Optional challenge
Plan owns this shared method. Load it for consequential uncertainty that survives the available source checks and relevant observations. Clear tasks and known repairs proceed directly. Source facts need sources, empirical unknowns need observations, and caller choices need the caller.
One bounded exchange
- Frame the accepted outcome, disputed claim, relevant source pointers and the decision at stake. Preserve acceptance and scope unchanged. Use the author's proposal plus one fresh challenger by default, with distinct native context identity and only the inputs needed for this question. Follow model-dispatch for actual authorization, same-family default, explicit cross-model selection and real remaining bounds. Method selection itself grants no dispatch authority.
- The challenger gives the strongest counterexample or contrary evidence, identifies the assumption it attacks, and names what would change its view. Unsupported possibilities remain hypotheses; seek a concrete defeating construction when possible.
- The author answers once with a source, corrected proposal, bounded probe or admitted uncertainty. This is one targeted exchange, not a loop until agents agree. A replacement reply context gets the disputed claim, cited evidence and question/answer delta only; its reply is not a new independent vote.
- Stop when a correction resolves the defect, a source settles the fact, a caller-owned choice is isolated, a test is the remaining discriminator, no useful novelty remains, or the actual limit is reached. Retain disagreement when it survives. Further investigation needs a named unanswered question and room within existing authority and bounds, never a renewed allowance.
Record the supported decision or unresolved choice, strongest counterevidence, reason to revise or retain the approach, and next check in the existing intent or native handoff. Pass this compact delta to the implementer; do not load the full debate transcript. More extensive evidence is only for a concrete consumer or requested audit under the existing storage rules.
Other selected strategies
When independent alternatives themselves matter, two sealed positions may be selected: each author receives the same accepted question and source evidence without seeing the other's proposal. Compare only after both initial positions are fixed; later replies are peer-informed and no longer independent. Give both the same newly discovered decisive source, or disclose the unequal evidence. An independent derivation can also be compared with an already fixed proposal.
Premortem owns a requested plan-failure examination, including evidence shape, reversibility and concrete defeat attempts. Council remains a caller-selected broader strategy. Neither is required for this method. Explicitly required review legs remain required; a cheaper challenge cannot replace them.
Challenge produces advisory evidence. Agreement is neither caller approval nor independent confirmation of correctness. It cannot issue acceptance, change work ownership, admit context, close work or replace fresh author-distinct Validate over exact content and unchanged acceptance. No general improvement in outcomes or resource use is claimed without comparable task evidence.