I am acting as the CONTROL POLICY of a reasoning engine. I will run verbs from the library, in an order I choose, writing/reading the shared STATE, and stop when the decision is sound. I chose **Approach B** (verb-first working) and will note where I treat the situation as given.

# Working (verbs run, in order)

## 1. match (retrieve)
Pre: problem statement present. I anchored the problem to the catalog with both a meta-model semantic query and a facet decomposition (the problem instantiates several structures at once, so facet retrieval is the right tool).

Facets posed: (a) a rare irreversible action mixed among many routine reversible ones; (b) no independent review before an unrecoverable decision executes; (c) a single point of failure where one mistaken judgment causes catastrophic loss; (d) scarce oversight attention diluted across too many low-stakes events; (e) matching safeguard strength to risk magnitude; (f) a durable record enabling recovery/audit.

Candidates returned (source-prime overlap recorded):
- **reversibility_and_irreversibility** (structural) — top hit on facet (a); the spectrum from reversible (low restoration cost) to effectively irreversible (prohibitive); Bezos one-way/two-way door framing.
- **procedural_fairness_due_process** (framed, law/governance) — high on facet (b); notice -> hearing -> impartial review -> reasons, and the *proportionality* principle (Mathews balancing): process depth scales with stakes.
- **risk** (structural) — top hit on facet (e); match safeguard magnitude to impact.
- **accountability / traceability / provenance** — top hits on facet (f); the durable record.
- bystander_effect / attention / cognitive_load (the dilution-of-oversight failure of (d)).

Archetype neighborhoods (match):
- **irreversible_commitment_management** (0.71) — "treat irreversible actions differently by adding prevention, deliberation, staging, consent before commitment."
- **independent_verification_oversight** (0.69) — route a judgment to an independent verifier when producer incentives/assumptions could bias it.
- **adaptive_threshold_recalibration** — the boundary that converts a continuous impact estimate into "route to review vs. proceed."
- **checks_and_balances_architecture** — one actor's action reviewable/blockable by another when unilateral action risks overreach.

Post satisfied: ≥1 candidate with recorded source-prime overlap. (Treating the situation as given.)

## 2. salience-rank (+ prune)
Ordering operative primes by load-bearing relevance — would removing it change the recommendation?

- **reversibility_and_irreversibility — LOAD-BEARING.** The entire problem is that a small fraction of actions are *unrecoverable*. The success criterion ("no single mistaken judgment can cause unrecoverable loss") is defined on this axis. Remove it and the problem dissolves.
- **risk (impact magnitude) — LOAD-BEARING.** The safeguard must be *proportioned* to impact; this is what licenses treating routine and catastrophic actions differently.
- **procedural_fairness_due_process (proportionality, T3) — LOAD-BEARING.** Its T3 tension — *individual fairness vs. systemic efficiency* — states the exact dilemma: per-case full process × volume exceeds capacity, so the standard, legitimate response is **triage: fuller process for high-stakes cases, abbreviated for low-stakes.** Its impartiality element (nemo iudex in causa sua) supplies *independence* of the reviewer.
- **accountability / traceability — LOAD-BEARING for the second success clause.** The "durable record of all of them" is what preserves recoverability/audit for the auto-proceed path.
- attention / bystander_effect / cognitive_load — **context.** They explain *why* blanket review degrades (oversight diluted across volume), but they don't independently drive the choice. Kept as supporting rationale, pruned from the operative core.

Pruned operative subset (4 load-bearing + the dilution mechanism as context). Each cut justified above.

## 3. compose (typed relational model)
Nodes: {agent: actor}, {action: event, kind: routine-reversible | rare-irreversible}, {impact_estimate: signal}, {gate: control}, {human_reviewer: actor, independent}, {record: artifact}, {data/service: stake}.
Edges:
- action --emits--> impact_estimate
- impact_estimate --(threshold)--> gate [prime_annotation: risk + reversibility]
- gate --routes-high-impact--> human_reviewer [prime_annotation: procedural_fairness/impartial review]
- gate --auto-proceeds-low-impact--> action.execute
- every action --logged-to--> record [prime_annotation: accountability/traceability]
- human_reviewer --hold/approve--> action.execute

Referential integrity: every edge references declared nodes; every operative prime (reversibility, risk, due_process, accountability) appears as an annotation. Post satisfied.

## 4. lift — L1 (situation -> meta_model)
Strip the domain. Roles: {a population of actions split into a large low-consequence class and a rare unrecoverable class}; {a discriminator that estimates which class an action is in}; {a costly independent check}; {a default fast path}; {a durable trace}. Invariant to preserve: *no single fallible judgment may produce an unrecoverable outcome*, AND *the fast path must not be meaningfully slowed.*
Witness check: every meta-model role has a witness in the model (action-classes <- action.kind; discriminator <- impact_estimate+gate; costly check <- human_reviewer; fast path <- auto-proceed; trace <- record). No domain terms remain in the skeleton. Post satisfied.

