{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp06_four_proposal_generalization60_20260803","cell_id":"representation_independent_interface_contract__environmental_climate","arm":"COMPLETE_PROPOSAL_PORTFOLIO","candidate_id":"p01-wetland-monitoring-evidence-ledger","proposal_index":1,"version":0,"title":"Representation-Independent Evidence Ledger for Wetland Greenhouse-Gas Monitoring","problem":"A wetland-restoration program may store plot measurements, chamber observations, laboratory results, quality decisions, and corrections in implementation-specific workbooks, files, raster layers, or database tables. Analysis scripts then depend on worksheet names, row order, sentinel values, mutable cells, raster resolution, or backend-specific duplicate handling. Because the behavioral meaning of the monitoring record is not separately specified, replacing or optimizing its representation can change which observations are included, how revisions are applied, or how spatial and temporal aggregates are computed even when the nominal data fields remain available.","actors":["Field monitoring technicians who submit observations","Laboratory staff who submit assay results and corrections","Wetland carbon analysts who calculate greenhouse-gas balances","Data engineers who maintain storage and processing implementations","Program monitoring lead who owns the scientific data contract","Restoration managers who consume approved indicators","Independent reviewers who audit provenance and reproducibility"],"observable_state":"In a bounded replay, the same ordered sequence of observation submissions, corrections, quality decisions, snapshot requests, and aggregate queries can be sent through two candidate backends. The problem is observable if their public results differ in included observation identities, canonical units, revision history, coverage status, quality-filter behavior, provenance, error category, or aggregate value; or if any client must inspect worksheet coordinates, table columns, file paths, raster cells, or private status codes to obtain a required result.","consequence":"A storage migration, regridding operation, cache change, or replacement ingestion pipeline can alter an annual wetland greenhouse-gas balance or a management-threshold input for representational reasons rather than because the underlying observations or declared scientific rules changed. The resulting discontinuity weakens reproducibility, obscures whether a scientific conclusion changed, and makes implementation upgrades require coordination with every downstream client.","affected_objective":"Maintain reproducible, auditable wetland greenhouse-gas indicators while allowing monitoring-record storage, indexing, caching, and processing implementations to change independently.","intervention":"Define an opaque Monitoring Evidence Ledger by behavior rather than by files or tables. Its public operations are: submit an observation batch; supersede an observation while retaining the prior version and reason; apply or revoke a quality decision; query observations by variable, region, time support, quality policy, and as-of contract version; compute only declared variable-appropriate aggregates; return explicit coverage and provenance; and create a repeatable snapshot. Preconditions require stable observation identity, declared units, spatial and temporal support, method identifier, and authorized provenance. Postconditions require canonical-unit results, immutable history, deterministic as-of queries, explicit exclusion reasons, and no silent coercion. Invariants include one active lineage per observation identity, traceable supersession, separation of measured value from quality decision, aggregation rules determined by whether a variable is extensive or intensive, and explicit reporting of incomplete coverage. Stable error categories cover malformed submissions, incompatible units, duplicate identities, unsupported aggregation, unauthorized revision, and unavailable coverage; failed operations leave ledger state unchanged. Workbook, relational, object-store, raster, and cached representations remain hidden. Every implementation must pass the same black-box examples, generated operation-sequence properties, and leakage audit before it may replace another. Contract changes are versioned, and breaking semantic changes require a new version rather than reinterpretation of an existing snapshot.","structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"Clients needing a durable component","domain_realization":"Wetland analysts and restoration managers need monitoring evidence without depending on its storage or processing layout."},{"archetype_element":"Representation-independent operation surface","domain_realization":"Submission, supersession, quality decision, scoped query, declared aggregation, coverage, provenance, and snapshot operations define the ledger."},{"archetype_element":"Hidden representation","domain_realization":"Worksheet organization, database schema, raster tiling, indexes, caches, and internal duplicate-resolution structures are non-contractual."},{"archetype_element":"Abstract state model","domain_realization":"The ledger denotes a versioned set of observation lineages, quality decisions, declared supports, and provenance links independent of their physical storage."},{"archetype_element":"Behavioral laws and invariants","domain_realization":"History is non-erasing, as-of queries are repeatable, unit normalization preserves quantity meaning, failed calls are state-preserving, and aggregation follows the declared variable class."},{"archetype_element":"Error and side-effect limits","domain_realization":"Invalid or unauthorized operations return stable error categories, do not partially mutate the ledger, and do not silently impute, discard, or reinterpret observations."},{"archetype_element":"Conformance oracle","domain_realization":"One black-box suite exercises examples, edge cases, revision sequences, unit transformations, snapshots, and generated operation histories against every backend."