{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp09_archetype_breadth150_20260804","cell_id":"layer_decay_and_expiration_management__accounting_auditing","arm":"BREADTH_PROBE_ONE_SHOT","candidate_id":"layer_decay_and_expiration_management__accounting_auditing__P1","proposal_index":1,"version":0,"title":"Lifecycle States for Superseded Permanent-Audit-File Evidence","problem":"A recurring audit engagement's permanent file accumulates successive versions of documents intended to inform multiple audit periods, such as contracts, accounting-policy descriptions, control narratives, organization charts, and financing agreements. When superseded versions lack explicit expiration, dependency, and retention states, they remain available as if current; ad hoc cleanup, however, can remove versions still needed to interpret prior conclusions, reperform work, or satisfy a hold.","actors":["Audit associates and seniors using the permanent file for current-period planning","Engagement manager and partner accountable for audit judgments","Audit records administrator responsible for retention and archival handling","Client personnel supplying replacement documents","Quality, inspection, or legal personnel who may require preserved historical evidence"],"observable_state":"For the same underlying subject, the permanent file contains multiple dated documents or annotations with no reliable supersession links. Older artifacts appear in ordinary search results beside current artifacts, current-period workpapers reference artifacts whose validity has not been rechecked, some artifacts have no identifiable owner or downstream references, and preservation exceptions are recorded inconsistently or not at all.","consequence":"Audit staff can treat an obsolete agreement, policy, control description, or organizational fact as current when planning or documenting procedures. Review effort is also spent resolving ambiguous versions, while indiscriminate removal can impair historical interpretation, reperformance, inspection response, or accountability for an earlier audit judgment.","affected_objective":"Maintain current and interpretable audit-planning evidence while preserving the historical dependencies needed for reperformance, inspection, and accountable records disposition.","intervention":"Place each permanent-file artifact into an explicit lifecycle register keyed to its subject and audit periods. Record provenance, effective dates, last validation, supersession relationships, current-workpaper dependencies, required retention, holds, and responsible owner. Apply review or expiration triggers when an artifact is replaced, reaches a scheduled validation date, or lacks recent confirmed relevance. Route it to revalidation, active retention, historical archive, exception hold, soft-delete quarantine, or deletion only after a dependency-safe check. Keep a tombstone and disposition record outside any removed artifact, periodically revalidate exceptions, and test restoration of archived material before relying on archival disposition.","structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"Layer inventory and identity map","domain_realization":"A register in which every version of a permanent-file contract, policy, narrative, chart, or memorandum has a stable identifier and a shared subject identifier."},{"archetype_element":"Deposition order and age index","domain_realization":"Effective dates, receipt dates, audit periods used, and supersession sequence establish each artifact's position in the engagement's accumulated evidence stack."},{"archetype_element":"Retention policy matrix","domain_realization":"Artifact classes receive explicit current-use review dates, records-retention treatment, and possible preservation exceptions."},{"archetype_element":"Expiration trigger definition","domain_realization":"Replacement by a new version, passage of a validation deadline, contradiction by current-period evidence, or loss of confirmed relevance triggers review rather than automatic destruction."},{"archetype_element":"Dependency and reconstruction check","domain_realization":"Before demotion or removal, the system identifies prior and current workpapers, audit judgments, inspection matters, and historical narratives that cite or require the artifact."},{"archetype_element":"Pruning or archival pathway","domain_realization":"Artifacts can be revalidated, marked historical, archived with retrieval metadata, held by exception, quarantined, or deleted."},{"archetype_element":"Preservation exception register","domain_realization":"Named holds document the authority, reason, scope, and next review date for retaining an otherwise expired artifact."},{"archetype_element":"Deletion audit and rollback window","domain_realization":"A quarantine period, independent disposition log, and tombstone permit correction of a mistaken classification without leaving removed material active in ordinary search."}],"mechanism_mapping":[{"mechanism_slug":"retention_schedule","role":"Sets differentiated revalidation and disposition checkpoints for permanent-file artifact classes instead of leaving every deposit active indefinitely.","counterfactual_removal":"Without scheduled checkpoints, superseded artifacts can remain active by default and exception decisions need not be revisited."},{"mechanism_slug":"dependency_safe_delete_check","role":"Blocks archive or deletion when a workpaper, judgment, inspection matter, hold, or required historical interpretation still depends on the artifact.","counterfactual_removal":"Without this check, cleanup can sever the evidence path needed to understand or reperform an audit conclusion."},{"mechanism_slug":"soft_delete_quarantine_window","role":"Temporarily removes a candidate artifact from normal discovery while preserving a bounded recovery opportunity before final disposition.","counterfactual_removal":"A mistaken disposition would either remain visible as current or become immediately difficult to reverse."},{"mechanism_slug":"tombstone_or_deletion_marker","role":"Preserves the artifact identifier, subject, supersession relationship, disposition reason, authority, and date after content is removed.","counterfactual_removal":"Surviving references could look broken or unexplained, and reviewers could not distinguish governed removal from missing evidence."