{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp09_archetype_breadth150_20260804","cell_id":"controlled_reentry__accounting_auditing","arm":"BREADTH_PROBE_ONE_SHOT","candidate_id":"controlled_reentry__accounting_auditing__P1","proposal_index":1,"version":0,"title":"Half-Open Restoration of Automated Journal Posting After a Duplicate-Posting Incident","problem":"An accounting team has suspended automated journal imports after an interface replay created duplicate journals and a subledger-to-general-ledger discrepancy. Although the suspected defect has been repaired, a backlog has accumulated, and restoring every interface at once could recreate duplicate posting, overwhelm reconciliation capacity, or conceal recurrence among a large volume of entries.","actors":["Corporate controller","General-ledger accounting team","Subledger owners","ERP application owner","Journal approvers","Internal audit observer"],"observable_state":"Automated interfaces are disabled; unposted journal batches are accumulating; the repaired interface is available for restart; reconciliation staff have finite exception-handling capacity; and journal event identifiers, source control totals, duplicate checks, subledger-to-ledger variances, exception-queue depth, approvals, and posting timestamps are observable.","consequence":"Continued suspension delays a complete and timely close and shifts work into manual posting, while immediate full restoration risks renewed duplicate or unreconciled entries and an audit trail too congested for prompt diagnosis.","affected_objective":"Restore timely journal processing while preserving general-ledger completeness, accuracy, reconciliation capacity, approval controls, and an auditable record of every reintroduced batch.","intervention":"Place automated posting in a half-open recovery state. Whitelist one low-complexity journal class from one source and entity, cap its batch count and aggregate value at controller-approved limits, and post it during a staffed observation window. Before admitting another stage, require unique source-event identifiers, agreement of source and journal control totals, zero unexplained subledger-to-ledger variance, completed approvals, and an exception queue below a predeclared staffing-capacity threshold for two consecutive posting windows. Expand the whitelist by predefined journal classes only after those signals persist. Any duplicate, unexplained variance, missing approval, breached queue threshold, or loss of traceability freezes new admissions and returns the affected interface to suspension while approved correcting entries and investigation proceed.","structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"Protected or interrupted state","domain_realization":"Automated journal interfaces remain disabled after a duplicate-posting and reconciliation-control incident."},{"archetype_element":"Flow or load being restored","domain_realization":"Backlogged automated journal batches entering the general ledger from repaired source interfaces."},{"archetype_element":"Prior failure that restoration could recreate","domain_realization":"Duplicate journals, control-total mismatches, and reconciliation exceptions that can be obscured or amplified by simultaneous backlog release."},{"archetype_element":"Bounded recovery probe","domain_realization":"A capped batch from one whitelisted journal class, source, and entity is admitted during a staffed window."},{"archetype_element":"Observable feedback","domain_realization":"Event-ID uniqueness, control-total agreement, unexplained ledger variance, approval completeness, exception-queue depth, and traceable posting timestamps."},{"archetype_element":"Threshold and hysteresis","domain_realization":"Expansion requires all controller-defined gates to remain satisfied across two consecutive posting windows rather than a single quiet result."},{"archetype_element":"Admission control","domain_realization":"A whitelist and batch count/value caps determine which journal flow may resume at each stage."},{"archetype_element":"Rollback path","domain_realization":"The scheduler can be resuspended, unopened batches remain quarantined, and posted errors are corrected only through approved, traceable reversing entries."},{"archetype_element":"Protected recovery headroom","domain_realization":"Each stage leaves reconciliation staff and exception-queue capacity available to investigate a failed probe without losing control of the wider close."}],"mechanism_mapping":[{"mechanism_slug":"recovery_probe","role":"A limited journal batch tests whether repaired posting and reconciliation controls remain stable under actual processing before the backlog is broadly released.","counterfactual_removal":"Without the probe, the first production test would be the full backlog, so recurrence could affect many journal classes before detection."},{"mechanism_slug":"admission_control","role":"Source, entity, journal-class, batch-count, and aggregate-value gates bound the entries exposed at each stage.","counterfactual_removal":"Without admission control, calling the restart staged would not limit the accounting exposure or preserve reconciliation headroom."},{"mechanism_slug":"hysteresis","role":"Two consecutive passing posting windows are required before expansion, reducing advancement based on a transient quiet interval.","counterfactual_removal":"Without persistence across windows, one clean batch could trigger expansion before delayed reconciliation exceptions appear."},{"mechanism_slug":"rollback_policy","role":"A predeclared trigger freezes further batches, resuspends the interface, preserves logs, and routes erroneous postings through approved correcting entries.","counterfactual_removal":"Without an executable retreat path, each probe becomes an irreversible commitment and negative feedback cannot contain exposure."