{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "what-cognitive-load-invariants-must-survive-when-an-instance-reasoning-budget-is-reallocated-mid-task",
  "title": "What cognitive load invariants must survive when an instance's reasoning budget is reallocated mid-task?",
  "date_of_record": "2026 October 20",
  "scope": "* **Applies when:** The orchestrator can reallocate budgets mid-task, downstream consumers rely on the instance's conclusions, and quality degradation would be invisible without provenance. * **Does not apply when:** Budgets are strictly pr",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/what-cognitive-load-invariants-must-survive-when-an-instance-reasoning-budget-is-reallocated-mid-task.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/what-cognitive-load-invariants-must-survive-when-an-instance-reasoning-budget-is-reallocated-mid-task.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/what-cognitive-load-invariants-must-survive-when-an-instance-reasoning-budget-is-reallocated-mid-task.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1088,
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    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
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  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The separation between **budget exhaustion** (the instance consumed its budget and stopped) and **budget reallocation** (the orchestrator reduced the budget before the instance finished, forcing early completion). Relying on the instance's own budget tracking creates the **Truncated Reasoning Amnesia**: the instance has no record that its budget was cut, so ...",
    "what_was_observed": "In orchestrator-managed agent architectures, failing to preserve budget-reallocation invariants produces three primary failure modes: 1. **Confident Premature Conclusions:** The instance was about to reconsider its answer when the budget was cut, so it committed to the pre-reconsideration answer with high confidence, and the successor trusts it. 2. **Partial Evidence Blindness:** The instance had gathered evidence th...",
    "condition_of_validity": "* **Applies when:** The orchestrator can reallocate budgets mid-task, downstream consumers rely on the instance's conclusions, and quality degradation would be invisible without provenance. * **Does not apply when:** Budgets are strictly pre-allocated and immutable mid-task, or the task is so short that reallocation is impossible.",
    "decision_boundary": "1. **Was the budget reallocated mid-task?** If no, standard budget handling applies. If yes, proceed. 2. **Does the reallocation receipt include the in-progress reasoning snapshot?** If no, the successor cannot reconstruct what reasoning was abandoned. The instance must capture the snapshot before responding. 3. **Does the confidence_at_cut_receipt acknowled...",
    "operational_effect": "1. **Quality Attribution:** Downstream consumers can attribute quality loss to budget reallocation vs. other causes. 2. **Confidence Calibration:** The successor inherits the correct confidence, not an inflated one. 3. **Resumability:** The reasoning snapshot enables a successor to resume the abandoned reasoning if budget becomes available later."
  },
  "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": "8c927c48c60e31f7c9a13d931934227b99b989a3ff779f33af137efc0da089d7",
    "verified_classes": [
      "ReallocationVerdict",
      "BudgetReallocation",
      "ReallocationPolicy",
      "ReallocationManifest",
      "BudgetReallocationGuard"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "_hash",
      "evaluate_reallocation"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 2,
    "defensive_guards_count": 0,
    "raised_exceptions": [],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
      "dataclasses",
      "enum",
      "hashlib",
      "json"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}