},{"archetype_element":"Substitutability rule","domain_realization":"A backend is eligible to replace another only if it passes the contract suite and leakage audit for the same contract version; performance is assessed separately."},{"archetype_element":"Versioning and stewardship","domain_realization":"The program monitoring lead governs semantic changes, records consumer dependencies, and requires a new contract version for breaking changes."}],"mechanism_mapping":[{"mechanism_slug":"abstract_data_type_specification","role":"Defines the ledger's abstract values, operations, lineage invariant, and mapping from each valid workbook, database, or raster representation to the same versioned evidence state.","counterfactual_removal":"Without the abstract state and representation mapping, the proposal would describe convenient endpoints but could not determine whether two physical stores denote the same monitoring record."},{"mechanism_slug":"design_by_contract_clause","role":"Allocates caller and ledger obligations for submissions, revisions, queries, aggregations, and failures, including the requirement that rejected operations leave state unchanged.","counterfactual_removal":"Without operation-level clauses, implementations could share signatures while silently differing on malformed units, duplicate identities, partial updates, and incomplete coverage."},{"mechanism_slug":"interface_definition_language","role":"Publishes machine-readable operation and result types, including opaque identifiers, quality states, coverage objects, provenance references, and stable error categories.","counterfactual_removal":"Without a compiled surface, clients could again import backend-specific types or schemas even if prose described an abstract boundary."},{"mechanism_slug":"opaque_type_or_module_boundary","role":"Prevents clients from reading or mutating internal worksheets, tables, raster cells, indexes, and caches except through the declared ledger operations.","counterfactual_removal":"Without enforced opacity, downstream scripts could continue treating layout details as part of the usable interface and make later substitution unsafe."},{"mechanism_slug":"black_box_contract_test_suite","role":"Provides the shared acceptance gate for replaying specified submissions, revisions, queries, errors, and snapshots against every implementation.","counterfactual_removal":"Without a common behavioral oracle, conformance would be asserted by documentation or implementation-specific tests rather than demonstrated at the public boundary."},{"mechanism_slug":"property_based_conformance_test","role":"Generates valid and invalid operation sequences to test lineage preservation, snapshot repeatability, unit round-trips, state preservation after errors, and equivalence of permitted query decompositions.","counterfactual_removal":"Without generated sequences, defects reachable only after unusual combinations of correction, quality reversal, and as-of query could remain outside the example suite."},{"mechanism_slug":"representation_leakage_probe","role":"Checks ordering, identifiers, error text, serialized tokens, timing classes, provenance metadata, and exported fields for observable but unpromised representation details.","counterfactual_removal":"Without a leakage audit, clients could couple to stable-looking accidents even while all promised behaviors passed their tests."},{"mechanism_slug":"semantic_versioning_and_deprecation_gate","role":"Classifies behavioral changes, inventories affected consumers, and prevents a breaking reinterpretation of existing observations or snapshots from appearing as a compatible update.","counterfactual_removal":"Without version governance, the public meaning could drift after deployment and make historical results irreproducible despite representation opacity."},{"mechanism_slug":"abstraction_barrier_code_review","role":"Requires reviewers to reject new client reach-throughs and to decide whether recurring observable behavior should be sealed or deliberately added to the contract.","counterfactual_removal":"Without human review, useful but undeclared dependencies that evade mechanical checks could harden into an unofficial interface."}],"causal_chain":["Monitoring evidence is currently exposed through storage layouts and backend-specific processing behavior.","Analysts encode those observable details into ingestion, filtering, correction, and aggregation scripts.","A backend replacement or internal optimization changes an accidental detail while leaving nominal fields or method names intact.","Client behavior or scientific outputs then change because the hidden representation had become an implicit contract.","The intervention restates the ledger as abstract state, public operations, behavioral laws, errors, and side-effect limits.","Opaque access prevents new reach-throughs, while a common oracle tests each implementation only through the declared surface.","Implementations can then change representation without changing contracted evidence semantics; a scientific change must instead appear as new data, an explicit rule change, or a new contract version."],"baseline":"Continue using the incumbent workbook or data store as the de facto specification, preserve existing scripts during migrations, compare a few familiar reports manually, and resolve discrepancies case by case. This baseline is inexpensive initially but does not separate intended scientific semantics from accidental layout and execution behavior.","nearest_rivals":["Adopt one canonical relational or raster schema and require every client to use it; this standardizes representation but makes the chosen layout itself the dependency.","Publish a file-exchange schema or metadata standard; this fixes transferable shape but does not determine state transitions, revision behavior, aggregation laws, errors, or side effects.","Freeze the incumbent workbook and prohibit backend replacement; this preserves current behavior temporarily but sacrifices implementation freedom and leaves accidental behavior undefined.","Rewrite each client whenever storage changes; this manages coupling through