assumption-surfacing

Assumption Surfacing

Audit the assumption foundation underlying a decision. Six phases: domain topology enumeration, assumption enumeration, fragility rating with quality floor, dependency graph tracing, refinement loop (one retry via domain-researcher agent), output synthesis. Produces a unified inventory with epistemic status tags (with-basis, without-basis, ungrounded) and structural importance scores.

When to Use

• A decision depends on unstated beliefs that need exposure
• You need to know which assumptions are fragile before committing
• Pre-flight for impact analysis on fragile assumptions (A-F pattern)
• Auditing the foundation of a system design or strategy
• When "what could go wrong?" needs a structured answer beyond gut-feel

When NOT to Use

• You have a specific claim to stress-test (use adversarial-cycle)
• You need to compare alternatives (use tradeoff-analysis)
• You already know the assumptions and need downstream impact (use downstream-forecasting directly)

Execution

This protocol runs as the assumption-surfacing agent. The agent follows the full phase procedure autonomously, using the sequentialthinking MCP tool for phases marked (Sequential-thinking required).

• Protocol selection and composition: use /reason
• Domain research delegation: agent spawns domain-researcher as needed
• Phase validation: enforced by SubagentStop hook
• Without sequential-thinking: agent tags output validation_tier: Fallback

Input

• decision_context (required): The decision whose assumption foundation is being audited
• domain_grounding_source (required): Source for domain knowledge - document, specification, or domain description
• scope_boundary (optional): Constraints on which assumptions to surface
• acceptance_threshold (optional): Caller-supplied confidence threshold for fragility ratings

Output

• unified_inventory: All assumptions with epistemic status, fragility ratings (where applicable), structural importance scores (where applicable), ungrounded-basis annotations, and dependency positions
• dependency_graph: Directed epistemic dependency graph
• unanalyzed_risks: Filtered view of without-basis and ungrounded assumptions ordered by structural importance
• summary: grounded_count, without_basis_count, ungrounded_count, validation_tier

Composition

• Assumption-and-Forecast (A-F): AS output → routing gate → with-basis to DF severity propagation, without-basis/ungrounded to coverage gap passthrough. Structural importance is prioritization metadata, NOT fragility input.
• A-V-F pipeline: AS → bifurcating adapter → AC + DF. Surface assumptions, stress-test decision, forecast fragile assumption impacts.
• Use /reason for full composition guidance, pattern selection, and pipeline specifications.