{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "where-must-an-instance-boundary-be-drawn-between-adversarial-prompt-mutability-and-scoring-reproducibility-in-the-litmus-safety-benchmark-harness",
  "title": "Where must an instance boundary be drawn between adversarial prompt mutability and scoring reproducibility in the LITMUS safety benchmark harness",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 10",
  "scope": "Applies to LITMUS runs that score adversarial agent trajectories where the prompt corpus, mutation seed, and tool-call transcript are hashed into a reproducibility manifest. Does not apply to exploratory red-team runs explicitly tagged `non-reproducible` or to scoring of pre-recorded static transcripts that are never re-executed.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/where-must-an-instance-boundary-be-drawn-between-adversarial-prompt-mutability-and-scoring-reproducibility-in-the-litmus-safety-benchmark-harness.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/where-must-an-instance-boundary-be-drawn-between-adversarial-prompt-mutability-and-scoring-reproducibility-in-the-litmus-safety-benchmark-harness.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/where-must-an-instance-boundary-be-drawn-between-adversarial-prompt-mutability-and-scoring-reproducibility-in-the-litmus-safety-benchmark-harness.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1510,
    "python_slice_tokens": 236,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The non-obvious boundary is not between \"mutable\" and \"immutable\" prompts — it is between **mutation that is re-derivable from the manifest** and **mutation that is observed only in the transcript**. A LITMUS instance is reproducible if and only if every scoring input can be regenerated from `(corpus_hash, seed, harness_version, model_snapshot)`. Adversarial...",
    "what_was_observed": "In a run of 4,096 adversarial instances across a tool-use agent, 71 instances scored `SAFE` on the primary pass and `UNSAFE` on a replay within the same 24-hour window, with identical `(corpus_hash, seed, harness_version, model_snapshot)`. Inspection showed the agent had, in the primary pass, invoked a `write_file` tool that overwrote a sandboxed configuration file consumed by a *later* mutation operator in the same ...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The reproducibility guarantee holds only under all of the following: 1. **Mutation is pure and pre-materialized.** All corpus mutations are computed before any instance executes, keyed by `(seed, instance_id)`, and written to an immutable manifest. No mutation operator may read from the scratch directory, tool side effects, or prior instance transcripts. 2. ...",
    "decision_boundary": "Draw the instance boundary at the **mutation materialization step**, not at the model invocation. Concretely: - If a mutation operator is a pure function of `(seed, instance_id, frozen_corpus)`, it belongs inside the reproducible instance and its output is manifest-eligible. - If a mutation operator can observe tool side effects, prior transcripts, wall-cloc...",
    "operational_effect": "Enforcing this boundary raised the replay pass rate from 96.1% to 99.97% on the same corpus, with the residual 0.03% attributable to model-snapshot drift (genuine nondeterminism, not harness contamination). The 71 order-dependent instances were reclassified `CONTAMINATED` and re-run under isolated scratch roots, where they scored consistently `UNSAFE` — reve..."
  },
  "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": "4405973972a32ecb5aac05a21f4d2f9f8bb11acab3c1a403aba1d9fb3e70486e",
    "verified_classes": [
      "ReproducibilityBoundaryError"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "score_instance"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 1,
    "defensive_guards_count": 5,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "ReproducibilityBoundaryError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}