},{"mechanism_slug":"archive_restore_test","role":"Checks that an archived artifact and its identifying context can be retrieved before active access is withdrawn.","counterfactual_removal":"Archival could create only nominal recoverability, discovered to be inadequate when historical evidence is required."}],"causal_chain":["Each recurring audit period deposits replacement or newly relevant artifacts into the permanent file.","Absent explicit lifecycle metadata, deposition age and supersession do not change an artifact's active visibility or apparent authority.","Users encounter old and current versions together and must infer validity from incomplete context, while administrators cannot readily distinguish safe cleanup from evidence destruction.","This ambiguity permits stale reliance and encourages either indefinite retention or ad hoc removal.","Lifecycle triggers identify candidates whose current relevance has decayed, while dependency and hold checks separate loss of active relevance from loss of historical value.","State-specific routing demotes stale artifacts from ordinary use, preserves dependent or held artifacts, and makes any removal reversible and auditable within defined limits."],"baseline":"The engagement team rolls the permanent file forward annually. Individual reviewers replace or annotate documents when they notice changes, and records personnel apply file-level retention rules later. Supersession, current-use validity, downstream dependencies, and exceptions are not consistently represented at the individual-artifact level.","nearest_rivals":["Annual reviewer cleanup during engagement rollover can identify obvious obsolete documents, but it depends on reviewer discovery and does not necessarily preserve artifact-level dependency and disposition evidence.","A document repository's latest-version flag distinguishes versions within one document chain, but it does not by itself classify current audit relevance, historical dependencies, holds, or archival outcomes.","A fixed age-based records purge bounds retained material, but age alone does not distinguish an obsolete active artifact from an older artifact still needed to interpret a prior audit judgment."],"remaining_contrastive_claim":"The candidate's distinguishing causal feature is the joint treatment of current-use expiration and historical-evidence preservation at the artifact layer: a superseded item loses active authority only after its dependencies and exceptions determine whether it should be revalidated, archived, quarantined, or removed. The nearest rivals address rollover review, version display, or age-based retention separately.","authority_safety":{"decision_authority":"The engagement partner or formally delegated engagement manager decides current audit relevance; the records authority controls archival or deletion eligibility; legal or quality-hold owners control applicable exceptions. No single pilot reviewer may override another authority's hold.","authorized_first_step":"Perform a read-only inventory and simulated lifecycle classification on a bounded sample from one completed engagement; add no production labels and move or delete no source artifacts.","excluded_actions":["Deleting or altering audit evidence","Changing an issued audit conclusion","Removing an artifact from ordinary access during the evidence step","Overriding a records-retention requirement or legal, quality, or inspection hold","Inferring that an artifact is safe to remove solely from age or low access","Writing pilot classifications into the authoritative permanent file"],"halt_rollback":"Halt classification for any artifact with uncertain ownership, conflicting dates, an unidentified citation, or a possible hold. Because the first step uses only a separate pilot register, rollback consists of discarding its classifications and retaining the source file unchanged."},"negative_tests":{"strongest_counterevidence":"A sampled permanent file already has complete supersession links, explicit current-versus-historical states, dependency-aware retention decisions, consistently recorded holds, and no current-period reliance on unvalidated older artifacts.","problem_falsifier":"Across the bounded sample, every multi-version subject has an unambiguous current artifact, every older artifact is visibly historical or held, and current-period workpaper references resolve only to validated versions with known dependencies.","intervention_falsifier":"Independent reviewers using the proposed metadata and routing rules cannot classify artifacts more consistently than under the baseline, or the dependency check fails to surface known workpaper references and holds identified by engagement leadership.","risks":["A lifecycle label could be mistaken for permission to destroy evidence despite separate records authority.","Incorrect supersession links could hide a still-operative clause or document.","Overclassification of dependencies or exceptions could reproduce indefinite retention under new labels.","Underclassification could impair reperformance or historical interpretation.","The inventory could expose sensitive client information to personnel without an engagement need to know.","Additional metadata and review work could exceed the value of resolving version ambiguity.","Archived artifacts could lose usable context even when their files remain technically retrievable."]},"next_evidence_step":"Select one completed recurring engagement and, within authorized access, sample no more than 30 permanent-file artifacts across at least three multi-version subjects. In a separate read-only register, two qualified reviewers independently record identity, effective date, supersession, current-period citations, holds, proposed lifecycle state, and disposition rationale. Compare reviewer agreement, unresolved dependencies, and classifications against engagement-partner and records-authority adjudication; run a metadata-only restoration walkthrough for any simulated archive classification. Stop without changing production files, and treat any missed citation, hold, or operative version as evidence against the proposed rules.","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","diversity_from_prior_proposals":"Not assessed against other proposals; runtime isolation was maintained and no other experiment candidates were consulted.","revision_record":{"parent_version":null,"progress_targets_addressed":[],"conceptual_changes":[],"operational_changes":[],"evidence_changes":[],"claim_changes":[]}}