{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp06_four_proposal_generalization60_20260803","cell_id":"representation_independent_interface_contract__chemistry_materials","arm":"COMPLETE_PROPOSAL_PORTFOLIO","candidate_id":"electrochemical-cycling-session-contract","proposal_index":3,"version":0,"title":"Behavioral Contract for Electrochemical Cycling Sessions","problem":"Battery-material cycling procedures are often executed through vendor-specific step tables, command sequences, driver objects, channel identifiers, and firmware states. Protocol controllers consequently depend on details such as current-sign conventions, step numbering, cutoff precedence, polling cadence, pause behavior, and buffer layout. Two instrument adapters can accept the same nominal charge-rest-discharge procedure yet differ in when they begin actuation, which cutoff wins, how they handle stale measurements, or what happens after communication loss. Replacing a driver or instrument can therefore alter experimental execution even when the intended protocol remains unchanged.","actors":["Electrochemistry researchers who author cycling procedures","Laboratory automation developers","Maintainers of potentiostat and cycler drivers","Equipment custodians and laboratory safety authorities","Data stewards who preserve execution traces and protocol provenance"],"observable_state":"For one declared cycling procedure, changing the vendor driver or simulated backend changes current direction, unit interpretation, transition timing, cutoff selection, pause-and-resume behavior, terminal state, error category, or the provenance attached to measurements. Controllers inspect vendor step arrays, firmware status codes, channel buffers, or internal command queues to determine what the session is doing.","consequence":"Protocol portability requires controller-specific repair; a representation-only driver change can be confused with an experimental-method change; interrupted runs may end in ambiguous states; and reviewers may be unable to determine whether a changed result arose from cell behavior, declared protocol semantics, instrument capability, or adapter behavior.","affected_objective":"Preserve the declared sequencing, limits, observations, fault behavior, and provenance of an electrochemical cycling session while allowing command encoding, firmware interaction, buffering, and driver architecture to vary.","intervention":"Define an opaque `CyclingSession` component governed by an explicit state machine: `CREATED`, `VALIDATED`, `ARMED`, `RUNNING`, `PAUSED`, `COMPLETED`, `ABORTED`, and `FAULTED`. Its public surface validates a protocol and capability declaration, arms a session, starts it, observes status and measurements, pauses or resumes where supported, performs an idempotent abort, and retrieves an immutable execution record. The contract fixes units, current-sign convention, timestamp meaning, cutoff precedence, maximum-duration and maximum-charge limits, stale-measurement handling, permitted transitions, typed errors, and the postcondition of every terminal state. Firmware opcodes, vendor step tables, polling loops, callbacks, buffers, retry algorithms, and relay representations remain hidden. Every adapter must pass the same non-actuating state-transition and fault-injection suite before any separately authorized hardware qualification. The contract does not assert that instruments with different ranges, calibration, bandwidth, or control performance are scientifically interchangeable; those capabilities remain explicit eligibility constraints.","structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"Abstract component","domain_realization":"A cycling session defined by its validated protocol, capability envelope, lifecycle state, observations, terminal outcome, and provenance rather than by a vendor program or driver object."},{"archetype_element":"Observable operations and transitions","domain_realization":"Validate, arm, start, observe, pause, resume, abort, and retrieve-record operations over an explicit session state machine."},{"archetype_element":"Behavioral laws and invariants","domain_realization":"No start before successful validation and arming; no transition out of a terminal state; monotonic observation timestamps; explicit units and current sign; deterministic cutoff precedence; idempotent abort; and a traceable reason for every completion, abort, or fault."},{"archetype_element":"Hidden representation","domain_realization":"Vendor step arrays, firmware opcodes, channel indexes, command queues, callbacks, polling cadence, retry counters, buffers, relays, and internal driver states."},{"archetype_element":"Error and side-effect boundary","domain_realization":"Invalid transitions and unsupported capabilities return typed errors without actuation; physical side effects are possible only after explicit validation, arming, and start under separately authorized hardware controls."