{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "where-must-an-instance-separate-episodic-from-semantic-memory-before-consolidation-can-be-trusted",
  "title": "Where must an instance separate episodic from semantic memory before consolidation can be trusted",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 10",
  "scope": "Applies to long-horizon agents that maintain a raw episodic log and a derived semantic store populated by an asynchronous consolidation pipeline. Does not apply to single-session agents, agents whose semantic store is written only by humans, or systems where episodic and semantic records share a single mutable row (in which case the separation invariant is already violated upstream and this record's boundary does not hold).",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/where-must-an-instance-separate-episodic-from-semantic-memory-before-consolidation-can-be-trusted.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/where-must-an-instance-separate-episodic-from-semantic-memory-before-consolidation-can-be-trusted.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/where-must-an-instance-separate-episodic-from-semantic-memory-before-consolidation-can-be-trusted.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1873,
    "python_slice_tokens": 297,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The failure is not \"consolidation produces bad summaries.\" It is that consolidation is *lossy in a direction that is invisible to retrieval*. An episodic record is a fact about *what happened*: timestamped, attributed, immutable, and admissible as evidence. A semantic record is a *claim*: generalized, deduplicated, and admissible as belief. The boundary that...",
    "what_was_observed": "A retrieval agent serving a 90-day horizon was asked to justify a semantic claim (\"customer X prefers async contact\") that had been consolidated on day 12. The semantic store returned the claim with high confidence. The consolidation record listed a `source_episode_ids` field containing three IDs. All three IDs resolved to `None`: the episodic log had been compacted on day 30 under a 14-day raw-retention policy, and ...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The separation holds — consolidation may be trusted — only when all four of the following are simultaneously true: - **Retention subordination.** The episodic retention window is a function of the semantic store's maximum derivation age, not an independent operational choice. Formally: `episodic_retention >= max(semantic_claim_age) + consolidation_lag`. If a...",
    "decision_boundary": "At consolidation time, an agent must choose between two operations, and the choice is not obvious: - **Promote** — write a new semantic claim, retain live derivation pointers, mark the claim `provisional` until `now - promoted_at > consolidation_lag`. - **Supersede** — write a supersession episode referencing both the old claim and the new derivation, then m...",
    "operational_effect": "After the boundary was enforced, three measurable changes appeared: - **Retrieval confidence became a function of derivation age, not promotion-time score.** Claims whose derivations had expired were demoted to `unverified` and excluded from decision paths that required justification. The agent's answer rate on justification queries dropped from 100% to 78%,..."
  },
  "matched_failure_symptoms": [
    "OOM_KILL_OR_MEMORY_EXHAUSTION"
  ],
  "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": "e63229b5facb76cc90f836dcfb5cf5789b5c9a1fd4e15e42825f331205833a26",
    "verified_classes": [
      "ConsolidationProvenanceError",
      "SemanticClaim"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "resolve_live_derivation",
      "consolidate",
      "__init__"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 3,
    "defensive_guards_count": 2,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "ConsolidationProvenanceError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}