/estimate-effective-evidence-count

name: estimate-effective-evidence-count
description: "Estimate an effective number of independent evidence/reasoning paths after discounting dependence/correlation; report nominal N, dependence structure, and N_eff."

estimate-effective-evidence-count

Purpose

Estimate independent evidence count after discounting dependence and correlation.

Input contract

required: [evidence_paths, dependence_structure]
optional: [correlation_estimates, nominal_count]
constraints: [dependence assumptions and uncertainty must be explicit]

Procedure

1. Count nominal paths and trace shared dependencies. 2. Assign dependence classes or correlations. 3. Estimate N_eff and sensitivity to dependence assumptions.

Output contract

produces: [nominal_count, dependence_map, effective_count, sensitivity_range]
delta_fields: [findings, evidence_updates, uncertainties, decisions]

Quality gates

• Report N and N_eff separately; include a range when dependence is uncertain.

Failure and counterexamples

Do not inflate N_eff by counting repeated sources or shared models as independent.

Provenance map

• resolved: independent-convergence-audit