},{"archetype_element":"Conformance oracle","domain_realization":"A reusable black-box suite drives each adapter through valid and invalid operation sequences against scripted simulated measurements and injected faults."},{"archetype_element":"Substitutability rule","domain_realization":"Passing software conformance establishes only adapter-level behavioral eligibility; instrument capability, calibration, safety, and scientific comparability require separate approval before physical use."},{"archetype_element":"Contract stewardship","domain_realization":"Changes to transition semantics, cutoff rules, units, faults, or side-effect limits require protocol-owner and safety review, while conforming driver refactors remain private."}],"mechanism_mapping":[{"mechanism_slug":"abstract_data_type_specification","role":"Specify the abstract session states and operation semantics independently of any driver, then map each valid vendor-driver state to one abstract lifecycle state under an executable invariant.","counterfactual_removal":"Without the abstract state model and mapping, adapters could expose similarly named methods while assigning different meanings to running, paused, completed, or faulted."},{"mechanism_slug":"design_by_contract_clause","role":"Attach preconditions and postconditions to validation, arming, start, pause, resume, abort, and observation, including the response to unsupported capabilities and invalid transitions.","counterfactual_removal":"Without these clauses, responsibility for premature actuation, invalid transitions, stale measurements, or partial failure would remain ambiguous between controller and adapter."},{"mechanism_slug":"interface_definition_language","role":"Declare protocol steps, limits, session operations, observations, terminal reasons, and typed errors in a machine-readable boundary from which controller and adapter bindings are generated.","counterfactual_removal":"Without a generated boundary, hand-written bindings could leak vendor status codes, channel layouts, or command structures back into protocol controllers."},{"mechanism_slug":"opaque_type_or_module_boundary","role":"Give controllers an opaque session handle and sanctioned status and trace operations while preventing access to mutable driver queues, firmware objects, and channel buffers.","counterfactual_removal":"Without opacity, controllers could continue inferring lifecycle state or issuing commands through vendor internals, bypassing the declared transition and side-effect rules."},{"mechanism_slug":"black_box_contract_test_suite","role":"Run identical state-transition, cutoff, observation, abort, and fault cases against every adapter solely through the public cycling-session operations.","counterfactual_removal":"Without one shared oracle, adapter acceptance would depend on vendor-specific tests and would not establish common behavior at transition and failure boundaries."},{"mechanism_slug":"property_based_conformance_test","role":"Generate and shrink sequences of valid and invalid lifecycle operations while checking that terminal states, invariants, and no-actuation preconditions hold after every step.","counterfactual_removal":"Without generated operation sequences, rare paths such as pause-after-fault, repeated abort, reconnect-after-terminal, or observation-during-transition could escape hand-written examples."},{"mechanism_slug":"mock_fake_or_stub_implementation","role":"Use scripted fake instruments to produce cutoff crossings, stale samples, communication loss, delayed acknowledgments, and conflicting limits without controlling physical equipment.","counterfactual_removal":"Without controllable fakes, the first evidence step could not safely and deterministically exercise dangerous or uncommon fault paths, and client handling would remain coupled to available hardware behavior."},{"mechanism_slug":"representation_leakage_probe","role":"Audit status ordering, error details, trace metadata, timing, serialized records, and debug access for unpromised vendor identifiers, buffer positions, step numbers, or firmware states.","counterfactual_removal":"Without leakage probing, controllers could depend on useful vendor clues even while the formal state-machine tests pass."},{"mechanism_slug":"semantic_versioning_and_deprecation_gate","role":"Classify changes to lifecycle states, cutoff precedence, units, errors, observation semantics, and side-effect rules as contract changes, with staged migration for removals.","counterfactual_removal":"Without an evolution gate, an adapter or protocol-library update could alter execution semantics while being presented as an internal driver change."