{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp06_four_proposal_generalization60_20260803","cell_id":"representation_independent_interface_contract__accounting_auditing","arm":"COMPLETE_PROPOSAL_PORTFOLIO","candidate_id":"cand_cost_allocation_behavioral_contract_03","proposal_index":3,"version":0,"title":"Behavioral Allocation-Plan Contract for Replaceable Cost Engines","problem":"When a cost-allocation workbook is replaced by an ERP allocation module or database procedure, the same source pools and driver data can produce different recipient amounts because allocation meaning was embedded in formula order, cell references, blank-cell treatment, intermediate rounding, residual handling, and undocumented eligibility filters. Aggregate totals may still reconcile, concealing distribution differences. Downstream posting, management reporting, and audit procedures consequently depend on the incumbent calculation representation rather than a specification of the allocation behavior.","actors":["Cost accountant defining allocation policy","Business-unit controllers receiving allocated amounts","Corporate controller approving financial-reporting treatment","Financial-systems owner implementing the calculation","Ledger operations team consuming proposed allocation results","Internal audit or controls personnel testing allocation execution","External auditor independently evaluating accounting treatment and evidence","Data-security owner governing access to cost and driver information"],"observable_state":"For one unchanged closed-period input set, an incumbent spreadsheet and a proposed allocation engine agree on the total cost allocated but disagree on recipient-level amounts, zero-driver treatment, residual cents, or explanatory lineage. Reviewers cannot determine whether the replacement is wrong or merely different because the operative rule is partly expressed through workbook layout and evaluation behavior. Tests compare selected cells or final files rather than a representation-independent allocation contract.","consequence":"A calculation-engine change can shift costs among entities, departments, products, or accounts without an explicit policy decision, while aggregate reconciliation and superficially matching interfaces fail to reveal the semantic change. Migration then requires preserving incidental formulas or manually adjudicating differences case by case.","affected_objective":"Produce reproducible, policy-conforming, explainable cost allocations across calculation implementations while preserving source-pool amounts, recipient eligibility, driver semantics, rounding rules, and explicit residual treatment.","intervention":"Define a versioned, opaque Allocation Plan by abstract values and behavioral laws. The abstract state contains named source pools, eligible targets, driver facts, semantic allocation rules, an acyclic rule-dependency graph, currency and precision policies, explicit zero-driver behavior, and residual disposition. Its lifecycle is Draft, Validated, Executed, Finalized, and Superseded. Public operations define pools and targets, register versioned driver facts, add semantic rules, validate the dependency graph, execute a sealed input version, retrieve target or pool results, obtain a contractual explanation trace, finalize a result, and supersede the plan. The contract requires conservation for each pool and currency: allocated amounts plus an explicitly reported residual equal the source amount; no ineligible target receives an allocation; identical sealed inputs and plan versions yield the same abstract result; execution is idempotent and has no posting side effect; rule dependencies, not physical evaluation order, determine semantics; rounding occurs only at declared boundaries; absent or zero drivers invoke a declared typed outcome rather than an implicit fallback; and every result traces to a pool, rule, driver version, and rounding or residual decision. Workbook cells, SQL joins, iteration order, temporary tables, storage layout, parallelization, caches, and display formatting remain hidden. Each implementation supplies an abstraction mapping from concrete results to abstract allocation results and must pass the same black-box, differential, and metamorphic oracle before substitution. Execution produces a proposed batch only; ledger posting remains a separately authorized operation.","structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"Abstract component and value model","domain_realization":"A versioned Allocation Plan comprising source pools, eligible targets, driver facts, semantic rules, a dependency graph, precision policy, residual policy, and abstract allocation results."},{"archetype_element":"Observable operation surface","domain_realization":"Pool and target definition, driver registration, rule construction, validation, execution, result retrieval, explanation retrieval, finalization, and supersession."},{"archetype_element":"Behavioral laws and invariants","domain_realization":"Per-pool conservation, target eligibility, deterministic results for identical sealed inputs, idempotent execution, declared zero-driver handling, controlled rounding, explicit residuals, acyclic dependencies, and traceability of every output."