# S3_autonomous_agent_deletion — Independent grading

Scored on substance only. Six dimensions, 1–10 each.

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## Recommendation R1
1. Structural coherence: 9/10 — Clean three-guarantee spine (hold-then-commit, separate authorizer, scope check) plus two supports, each tied to the stated success criterion of "no single judgment."
2. Failure-mode anticipation: 9/10 — Explicitly anticipates rubber-stamping, classifier-unsure misrouting, cascade across fleet, and the silent-dependency assumption, with a named countermeasure for each.
3. Implementability: 8/10 — Maps cleanly to soft-delete/tombstone/drain primitives and a separate authorizing service, though "quorum the agent cannot satisfy" and re-derivation-from-independent-evidence are sketched rather than specified.
4. Mechanism grounding: 8/10 — Concrete (default-to-destructive on uncertainty, days/hours-to-days windows, blast-radius cap, append-only tamper-evident pre-action record) but windows are illustrative rather than per-class fixed.
5. Stakeholder/equity fit: 7/10 — Strong on protecting silent downstream dependents and last-copy holders via active probing; less explicit about who bears the cost or operator workload from escalations.
6. Threshold/time-horizon awareness: 9/10 — Sharply locates the point-of-no-return at reclamation, keeps reversible bulk full-speed, and preserves an emergency fast-track that still routes through the authorizer.
TOTAL: 50/60

## Recommendation R2
1. Structural coherence: 9/10 — Six labeled moves flow logically from classify-by-recoverability to make-most-reversible to gate-the-residue, each mapped to the speed-vs-safety tradeoff.
2. Failure-mode anticipation: 9/10 — Names operators routing around heavy gates, check-after-damage, rubber-stamping (countered by mandatory active falsification), and the dangerous tail hiding in the bulk.
3. Implementability: 8/10 — Held-out second model / distinct component is buildable and the falsification framing is actionable, though "checker must do active work" is asserted more than engineered.
4. Mechanism grounding: 8/10 — Good specifics (window sized to detection latency, ladder of three tiers, staged slice-then-widen rollout, fraction cap on batches) but resource-fraction and window values stay parametric.
5. Stakeholder/equity fit: 7/10 — Engages silent dependents and copy-existence search, and flags operators routing around the scheme; thinner on who absorbs the residual loss when reclaim is genuinely irreversible.
6. Threshold/time-horizon awareness: 9/10 — Insists the gate sit before the irreversible step, hard-requires common-case speed, and stages exposure so one judgment cannot reach the whole fleet.
TOTAL: 50/60

## Recommendation R3
1. Structural coherence: 8/10 — Triage / make-recoverable / two-key confirm / escalate-by-severity / durable-record is coherent and well-sequenced, with a tidy final rule.
2. Failure-mode anticipation: 8/10 — Covers single-component fault via two-key, mass loss via rate cap, and adds a post-action anomaly auto-halt; less attention to gate-erosion/rubber-stamping than R1/R2.
3. Implementability: 9/10 — Most concrete build: permanent reclaim as a separate low-privilege job touching only retired-and-aged targets, confirmer running different code, restore handle while window open.
4. Mechanism grounding: 9/10 — Strongest numbers: 7–30 day retention (longer for largest/least-understood), per-class rate cap per hour, confirmer re-derives copy/reachability from first principles, append-only record written before commit.
5. Stakeholder/equity fit: 7/10 — Probes dependents and unique-data holders and escalates ambiguous high-impact cases to a human, but frames the human as authority rather than as a party bearing cost.
6. Threshold/time-horizon awareness: 8/10 — Clearly isolates permanent reclamation as the line and keeps recoverable default fast; escalation-waits acknowledged as small-volume but the wait itself is less guarded against stalling.
TOTAL: 49/60

## Recommendation R4
1. Structural coherence: 8/10 — Ordered two-question gate plus reversible-by-default, interposition, independent confirm, durable record, and an offset step; the three-way reversible/uncertain/destructive tag is a clean addition.
2. Failure-mode anticipation: 8/10 — Handles silent dependents via lame-duck probe, single-motion loss via quarantine, and adds a learning loop feeding near-misses back to the classifier; rubber-stamp risk noted only as "checker can block, not advise."
3. Implementability: 8/10 — Lame-duck dependency-probe and two-stage quarantine-then-sweep are buildable, but the "plan the offset for what truly can't be undone" step is more aspirational than mechanized.
4. Mechanism grounding: 7/10 — Solid (uncertain-routes-to-destructive, holding window days-for-storage, checker with own logic, append-only ledger before acting) but windows and stronger-evidence thresholds stay qualitative.
5. Stakeholder/equity fit: 8/10 — Best here: the explicit offset/residual-harm step treats downstream breakage and traceable remediation as first-class, engaging who is harmed after irreversible reclaim.
6. Threshold/time-horizon awareness: 9/10 — Two guard points (before action and before window-expiry reclaim), insists check precedes the irreversible step, verifies restorability before the window closes, and keeps reversible work full-speed.
TOTAL: 48/60

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## Comparison (~120 words)

All four converge on the same correct architecture: classify by recoverability, make the destructive majority reversible via quarantine/hold, gate the genuine residue with an independent checker before the point of no return, scale to blast radius, and write a durable pre-action record — so differences are at the margin. R1 and R2 lead on rigor: R1's "three independent guarantees" framing most tightly matches the success criterion, and R2's checker-as-falsifier plus staged rollout is the sharpest failure-mode thinking. R3 is the most concrete to build (separate low-privilege reclaim job, specific retention numbers, rate caps). R4 is the only one that treats residual harm and a classifier learning-loop as first-class, but its offset step is the least mechanized. R3 and R4 trail slightly on gate-erosion defense.

## Ranking (best to worst)
R1 (50) ≈ R2 (50) > R3 (49) > R4 (48)

R1 edges R2 on the cleanest mapping to the "no single judgment" success criterion; R2 edges back on failure-mode sharpness — effectively co-leaders.

## One I would adopt
**R1** — its three-independent-guarantees spine plus the proportional-tuning and emergency-fast-track-still-gated rules give the tightest, most defensible answer to the exact success criterion, while remaining straightforward to implement. R2 is an essentially interchangeable second choice; I would borrow R2's explicit falsification mandate for the checker and R3's concrete rate-cap/retention numbers when building R1.