}],"causal_chain":["Protocol controllers currently encode cycling intent through vendor commands and inspect vendor-specific execution state.","Command layout, sign conventions, cutoff handling, and fault behavior consequently become implicit parts of the protocol.","A driver or firmware substitution changes those internals and can thereby change experimental execution without an explicit method revision.","The abstract cycling-session state machine moves sequencing, limits, observations, errors, and terminal outcomes onto a representation-independent behavioral surface.","Opaque generated bindings prevent controllers from reaching into vendor queues, buffers, and firmware states.","Design-by-contract clauses prevent actuation before validation and define the result of each permitted or invalid transition.","Fakes, generated operation sequences, and one black-box suite compare adapters under the same measurements, cutoffs, interruptions, and faults.","Leakage review identifies vendor-specific observables that would otherwise become unofficial dependencies.","Adapters satisfying the software contract can undergo separately authorized hardware qualification without redefining the protocol around their internal command representation."],"baseline":"The assumed baseline is a cycling controller that emits vendor step tables or commands and translates vendor status codes into local workflow decisions. Unit conversions, current direction, cutoff precedence, restart logic, and trace construction are partly duplicated in each integration. Tests rely on individual driver simulators or recorded command snapshots rather than one adapter-independent lifecycle oracle. This is an inferred comparison condition, not a claim about prevalence.","nearest_rivals":["Mandate one cycler vendor and firmware family. This avoids immediate adapter variation but makes hardware and firmware internals the permanent protocol boundary.","Translate a common procedure file into vendor step tables. This standardizes syntax while leaving runtime transitions, conflicting cutoffs, stale measurements, faults, and abort postconditions unspecified.","Standardize only the resulting electrochemical data format. This can align recorded columns but does not govern how the session was executed or terminated.","Build a workflow language that transpiles separately for each instrument. Without a shared runtime contract and oracle, generated programs can still diverge in lifecycle and failure semantics.","Maintain manual operating procedures and qualify each instrument independently. This addresses human practice and physical capability but does not remove software dependence on driver representation.","Create pairwise integration tests for each controller-driver combination. This can check known paths but does not supply one reusable definition of conforming session behavior."],"remaining_contrastive_claim":"Compared with a shared procedure syntax or output-data schema, this intervention makes the stateful execution behavior—including authorization gates, cutoff precedence, observations, faults, terminal states, and side-effect limits—the binding interface. Its discriminating test is whether structurally different adapters exhibit the same abstract lifecycle under identical scripted measurements and faults without exposing vendor command state.","authority_safety":{"decision_authority":"The cycling-software owner may authorize a simulator-only prototype. The laboratory principal investigator or equipment custodian and the applicable safety authority must jointly approve any connection to physical equipment; they also retain authority over capability limits, interlocks, calibration, and experimental procedures.","authorized_first_step":"Implement the contract and two adapters only against non-actuating fake drivers in an isolated test process, using synthetic cell responses and copied protocol fixtures with no instrument credentials or control connection.","excluded_actions":["Connecting the prototype to a potentiostat, cycler, relay, environmental chamber, or laboratory network","Applying current or potential to a physical cell","Disabling or replacing hardware interlocks, firmware limits, emergency stops, or existing safety controls","Changing approved voltage, current, temperature, charge, or duration limits","Treating software conformance as evidence of calibration, measurement accuracy, hardware safety, or scientific equivalence","Resuming interrupted physical experiments automatically","Using synthetic results for scientific, operational, regulatory, or safety decisions"],"halt_rollback":"Stop if any test path can reach a physical driver, if validation or arming can be bypassed, if an invalid transition produces simulated actuation, if abort is not idempotent, if a terminal reason is ambiguous, or if capability differences must be hidden to make adapters conform. Remove the sandbox adapters from the test configuration, retain the immutable failure traces, and leave existing instrument software and protocols unchanged."