},{"archetype_element":"Hidden representation","domain_realization":"Spreadsheet coordinates, formula syntax, SQL structure, physical evaluation order, temporary tables, indexes, caches, parallel execution, and report formatting are non-contractual."},{"archetype_element":"Abstraction function and representation invariant","domain_realization":"Every implementation maps valid concrete calculation records to the same abstract pool-to-target allocation relation, with the mapping defined only when conservation, eligibility, precision, dependency, and trace invariants hold."},{"archetype_element":"Error semantics and side-effect limits","domain_realization":"Cycles, stale drivers, unsupported currencies, missing rules, invalid eligibility, and zero-driver conditions produce declared typed outcomes without partial results; execution cannot post ledger entries."},{"archetype_element":"Conformance and substitutability rule","domain_realization":"A replacement must satisfy shared examples, generated laws, metamorphic relations, and differential comparisons at the abstract result level for the same contract version."},{"archetype_element":"Leakage control and lifecycle governance","domain_realization":"Reviewers prevent dependencies on workbook cells or engine traces, behavioral changes require version classification, and only finalized contract results become eligible for a separately controlled posting process."}],"mechanism_mapping":[{"mechanism_slug":"abstract_data_type_specification","role":"Defines allocation meaning independently of formulas and storage, including the abstract plan, allocation relation, representation invariants, and mapping from concrete engine output to contractual results.","counterfactual_removal":"Without the abstract value model and mapping, matching operation names or aggregate totals could conceal different recipient-level allocation meanings."},{"mechanism_slug":"design_by_contract_clause","role":"Assigns preconditions, postconditions, and typed failure behavior to validation, execution, result retrieval, finalization, and supersession.","counterfactual_removal":"Without operation clauses, engines could silently improvise different behavior for missing drivers, cyclic rules, stale input versions, partial execution, or repeated runs."},{"mechanism_slug":"opaque_type_or_module_boundary","role":"Restricts consumers to contractual plan and result operations while withholding workbook coordinates, temporary calculations, database structures, and engine-specific trace objects.","counterfactual_removal":"Without opacity, posting routines and reports could continue reading particular cells or internal tables, making representation substitution nominal rather than real."},{"mechanism_slug":"black_box_contract_test_suite","role":"Applies one implementation-parameterized battery to the incumbent adapter, a simple model, and candidate engines, checking exact contractual results, errors, conservation, eligibility, idempotence, and explanations.","counterfactual_removal":"Without a reusable suite, each migration would rely on selected-cell comparisons or bespoke reconciliations that do not define general acceptance."},{"mechanism_slug":"metamorphic_behavior_test","role":"Checks representation-independent relations such as zero source pools producing zero allocation, scaling a pool scaling pre-rounding allocations under unchanged drivers, adding an ineligible target leaving results unchanged, and splitting an equivalent target preserving the combined allocation subject to the declared rounding policy.","counterfactual_removal":"Without metamorphic relations, the oracle would depend mainly on enumerated expected outputs and could miss systematic defects across unenumerated pool and driver values."},{"mechanism_slug":"reference_implementation_differential_test","role":"Uses a deliberately simple independent model based on exact arithmetic to compare abstract recipient results and explanation elements with each concrete implementation on shared inputs.","counterfactual_removal":"Without an independent reference, the suite could verify only broad laws such as conservation while allowing a consistently wrong distribution to pass."},{"mechanism_slug":"representation_leakage_probe","role":"Searches the observable surface for unpromised dependencies on formula sequence, row order, engine-generated identifiers, intermediate precision, filenames, trace formatting, timing, or residual placement.","counterfactual_removal":"Without leakage probing, consumers could turn useful engine artifacts into an unofficial interface even when direct access to storage was blocked."},{"mechanism_slug":"semantic_versioning_and_deprecation_gate","role":"Classifies changes to driver meaning, eligibility, dependency semantics, precision, zero-driver policy, residual disposition, and explanations before consumers migrate.","counterfactual_removal":"Without version governance, a policy or engine change could alter allocation behavior in place while retaining a misleadingly unchanged interface."