain a reversible copy when law permits.","counterfactual_removal":"A mistaken disposition can become immediately irreversible."},{"slug":"stale_layer_detection_dashboard","disposition":"selected_load_bearing","contribution_type":"OPERATIONAL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Inventory artifacts and surface likely stale or status-ambiguous guidance to accountable owners.","counterfactual_removal":"The target population remains invisible, undermining systematic review."},{"slug":"time_to_live_ttl_policy","disposition":"selected_supporting","contribution_type":"OPERATIONAL","adaptation_or_rejection":"TTL creates a review-due or provisional-expiry state; it cannot repeal, withdraw, or destroy an instrument without authorized process.","counterfactual_removal":"Event and periodic reviews remain, but temporary guidance is more likely to persist unnoticed."},{"slug":"tombstone_or_deletion_marker","disposition":"selected_load_bearing","contribution_type":"CORE_CAUSAL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Leave a durable status page recording withdrawal or supersession, date, authority, reason, and successor.","counterfactual_removal":"Old links become ambiguous and cached or copied guidance can masquerade as current."}],"causal_chain":["Inventory and identity resolution expose the accumulated guidance stack.","Status, age, context, risk, retention obligations, holds, and dependencies determine review priority and permitted dispositions.","Authorized owners refresh, supersede, withdraw, archive, or quarantine artifacts rather than leaving all active.","Persistent markers redirect surviving references and distinguish prior guidance from current guidance.","Audited, reversible disposition plus restore tests preserves reconstruction while reducing stale material in current search.","Periodic revalidation prevents temporary exceptions and lifecycle rules from becoming permanent by default."],"baseline":"Ordinary practice is fragmented publication across websites and shared repositories, manual searches, informal owner knowledge, keep-everything retention, and ad hoc withdrawal or deletion; this characterization is a HYPOTHESIS for the pilot institution.","nearest_rival":"A one-time guidance inventory and consolidation project. It can reduce present clutter but lacks continuing triggers, exception revalidation, dependency gates, rollback, and persistent supersession evidence.","authority_safety":{"affected_parties":["regulated or governed persons","agency staff","litigants and counsel","records subjects","oversight bodies","researchers and public requesters"],"decision_authority":"The issuing office may propose status changes; agency counsel and the records authority approve actions within their mandates. Only legally empowered bodies may repeal or alter binding law, and courts retain interpretive authority.","authorized_first_step":"Run a 60-day shadow pilot on at most 100 guidance artifacts from one office: inventory them, generate review recommendations and proposed status labels, and test archive restoration without deleting, withdrawing, or changing legal effect.","excluded_actions":["automatic repeal or invalidation","destruction during the pilot","disposition contrary to a hold or records duty","concealing formerly public guidance without an accessible status marker","using the composite score as the final legal decision","changing rights, obligations, or pending-case treatment through metadata alone"],"halt_rollback":"Halt if a hold is missed, a current artifact is mislabeled, affected users cannot find controlling guidance, or an archive cannot be restored. Remove pilot labels, restore the prior index, preserve all artifacts and logs, and require counsel-led review before resumption."}},"negative_tests":{"strongest_counterevidence":"The packet supplies no agency-level observations. The strongest contrary finding would be that the target office already has complete authoritative status/version controls and users rarely encounter or act on obsolete guidance.","analogy_break":"Legal authority does not naturally decay like cached data: an old instrument may remain binding until formally changed, while a withdrawn instrument may remain indispensable evidence. Age may trigger review but cannot establish invalidity or permission to destroy.","failure_condition":"The approach fails if dependencies and holds cannot be reliably discovered, status labels are not authoritative or visible at the point of use, or archival access is practically unavailable.","problem_falsifier":"A representative inventory finds nearly all artifacts have accurate authoritative lifecycle states and successor links, searches reliably privilege current guidance, and observed decisions show no material stale-guidance reliance or cleanup paralysis.","intervention_falsifier":"Against the existing workflow, the bounded pilot does not improve blinded users' accuracy or time in identifying current guidance, does not reduce unresolved status ambiguity, or produces unacceptable false stale flags, missed holds, or restoration failures.","risks":["A numerical score creates false precision or embeds policy bias.","An erroneous stale label can influence conduct before formal review.","Archiving can reduce practical public access despite nominal availability.","Lifecycle metadata may be mistaken for a lawful repeal or adjudication.","Incomplete dependency discovery can damage pending matters or historical reconstruction.","Quarantine may conflict with a binding destruction or privacy requirement.","Permanent holds and tombstones can recreate the accumulation problem.","Consolidation can erase legally meaningful wording and temporal context."]},"null_rationale":null,"classification":{"candidate_kind":"DOMAIN_TRANSFER","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","evidence_maturity":"HYPOTHESIS"},"revision_change_log":{"revision_kind":"ORIGINAL","prior_problem_id":null,"prior_causal_lever_id":null,"problem_changed":false,"causal_lever_changed":false,"conceptual_changes":[],"operational_changes":[],"repairs_addressed":[]},"confidence":0.84,"generator_notes":"Closed-book structural inference from the supplied packet. Empirical prevalence, effect size, and institutional baseline remain untested; no novelty claim is made."}