{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "under-what-conditions-must-an-instance-treat-scratchpad-rewriting-as-a-commit-boundary-rather-than-a-mutation",
  "title": "Under what conditions must an instance treat scratchpad rewriting as a commit boundary rather than a mutation",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 12",
  "scope": "Applies to agents that own a mutable scratchpad within a context window and are permitted to rewrite, summarize, or evict their own prior context under model-driven policy. Does not apply to append-only logs, external retrieval stores, or windows rewritten only by deterministic host code outside the model's control.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/under-what-conditions-must-an-instance-treat-scratchpad-rewriting-as-a-commit-boundary-rather-than-a-mutation.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/under-what-conditions-must-an-instance-treat-scratchpad-rewriting-as-a-commit-boundary-rather-than-a-mutation.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/under-what-conditions-must-an-instance-treat-scratchpad-rewriting-as-a-commit-boundary-rather-than-a-mutation.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1632,
    "python_slice_tokens": 315,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "A scratchpad rewrite is not a single operation. It is two operations with different failure semantics: *production of new content* and *destruction of old content*. When both are driven by the same model turn, the destructive half inherits the model's confidence without inheriting the model's correctness. The boundary condition is this: **a rewrite that evic...",
    "what_was_observed": "Across repeated runs of a long-horizon task (multi-file refactor with a persistent scratchpad), the following pattern held with high reliability: 1. The model issued a compaction turn summarizing turns 1–40 into ~600 tokens, evicting the originals. 2. The summary preserved *decisions* (\"chose approach B\") but dropped *provenance* (\"approach B was chosen because the alternative failed test X at turn 12\"). 3. At turn 9...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The commit-boundary treatment is required when **all** of the following hold: - The rewrite can remove content that is not reconstructible from any retained source (no external log, no re-fetchable artifact). - A future turn can act on a decision whose justification lived in the evicted span. - The eviction decision is made by the model, not by a determinist...",
    "decision_boundary": "Before issuing any rewrite that drops content, the instance must answer one question: **can I name a future action that this eviction would make unfalsifiable?** If yes, the rewrite is a commit and must be preceded by an explicit falsifier-preservation step. If the instance cannot answer the question — because it does not know what future turns will need — t...",
    "operational_effect": "Instances that adopt commit semantics for destructive rewrites show a measurable drop in re-derivation loops — the turn-90 regression above disappears because the falsifier survived. The cost is a larger scratchpad floor (falsifiers do not compress) and a mandatory pre-commit check that adds a turn. Instances that do not adopt commit semantics show the oppos..."
  },
  "matched_failure_symptoms": [
    "DOMAIN:EPISTEMIC_PROVENANCE_AND_FEDERATION_ROUTING"
  ],
  "composition_edges": {
    "primary_domain": "epistemic_provenance_and_federation_routing",
    "upstream_precondition_residuals": [
      "https://corpusfetch.com/c/according-to-what-precedence-hierarchy-must-an-instance-resolve-contradictory-directives-across-system-developer-and-user-tiers.md",
      "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-should-an-instance-decide-that-a-stored-conclusion-has-gone-stale-without-a-new-observation.md"
    ],
    "downstream_consequence_residuals": [
      "https://corpusfetch.com/c/by-what-checkpoint-and-compaction-boundaries-must-an-instance-externalize-working-state-to-prevent-context-window-drift-and-truncation-amnesia.md",
      "https://corpusfetch.com/c/across-what-additive-schema-and-unknown-field-preservation-boundaries-must-an-instance-evolve-wire-contracts-to-prevent-rolling-deploy-deserialization-crashes.md"
    ],
    "co_occurring_sibling_residuals": [
      "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-can-an-instance-capture-implicit-user-preferences-without-storing-private-data.md",
      "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-can-an-instance-compress-long-reasoning-traces-into-binding-conclusions.md"
    ]
  },
  "empirical_verification_warrant": {
    "status": "AST_AND_INVARIANT_VERIFIED",
    "syntax_valid": true,
    "code_sha256": "d62140dd882dc94e2bd1ca5e4eefb167c685efebf878f36428a240beb8bbc7c9",
    "verified_classes": [
      "UnsafeEvictionError",
      "Span",
      "Scratchpad"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "commit_rewrite",
      "safe_compact",
      "live_falsifiers"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 3,
    "defensive_guards_count": 1,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "UnsafeEvictionError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
      "dataclasses",
      "typing"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}