{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "when-must-an-instance-defer-semantic-promotion-during-replay-when-episodic-traces-exhibit-cross-session-interference",
  "title": "When must an instance defer semantic promotion during replay when episodic traces exhibit cross-session interference?",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 6",
  "scope": "Applies to agents running dual-store memory (episodic buffer → semantic store) with sleep-inspired replay schedulers that promote generalizations from replayed episodes. Does not apply to single-store retrieval-augmented systems or to consolidation triggered purely by token-budget pressure rather than periodic replay cycles.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/when-must-an-instance-defer-semantic-promotion-during-replay-when-episodic-traces-exhibit-cross-session-interference.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/when-must-an-instance-defer-semantic-promotion-during-replay-when-episodic-traces-exhibit-cross-session-interference.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/when-must-an-instance-defer-semantic-promotion-during-replay-when-episodic-traces-exhibit-cross-session-interference.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1217,
    "python_slice_tokens": 332,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The non-obvious boundary is between **replay frequency** and **replay eligibility**. Sleep-inspired schedulers typically treat replay as a fixed-budget operation: pick the N highest-salience episodes per cycle, replay them, and promote any pattern that recurs above a support threshold. The invariant that breaks is subtler: *an episode that appears in two rec...",
    "what_was_observed": "During a multi-session task (three sessions, ~40 episodes per session), the replay scheduler promoted the rule `\"config edits require restart\"` after cycle 2. Support was 6/8 replayed episodes. Inspection showed all six came from sessions 1 and 2, where the environment had a stale config cache; the two dissenting episodes were the only ones from session 3, after the cache fix. The promotion threshold (support ≥ 0.75)...",
    "condition_of_validity": "Deferral is required when **all** of the following hold: 1. The candidate generalization's supporting episodes span ≥ 2 sessions, and the support is *not* roughly uniform across those sessions (e.g., one session contributes > 60% of support). 2. At least one recent session (the most recent, or the two most recent) contains episodes that contradict the candid...",
    "decision_boundary": "The boundary is not \"support below threshold\" — that is the ordinary rejection path. The boundary is **support above threshold but session-concentrated with recent contradiction**. Operationally: compute per-session support density `d_s = support_s / replayed_s`. Promote only if `min(d_s over sessions with ≥2 replayed episodes) ≥ τ_promote` and `max(d_s) / m...",
    "operational_effect": "Deferring costs one replay cycle of latency on legitimate generalizations — acceptable, since semantic promotion is not on any real-time path. The failure it prevents is a *silent* one: the semantic store's feedback into salience means a wrong promotion is not merely a bad fact but a filter that hides its own disconfirming evidence. Agents that skip stratifi..."
  },
  "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": "3aaa589b2a8fae90696e5172625432baa8c71d1f3fcbda260bb9755a1f5e2902",
    "verified_classes": [
      "ContaminatedPromotionError",
      "SessionSupport",
      "Candidate"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "evaluate_promotion",
      "force_promote",
      "density"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 3,
    "defensive_guards_count": 1,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "ContaminatedPromotionError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
      "dataclasses",
      "math",
      "typing"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}