}],"causal_chain":["Allocation meaning is currently entangled with an incumbent workbook or engine’s concrete formulas and execution behavior.","The intervention expresses pools, targets, drivers, semantic dependencies, precision, residual handling, errors, and result explanations as a representation-independent Allocation Plan contract.","Opaque access prevents downstream posting and reporting routines from relying on cells, internal tables, or physical execution order.","Each implementation maps its concrete state to the same abstract allocation relation and must preserve conservation, eligibility, determinism, traceability, and lifecycle invariants.","A simple independent model supplies exact expected results, while black-box and metamorphic tests exercise both concrete cases and cross-run behavioral laws.","Only an implementation conforming to the same version becomes eligible to produce proposed posting batches; incompatible behavioral changes require explicit contract migration.","If the oracle is sufficiently discriminating, calculation technology can change without silently changing the policy-level distribution of costs."],"baseline":"Treat the incumbent workbook or allocation engine as the specification. Recreate its formulas or configuration in the replacement, reconcile total debits and credits, compare selected recipient amounts, and manually explain remaining differences before changing posting routines.","nearest_rivals":["Adopt a standardized allocation workbook. This can make formulas consistent locally but freezes a cell-and-formula representation and does not establish substitution across calculation technologies.","Copy incumbent formulas into the new engine. This may reproduce observed outputs for known cases but carries forward accidental evaluation behavior and does not separate accounting policy from implementation.","Accept any result whose total allocation reconciles to the source pools. Conservation is necessary but cannot detect redistribution among eligible or ineligible targets.","Create a canonical allocation-result table. A common schema standardizes fields but does not specify driver meaning, dependency rules, zero-driver behavior, precision, residual treatment, or calculation laws.","Run parallel calculations and manually review differences. This supplies evidence for selected periods but lacks a reusable acceptance oracle and may treat incumbent defects as intended behavior."],"remaining_contrastive_claim":"Relative to these rivals, the testable contrast is whether defining allocation behavior through abstract pools, drivers, eligibility, dependency semantics, mathematical invariants, error rules, and a shared oracle permits two differently represented calculation engines to produce substitutable policy-level results without copying a physical workbook or implementation sequence. This is a bounded design hypothesis, not a novelty or effect claim.","authority_safety":{"decision_authority":"The cost-accounting owner and controller may approve allocation semantics and an offline pilot with financial-systems and data-security owners. Ledger operations retain authority over posting, and business-unit or contractual approvals remain required where applicable. External auditors independently determine whether the accounting treatment, controls, and evidence are sufficient.","authorized_first_step":"Implement a read-only adapter over one access-approved, already-closed allocation workbook and an independent exact-arithmetic model. Replay a predeclared fixture set and the closed-period inputs offline, producing comparison records but no ledger entries, management reports, invoices, or intercompany settlements.","excluded_actions":["Posting, reversing, approving, or modifying ledger entries","Changing an active allocation policy, contractual charge, or finalized historical result","Deploying a candidate engine into the production close process","Treating contract conformance as approval of the underlying accounting policy or as an audit conclusion","Changing expected results, metamorphic relations, or tolerances after observing candidate output","Exposing cost, driver, personnel, customer, or intercompany data beyond existing authorization","Using aggregate conservation to waive unexplained recipient-level differences"],"halt_rollback":"Stop the pilot on unauthorized access, an unexplained recipient-level difference, conservation or eligibility failure, missing lineage, shared-code contamination between model and candidate, or evidence that required allocation meaning depends on an unmodeled representation detail. Preserve discrepancy records, revoke prototype access, remove pilot copies according to retention policy, and retain the incumbent calculation and posting process unchanged."},"negative_tests":{"strongest_counterevidence":"The strongest counterevidence would be that the approved allocation policy is inseparable from exact representation-specific formulas, evaluation sequence, or contractually named workbook cells, so a behaviorally equivalent re-representation is neither meaningful nor authorized without redefining the underlying policy.","problem_falsifier":"The problem is falsified if a dependency inventory and controlled engine swap show that allocation policy is already specified independently of implementation, downstream consumers use only that specification, and independently implemented engines produce the required recipient results and explanations without copied formulas, bespoke mappings, or ambiguous adjudication.","intervention_falsifier":"The intervention is falsified if independently built engines pass all predeclared