coordinated migration rather than establishing substitutable implementations.","Use manual scientific review of before-and-after reports; this can catch salient discrepancies but is not a reusable black-box acceptance rule over operation sequences and edge cases."],"remaining_contrastive_claim":"The proposal's remaining contrast is the combination of an opaque, stateful scientific-evidence component defined by behavioral laws and a single implementation-independent acceptance oracle. A common schema alone does not provide this contrast because identical fields can still support different correction, quality, aggregation, coverage, and error semantics.","authority_safety":{"decision_authority":"The wetland program's monitoring lead may approve the contract draft and sandbox evaluation. Data owners must approve use of any copied project records. Only the existing program governance body may authorize production adoption, reinterpretation of historical indicators, or changes to management and reporting rules.","authorized_first_step":"Create a read-only sandbox from one completed monitoring project's approved data copy, inventory the calls made by one analysis workflow, draft the abstract contract, and replay those calls through an incumbent adapter and a deliberately simple in-memory model. This step may generate comparison reports but may not replace the operational ledger or feed decisions.","excluded_actions":["Changing, deleting, or correcting source monitoring records","Recalculating an official greenhouse-gas balance or published indicator","Changing restoration eligibility, crediting, compliance, or management decisions","Routing live submissions to an experimental implementation","Treating contract conformance as validation of measurement methods or ecological models","Exposing confidential locations, personnel identifiers, or access credentials","Declaring any backend production-ready solely because the bounded suite passes"],"halt_rollback":"Stop the sandbox if copied records exceed their approved scope, an adapter writes to a source system, an invariant requires silently discarding evidence, or the two representations cannot be compared without exposing protected data. Revoke sandbox credentials, discard derived sandbox state under the approved retention procedure, retain only a non-sensitive discrepancy log, and leave all operational systems and decisions on the incumbent process."},"negative_tests":{"strongest_counterevidence":"A dependency inventory could show that clients already use only a documented behavioral surface, while replay through independently implemented backends yields identical public results and no representation-specific access. That would indicate little or no representation-coupling problem in the selected workflow.","problem_falsifier":"The problem is falsified for the bounded case if every required client operation can be expressed without internal access and two independently represented backends agree on observation identity, units, lineage, quality policy, coverage, provenance, errors, and aggregates across all predeclared replay cases.","intervention_falsifier":"The intervention fails if two implementations can pass the contract yet produce a management-relevant discrepancy on the frozen workflow because an essential semantic obligation was omitted, or if expressing the necessary obligations forces the contract to expose the incumbent worksheet, schema, grid, or algorithm so completely that meaningful representation substitution is no longer possible.","risks":["The contract may freeze an incorrect scientific convention by mistaking incumbent behavior for intended semantics.","A passing suite may create false confidence because finite tests cannot establish complete correctness or validate field measurements.","Unit or spatial-support normalization may conceal non-comparable observations unless incompatibility is an explicit error.","Adapters may introduce discrepancies that are wrongly attributed to the underlying backends.","Opacity may impede legitimate scientific inspection unless provenance and sanctioned diagnostic views are deliberately provided.","A broad contract may become costly to govern, while a narrow contract may omit behavior on which decisions depend.","Stable identifiers or detailed provenance could expose sensitive site information if access controls are poorly designed."]},"next_evidence_step":"Using only an authorized, read-only copy of one completed project, select one analysis path involving a measured variable, a correction, a quality decision, and an aggregate query. Before implementation, record the expected abstract state transitions, invariants, error categories, and comparison fields. Build two sandbox adapters—one for the incumbent representation and one simple independent in-memory representation—then replay the frozen sequence plus generated variations in ordering, duplicate submission, incompatible units, quality reversal, and as-of snapshot. Record divergences as either contract omissions, adapter defects, or evidence against the inferred problem; do not alter production data or use the outputs for an operational decision.","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","diversity_from_prior_proposals":"Not applicable: this is the first and only proposal addressed by this sealed request.","revision_record":{"parent_version":null,"progress_targets_addressed":["Initial complete proposal generated from the supplied archetype, mechanisms, and environmental-climate domain card."],"conceptual_changes":["Initial version; no parent proposal was revised."],"operational_changes":["Specified a read-only, single-project sandbox replay with incumbent and independent in-memory representations."],"evidence_changes":["Defined observable comparison dimensions, counterevidence, and separate problem and intervention falsifiers without asserting prior evidence."],"claim_changes":["Restricted the claim to a testable representation-coupling hypothesis and a bounded substitutability intervention; no novelty, prevalence, demand, or effect-size claim is made."]}}