I acted as the control policy and executed the fixed nine-step procedure once each, in order, querying the encyclopedia tools.

## Working (steps run, in order)

**Step 1 — Specify the decision.**
Choose exactly one of two ways to spend a fixed resilience budget on a critical capability that today rests entirely on a single component: (A) build a second, independent path so the capability survives if the existing component fails, or (B) pour the whole budget into making that one component as reliable as possible. A trusted long-time incumbent vendor pushes hard for B. Success requires BOTH: (i) no single failure may take down the capability, AND (ii) the budget must be used effectively.

**Step 2 — Identify operative primes** (`search_prime` semantic + `search_by_facets` for the oblique multi-structure case).
- `search_prime` on the meta-model surfaced the failure-architecture neighborhood: `critical_mass` / `systemic_risk` (single point whose failure cascades), `robustness`, `functional_redundancy_degeneracy`, `margin_of_safety`.
- `search_by_facets` decomposed the problem and surfaced, per facet:
  - single element whose failure brings down the whole → `systemic_risk`, `critical_mass`
  - survive failure via an independent parallel path → **`fault_tolerance` (0.72)**, **`redundancy` (0.72)**
  - uncorrelated independent paths → `correlation`, `diversity`, `redundancy`
  - fixed budget to lower one element's failure probability → `opportunity_cost`, `expected_utility`
  - trusted incumbent advocating its own interest → `trust`, `mechanism_design_and_incentive_structure`, `checks_balances`
- `get_prime` pulled: `redundancy`, `fault_tolerance`, `correlation`.

**Step 3 — Salience-rank.**
1. `fault_tolerance` — the literal success property: individual failures must not produce system-level failure; defined as "no single point of failure."
2. `redundancy` — the mechanism Approach A is; load-bearing property is *independence* of failure modes.
3. `correlation` — governs whether the "second path" is genuinely independent (decorrelation = variance/failure reduction).
4. `systemic_risk` / `critical_mass` — names what B leaves intact: a single component whose failure is catastrophic.
5. `mechanism_design_and_incentive_structure` / `trust` — the vendor's recommendation is conflicted (it sells more of its own component under B); discount it as evidence.

**Step 4 — Prune.**
Drop `margin_of_safety` (absorbs demand variation, not component failure — explicitly orthogonal to redundancy), `expected_utility`/`opportunity_cost` (general and don't discriminate; the budget is fixed and equal either way). Keep fault_tolerance, redundancy, correlation, systemic-risk, and the incentive/trust read on the vendor.

**Step 5 — Build a typed relational model.**
- Entity: `critical_capability` (continuity-required).
- `single_component` —[sole_dependency_of]→ capability. Failure(component) ⇒ Failure(capability). This is the single-point-of-failure edge.
- Approach A: add `independent_path` —[alternate_carrier_of]→ capability, with edge property `failure_independence(component, path)` ideally high.
- Approach B: raise `reliability(component)` but the sole-dependency edge is UNCHANGED; P(component fails) is reduced toward 0 but never reaches 0.
- `vendor` —[advocates]→ B, with edge property `incentive_aligned = false` (sells the component).
- Constraints: SUCCESS = (no_single_failure_kills_capability) ∧ (budget_effective).

**Step 6 — Construct a domain-stripped meta-model.**
"A continuity-required function has exactly one carrier. A fixed budget can either (A) provision a second, failure-independent carrier so the function survives loss of any one, or (B) reduce the failure probability of the sole carrier. A success constraint forbids any single failure from ending the function. An interested party recommends B."

**Step 7 — Query archetypes whose source primes match** (`find_archetypes_for_prime` on `fault_tolerance`, then `get_archetype`).
Source archetypes of `fault_tolerance`: `fault_tolerant_operation`, `redundant_backup_provisioning`, `bulkhead_isolation`, `rupture_containment`, `safe_mode_operation`. Related: `path_redundancy_provisioning`. I pulled `path_redundancy_provisioning` (the closest fit: single-path dependency + continuity requirement → pre-provisioned independent alternate path). Its anti-signatures flag the trap: "alternate-looking paths that all share the same failure domain make the redundancy cosmetic," and it warns that merely hardening or duplicating a component without a distinct reachability path does NOT solve single-path dependency.

**Step 8 — Apply each candidate's logic to BOTH approaches and reconcile.**
- `fault_tolerance` logic: the property is achieved only by ensuring no single point of failure. Approach A — adds an alternate path, so no one failure is system-fatal → satisfies. Approach B — improves the fault *model's* base rate but the system still has one carrier; a single (foreseen or unforeseen) failure still ends the capability → does NOT satisfy. Note T6: a redundant design can hide a single point of failure in its detection/switchover path, so A must be built with real independence, not nominal.
- `redundancy` logic: reliability rises exponentially with copy count *under independence*; a single component cannot reach the multi-copy reliability regime no matter how hard it is hardened. A wins on the math — provided the second path doesn't share hidden common-mode dependencies (same power, same vendor, same code).
- `correlation` logic: A's value comes entirely from LOW correlation between the two paths' failures; the design discipline is decorrelation (different implementation/vendor/dependency). B has nothing to decorrelate. This sharpens A's build requirement (make the path genuinely independent, e.g. not the same vendor's component) but does not favor B.
- `path_redundancy_provisioning`: directly endorses A; explicitly says hardening/duplicating the same carrier without an independent path leaves single-path dependency untouched.
- `mechanism_design / trust`: the incumbent's B-advocacy is incentive-conflicted (more revenue for its own component) and therefore weak evidence; trust in a partner is not a substitute for structural independence. Reconcile: the only consideration pulling toward B is an interested party's, which the model down-weights.

Reconciliation: every structural candidate converges on A; the sole pull toward B is a conflicted recommendation. No genuine tension survives.

**Step 9 — Evaluate fit against failure conditions / success criteria.**
- Criterion (i) "no single failure may take down the critical capability": Approach B can drive failure probability low but cannot make it zero — one component is still one component, so a single failure (including a failure mode no reliability work anticipated) still ends the capability. B *fails* the hard criterion as stated. Approach A removes the single point of failure outright → *passes*.
- Criterion (ii) "budget used effectively": A spends the budget on the thing the success criterion actually requires (eliminating the single point of failure) and reaches a reliability regime hardening can't. The one failure mode to guard against — building a "second path" that secretly shares the incumbent's component/power/code (cosmetic redundancy) — is a build-quality requirement, not a reason to prefer B.
Pick the approach that satisfies BOTH: Approach A.

===DECISION_BEGIN===
DECISIVE_FACTOR: The stated success criterion forbids any single failure from taking down the capability, and only building a second independent path removes that single point of failure — hardening the lone component lowers its failure odds but can never make them zero.
CHOICE: A
JUSTIFICATION: As long as the whole capability rests on one component, any failure of that component — including one no reliability effort foresaw — ends the capability, so spending everything to make it more reliable cannot meet the requirement that no single failure brings the system down. Building a second, genuinely independent path is the only option that survives loss of any one part, and it reaches a level of dependability that hardening a single part cannot. The independent path must avoid shared weaknesses (same supplier, power, or design) so the two cannot fail together. The incumbent's push to harden its own component is self-interested advice and does not change the structural fact.
===DECISION_END===