## 5. lift — L2 (coverage-enforcement against the candidate pattern: impact-graded independent review with audit)
Pattern in hand = irreversible_commitment_management + proportional independent review. Name its components, pose each as a requirement, coverage-check against each draft design (A and B).

| Component | Approach A (review every action) | Approach B (threshold-routed review + log) |
|---|---|---|
| Unrecoverable class is gated by independent judgment | instantiated (all gated) | **instantiated** (high-impact routed to hold) |
| Reviewer is independent / impartial | instantiated | instantiated |
| Fast path for routine reversible actions | **MISSING** — every action waits on a human; routine throughput collapses | instantiated (auto-proceed) |
| Durable record enabling recovery/audit | optional, unstated | instantiated (durable record of all) |
| Discriminator (impact estimate / threshold) | **correctly_declined by A's design, but its absence is the defect** — A refuses to discriminate, so it cannot meet the no-slowdown criterion | instantiated (threshold) |
| Oversight attention not diluted | **MISSING** — reviewer drowned in routine approvals; the rare catastrophic case is the needle in a haystack of rubber-stamps (bystander/attention dilution) | instantiated (reviewer sees only the few high-impact cases) |

Over-lift guard: I do *not* force a "hearing/notice" sub-structure onto routine reversible actions — due_process proportionality (Mathews/T3) explicitly says low-stakes decisions get abbreviated process. The durable log is the proportionate form of accountability for the fast path; demanding full review there would be the distortion A commits.

Coverage verdict: **Approach A leaves two components MISSING (fast path; undiluted oversight) and so violates the second success criterion.** Approach B has no MISSING component. A design may stop only when no component is missing -> B is the only admissible design.

## 6. evaluate-fit (gate) — walk anti-signatures, including the auditor's intuition
- irreversible_commitment_management anti-signature: "applying heavy commitment-gating to actions that are actually reversible/cheap to undo" — **A trips this**: it gates the 99% reversible actions, paying full cost for no risk reduction. B does not trip it.
- adaptive_threshold_recalibration anti-signatures: threshold used to *hide rationing* / move harm secretly -> not tripped by B because the design pairs the threshold with a durable, auditable record and an explicit consequence-weighting (catastrophic-miss prevention dominates). Threshold misfit risk is real but is a *tuning* concern, mitigated by conservative threshold + log + ability to escalate, not a disqualifier.
- The auditor's "approve every action just feels safer / easier to put in a policy document": this is a **legibility/compliance signal, not a safety signal.** Gate test: does universal review actually reduce unrecoverable-loss probability versus B? No — under A, the human is a bottleneck reviewing a flood of harmless actions; attention dilution (bystander_effect, cognitive_load) makes the rare catastrophic action *more* likely to be waved through, while routine maintenance stalls. "Easier to write in a policy" is administrative convenience; it trips the hollow-procedure anti-signature of due_process (forms observed, function — actually catching the catastrophic case — hollowed out). The auditor's intuition is explicitly evaluated and **dropped as decisive.**

Gate verdict: A dropped (trips reversibility/over-commitment + hollow-oversight). B kept.

## 7. reconcile (concrete model vs. meta_model)
- Meta-model reading: the binding invariant is "no single fallible judgment -> unrecoverable outcome," and the second invariant is throughput. A targets only the first and breaks the second; worse, by diluting attention it weakens even the first. B satisfies both: independent judgment is concentrated exactly where irreversibility lives, routine flow is preserved, and the log keeps the reversible path recoverable.
- Concrete-model reading agrees, and adds a concrete nuance the skeleton hid: A's failure is not merely "slow" — the bottleneck *manufactures* a new catastrophic-miss pathway (rubber-stamp fatigue). The two views converge on B; the meta-model is not decorative because it forced the throughput invariant to be co-equal rather than an afterthought.

Decision is sound. **STOP.**

===DECISION_BEGIN===
DECISIVE_FACTOR: Only a tiny fraction of actions are unrecoverable, so the safeguard must concentrate scarce independent review exactly there while letting reversible actions flow — reviewing everything both stalls routine work and dilutes attention so the rare catastrophic action is more likely to slip through.
CHOICE: B
JUSTIFICATION: The danger is concentrated in a rare class of unrecoverable actions, so the protection should be concentrated there too: send only high-impact actions to an independent hold and let routine, reversible work proceed automatically with a complete record kept for recovery and audit. Requiring a person to sign off on every action does not actually add safety where it matters; it buries the reviewer under harmless approvals, so the one dangerous action is more likely to be rubber-stamped, and it needlessly stalls ordinary maintenance. Matching the strength of the check to the size of the risk satisfies both goals at once — no single mistake can cause unrecoverable loss, and routine work is not slowed. The fact that blanket sign-off "feels safer" or is easier to write into a policy is administrative convenience, not real risk reduction.
===DECISION_END===