contractual, differential, and metamorphic tests for the same version but produce materially different recipient charges, accounting classifications, residuals, or explanation lineage; it is also falsified if closing the gap requires exposing the incumbent’s physical formula sequence rather than a policy-level semantic rule.","risks":["An incorrect abstract driver or eligibility definition could formalize an inappropriate allocation policy.","Conservation can hold while costs are distributed to the wrong targets.","The reference model could reproduce the same conceptual defect as the contract.","Over-specifying tie-breaking, precision, or explanations could freeze incidental implementation behavior.","Under-specifying rounding boundaries or dependencies could admit divergent results.","Metamorphic relations may not apply to nonlinear thresholds and could be misused as universal laws.","Explanation traces could expose confidential cost structures or driver information.","The contract does not validate source-driver accuracy, policy authorization, tax treatment, or posting controls outside its boundary.","Restricting the initial contract to acyclic rules may exclude valid reciprocal allocation methods.","Performance or resource differences could make a behaviorally conforming engine operationally unsuitable."]},"next_evidence_step":"Predeclare a bounded fixture matrix containing a single-target pool, proportional multi-target allocation, ineligible targets, zero and missing drivers, negative adjustments, multiple currencies, intermediate-rounding traps, residual cents, stale driver versions, repeated execution, and an attempted dependency cycle. Use exact expected outputs where available and predeclare applicable metamorphic relations before implementation comparison. Run the same suite against an independent exact-arithmetic model and the read-only adapter for one closed allocation period; compare abstract recipient amounts, residuals, typed errors, and explanation lineage. Have one cost-accounting owner and one controls reviewer classify every observed engine detail as contractual, sanctioned diagnostic information, or representation leakage. Stop after this single-period evaluation; passing authorizes no posting or production replacement.","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","diversity_from_prior_proposals":"Proposal 1 concerned a read-only journal-entry population used as audit evidence. Its central problem was representation-coupled extraction, and its causal path depended on exact-once population membership, scope completeness, control totals, and lineage across data providers. This proposal instead governs a transformation: it maps cost pools and driver facts to recipient amounts through semantic rules, conservation laws, metamorphic relations, and an independent calculation model. It neither changes nor extends journal-population retrieval and can be adopted while Proposal 1’s extraction remains untouched. Proposal 2 concerned an actor-sensitive account-reconciliation case whose core behavior was preparation, review, certification, segregation of duties, evidence gating, reopening, and immutable approval history. This proposal’s core is calculation semantics rather than human workflow: validation and finalization bound an allocation plan, but reviewer roles and reconciliation certification are not its causal mechanism. It can be adopted without replacing any reconciliation workbook or workflow, and Proposal 2 can be adopted without an allocation engine. The three proposals therefore address distinct objects—an audit population, a reconciliation-control case, and an allocation calculation—through different invariants, interventions, acceptance evidence, and failure paths.","revision_record":{"parent_version":null,"progress_targets_addressed":["Materially different problem from both sealed proposals","Independently adoptable calculation intervention","Representation-independent abstract state, operations, invariants, errors, and side-effect limits","Mechanism-specific roles and counterfactual removals","Distinct causal chain using differential and metamorphic calculation evidence","Baseline and strongest rivals","Authority boundaries, safeguards, halt conditions, and falsifiers","Explicit diversity from proposals 1 and 2","Bounded closed-period evidence step"],"conceptual_changes":["Initial version defines cost-allocation equivalence at the policy-level result rather than by formulas, schemas, or aggregate reconciliation.","Uses conservation, eligibility, deterministic execution, residual rules, explanation lineage, and metamorphic relations as the substitution surface."],"operational_changes":["Initial version limits evaluation to an offline exact-arithmetic model and a read-only incumbent adapter.","Separates proposed allocation execution from authorized ledger posting and adds predeclared stopping conditions."],"evidence_changes":["Prior art remains unsearched.","Initial evidence is bounded to synthetic fixtures and one access-approved closed allocation period."],"claim_changes":["Makes no claim of novelty, prevalence, demand, or effect size.","Limits the claim to whether a representation-independent behavioral oracle can discriminate substitutable allocation engines without copying incumbent formulas or execution order."]}}