/assumption-constraint

name: assumption-constraint
description: Which assumptions are most fragile? — Vulnerability ranking + impact
  assessment of experiment assumptions
version: 1.0.0
category: experiment-execution
type: strategy
sops:
- assumption-challenging
- resource-quantification
tactics:
- sensitivity-ranking
dependencies:
  sops:
  - assumption-challenging
  - resource-quantification
  tactics:
  - sensitivity-ranking

Strategy: Assumption Constraint

Methodology

Systematic assumption vulnerability analysis:

• **Extraction**: Surface all implicit and explicit assumptions
• **Scoring**: Quantify vulnerability (confidence × evidence / testability)
• **Impact assessment**: Blast radius × recovery cost
• **Prioritization**: Vulnerability × Impact = Priority
• **Validation planning**: Cheapest test that resolves uncertainty

Assumption categories: | Category | Examples | |----------|----------| | Technical | Method convergence, architecture suitability | | Data | Availability, quality, representativeness | | Resource | Sufficiency of compute, time, expertise | | Environmental | Tool stability, API access, policy | | Theoretical | Effect existence, measurability, magnitude |

Execution Flow

1. **Challenge Assumptions** → call `assumption-challenging` SOP

• Input: experiment plan, hypothesis
• Output: assumption inventory with validity assessment

2. **Quantify Validation Cost** → call `resource-quantification` SOP

• Input: validation experiments for top assumptions
• Output: cost to validate each assumption

3. **Rank Sensitivity** → invoke `sensitivity-ranking` tactic

• Determine which assumptions are most binding

4. **Report** → synthesize vulnerability assessment

• Top-5 fragile assumptions with validation paths
• Binding assumption constraint identification

Budget Gate

| Resource | Budget | Notes | |----------|--------|-------| | Subagent calls | ≤5 | 2 SOPs + synthesis | | Iterations | ≤2 | Re-rank if new assumptions surface | | Output size | ≤3000 tokens | Ranked table + validation plan |

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Available Tactics

Optional, no fixed order; the final leaf is always a sop.

| Tactic | When to use | | --- | --- | | sensitivity-ranking | Rank constraints by sensitivity — which ones most impact the outcome if they shift |

Available SOPs

Optional, no fixed order; the final leaf is always a sop.

| SOP | When to use | | --- | --- | | assumption-challenging | Challenge each assumption's validity — shared cross-repo SOP | | resource-quantification | Quantify resource demand vs supply vs gap for each resource category |

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