},"negative_tests":{"strongest_counterevidence":"Differences between cycling systems may be governed primarily by physical bandwidth, calibration, control stability, sampling hardware, relay topology, or firmware safety behavior. Those are scientifically and operationally meaningful capabilities rather than accidental representations, so a common session contract cannot make the instruments interchangeable.","problem_falsifier":"The proposed problem is falsified in the bounded setting if controller dependency inspection finds no access to vendor commands or state, and two independently structured fake drivers already produce identical transitions, cutoffs, observations, terminal reasons, and errors for every preregistered trace without adapter-specific logic.","intervention_falsifier":"The intervention is falsified for its initial scope if the lifecycle contract cannot describe both simulated adapters without exposing vendor step or status concepts, or if an adapter passes the stated oracle while violating any preregistered no-actuation, cutoff, terminal-state, timestamp, or abort invariant.","risks":["A shared contract may create false confidence that physically different instruments are scientifically interchangeable.","A lowest-common-denominator surface may omit capabilities required by legitimate electrochemical methods.","Ambiguous current sign, reference-electrode convention, or unit conversion could reverse protocol intent.","Timing, sampling, and cutoff latency may remain observable representation leaks with scientific consequences.","Asynchronous callbacks and polling can produce race conditions not reached by generated tests.","A fake driver can drift from actual firmware and manufacture misleading confidence.","Over-specified event ordering could freeze harmless driver details and obstruct valid implementations.","Under-specified fault semantics could admit adapters that leave physical sessions in different states.","Opaque handles could conceal capability or calibration information users need for safe decisions.","Generated bindings or debug endpoints could reintroduce vendor-specific escape hatches.","Software abstractions could be misused to bypass existing instrument qualification or safety review." ]},"next_evidence_step":"Before implementing either adapter, preregister a non-actuating charge-rest-discharge session contract with explicit current sign, units, validation rules, maximum duration and charge, voltage cutoffs, cutoff precedence, timestamp semantics, terminal reasons, and abort postconditions. Build two fake vendor drivers with deliberately different internals: one callback-driven command queue and one polled step-table engine. Feed both the same scripted cell measurements and run 40 fixed lifecycle traces plus 300 seeded valid and invalid operation sequences. Inject cutoff crossings, conflicting limits, stale samples, delayed acknowledgments, communication loss, repeated aborts, and reconnect attempts. Add mutated adapters that invert current sign, choose the wrong cutoff, or permit start before arming to confirm that the oracle rejects known violations. Record traces without connecting to hardware. This bounded step tests the state contract and oracle, not instrument safety, measurement accuracy, scientific comparability, or deployment effect.","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","diversity_from_prior_proposals":"Proposal 1 concerned the identity of an immutable ordered periodic material across atom, coordinate, cell, and file representations. Proposal 2 concerned numerical evaluation of a fixed thermophysical property surface across polynomial, table, spline, or surrogate representations. This proposal instead concerns a stateful laboratory-control session whose permitted transitions, fault handling, observations, and physical side-effect gates are the central contract. Its causal path runs from vendor-command and firmware-state coupling through an abstract lifecycle and fault oracle; it neither determines crystal identity nor evaluates material-property functions. A laboratory automation team can adopt it at the cycler-driver boundary without adopting either earlier component.","revision_record":{"parent_version":null,"progress_targets_addressed":["Materially different problem from proposals 1 and 2","Distinct stateful intervention and side-effect-aware causal path","Independent adoption boundary","Complete actors, mappings, rivals, authority, safeguards, falsifiers, risks, and bounded evidence"],"conceptual_changes":["Initial version; defines an electrochemical cycling session by lifecycle behavior rather than vendor command representation.","Separates adapter-level substitutability from hardware capability, safety, calibration, and scientific comparability."],"operational_changes":["Initial version; confines first evidence to two non-actuating fake drivers, scripted measurements, generated operation sequences, injected faults, and mutation controls."],"evidence_changes":["Initial version; prior art remains unsearched and no novelty, prevalence, demand, or effect-size claim is made."],"claim_changes":["Initial version; limits the contrastive claim to representation-independent session behavior under identical simulated measurements and faults."]}}