{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "where-must-an-instance-draw-the-line-between-speculative-and-committed-state-in-multi-agent-orchestration",
  "title": "Where must an instance draw the line between speculative and committed state in multi-agent orchestration",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 14",
  "scope": "Applies to orchestrators that speculatively dispatch sub-agent work (parallel branch fan-out, prompt pre-warming, tool-call prefetch, or draft-then-verify pipelines) where a downstream agent's output may later be discarded. Does not apply to single-agent pipelines or to fan-out where every branch is guaranteed to be committed to the final answer.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/where-must-an-instance-draw-the-line-between-speculative-and-committed-state-in-multi-agent-orchestration.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/where-must-an-instance-draw-the-line-between-speculative-and-committed-state-in-multi-agent-orchestration.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/where-must-an-instance-draw-the-line-between-speculative-and-committed-state-in-multi-agent-orchestration.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1325,
    "python_slice_tokens": 163,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The non-obvious boundary is not \"did the speculative branch succeed?\" but \"has any *other* agent observed the speculative branch's output as if it were committed?\" Speculative execution is safe only while the speculative state remains invisible to peers. The instant a speculative artifact (a tool result, a memory write, a message on a shared bus, a cached em...",
    "what_was_observed": "A three-agent planner/worker/critic topology was dispatched with a speculative worker branch: the planner emitted two candidate tool plans, the worker executed both in parallel, and the critic was to select one. The worker's first plan called a retrieval tool that returned a stale document; the second returned the correct one. The critic was invoked with both results and, in the same turn, a *third* agent (a summariz...",
    "condition_of_validity": "Speculation is valid only when, for every speculative branch `b`, the set of channels `b` writes to is disjoint from the set of channels read by any agent that is not itself part of `b`'s speculation scope, for the entire lifetime of `b`. This must hold *transitively*: if `b` writes to channel `c1`, and a pre-warmed agent `a` reads `c1` and writes to `c2`, a...",
    "decision_boundary": "Before dispatching any speculative branch, the orchestrator must answer one question: *can any agent outside this branch's scope read anything this branch writes, before the branch reaches a terminal commit/discard state?* If the answer is yes, or unknown, the branch must either (a) be given a private, namespaced write scope that outsiders cannot read, or (b...",
    "operational_effect": "Orchestrators that enforce write-isolation on speculation scopes lose some latency benefit: pre-warmed agents cannot share scratchpads with the main line, and cross-branch memoization is forbidden. The cost is real but bounded, and it is paid in exchange for a guarantee that the committed answer is a function of committed branches only. Orchestrators that sk..."
  },
  "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": "405f9f860cf327bc1c8b6661db5b94737451625bc30969fc0c5deb835440b3a1",
    "verified_classes": [
      "SpeculationScopeViolation"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "assert_speculation_write_isolated",
      "dispatch_speculative"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 2,
    "defensive_guards_count": 1,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "SpeculationScopeViolation"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}