}],"causal_chain":["The incident places automated journal posting in a protected, suspended state.","The backlog makes an all-at-once restart a concentrated exposure to both technical recurrence and reconciliation overload.","A whitelist and count/value caps restrict the first restored flow to an identifiable journal cohort.","The recovery probe produces posting, approval, control-total, duplicate, variance, and exception-capacity signals.","A persistent pass permits the next predefined cohort; a negative signal freezes admission and invokes rollback.","Repeated gated stages increase restored flow while retaining staff capacity and traceability for detecting relapse.","Full automated posting resumes only after every defined cohort earns advancement under the same controls."],"baseline":"The all-or-nothing baseline keeps every interface disabled until repair sign-off and then releases the complete backlog and normal flow together. It verifies remediation before restart but does not use bounded production exposure and observed reconciliation response to govern the scale of restoration.","nearest_rivals":["Manual backlog posting with review: reduces dependence on the repaired interface but replaces rather than progressively restores automated flow and can introduce separate manual-entry risk.","Static cooldown followed by restart: delays restoration but advances because time elapsed, not because bounded posting and reconciliation signals passed.","Permanent throughput cap: limits ongoing journal volume but does not define a post-incident sequence of probe, observation, expansion, and rollback toward normal operation.","Pre-production regression testing alone: tests repaired logic without exposing how production batch mix, approvals, and reconciliation capacity respond during restoration.","Remediation sign-off followed by full restart: establishes readiness as a single decision rather than an earned series of exposure-bound state transitions."],"remaining_contrastive_claim":"The candidate is specifically a post-incident restoration protocol: unlike repair sign-off, waiting, manual substitution, or a permanent rate limit, it makes the amount of automated journal flow admitted next depend on feedback from a bounded prior stage while preserving a viable retreat path.","authority_safety":{"decision_authority":"The corporate controller owns stage criteria, approves advancement or suspension, and retains responsibility for financial-reporting controls. The ERP application owner operates the technical gates, journal approvers retain normal approval authority, and internal audit may observe and challenge the design without making management's posting decisions.","authorized_first_step":"Run the proposed gate and rollback logic against a copy of one quarantined interface batch in a non-production ledger; this does not authorize production posting or stage advancement.","excluded_actions":["Writing or posting any test journal to the production general ledger","Deleting, rewriting, or suppressing source records, journal history, exceptions, or audit logs","Bypassing established journal approval, segregation-of-duties, period-lock, or correcting-entry controls","Changing thresholds after seeing a run without recording and reapproving the change","Allowing internal audit to assume management's operational decision authority","Releasing additional sources, entities, or journal classes outside the approved stage whitelist"],"halt_rollback":"Any duplicate event identifier, unexplained control-total mismatch, missing approval, unexplained ledger variance, exception-capacity breach, or incomplete trace stops the run and blocks further admissions. In production, the affected scheduler would be resuspended; unopened batches would remain quarantined; logs would be preserved; and any posted error would be addressed through an approved reversing or correcting entry rather than deletion."},"negative_tests":{"strongest_counterevidence":"Root-cause evidence could show that the incident was a fully isolated deterministic defect, that exhaustive replay and idempotency checks prevent every recurrence before posting, and that releasing the full backlog cannot degrade reconciliation or control performance. That combination would remove the fragile, load-sensitive recovery condition motivating controlled reentry.","problem_falsifier":"The problem framing is false if simultaneous restoration creates no additional recurrence, detection, reconciliation-capacity, or traceability risk compared with a bounded restart, or if journal flow cannot be meaningfully partitioned into reversible stages.","intervention_falsifier":"The intervention fails if passing probe signals do not predict control preservation in later stages, if delayed exceptions regularly emerge outside the observation windows, if the gates cannot stop suspect journals before posting, or if suspension and correction cannot contain a failed stage.","risks":["The first journal class may be unrepresentative of later interfaces or period-end complexity.","Short observation windows may miss delayed reconciliation failures.","Selecting low-value entries first may create false confidence about high-value or complex journals.","Repeated holds and rollbacks may delay close or create an indefinite half-open state.","Thresholds may become stale as backlog composition or staffing capacity changes.","Manual overrides or stakeholder pressure may bypass negative signals.","Early-stage reconciliation work may impose disproportionate burden on particular accounting teams.","Batch caps based only on monetary value may miss high-volume or disclosure-sensitive exposure."]},"next_evidence_step":"In a non-production ledger, replay one copied quarantined batch in three bounded runs: an unchanged run, a run containing one duplicated source-event identifier, and a run containing one mismatched control total. Record whether the proposed gate admits the unchanged run, blocks both seeded faults before journal creation, and emits a complete immutable decision and rollback log. Limit the exercise to one interface, three runs, existing authorized staff, and no production writes.","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","diversity_from_prior_proposals":"Not assessed because runtime isolation prohibits inspection of other proposals; this one-shot candidate is defined solely by the supplied controlled-reentry archetype and accounting-and-auditing domain card.","revision_record":{"parent_version":null,"progress_targets_addressed":[],"conceptual_changes":[],"operational_changes":[],"evidence_changes":[],"claim_changes":[]}}