# HANDOFF -- Warrant & Saturation Governor (RAM S6)

**Skill slug:** `warrant-saturation-governor`
**Library silo:** `ram/skills/warrant-saturation-governor/`
**Build phase:** 6 (skill-creator-max)
**Upstream artifacts:** Phase 4 SKILL.md; Phase 5 LIBRARY_ARCHITECTURE.md; Phase 3 TIER-1-KILL-CRITERION-ADJUDICATION.md (S08 verdict PARTIAL); Phase 3a S08_session_output.md; Phase 0 00-ARCHITECTURAL-COMMITMENTS.md (volume floors THROWN).

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## 1. What this skill is

The Warrant & Saturation Governor is RAM component S6. It emits the ONLY legitimate stopping signal in RAM: a structured Stopping Warrant artifact with `verdict: STOP | CONTINUE`. STOP requires three gates concurrently CLOSED -- yield gate (probabilistic recall-miss bound on the claim-yield curve), scope gate (no drift outside pre-registered Charter envelope), and contradiction gate (all adversarial contradictions partial-reset into CLOSED sub-inquiries). The three-gate structural lock is the architectural absorption of the S08 kill-criterion adjudication.

## 2. Non-negotiable (warrant-based stopping)

Warrant-based stopping is listed as a design invariant in `00-ARCHITECTURAL-COMMITMENTS.md` NON-NEGOTIABLES: *"Stopping is a function of marginal evidential yield and saturation -- never of source count, search count, or elapsed time."* This skill is the architectural instrument of that invariant. Every volume-floor mechanism from the THROWN list of the predecessor Librarian is replaced here: 45-source floor, 20-search minimum, 5-claim verification minimum, 3-Pass Quality-First Search Governor. None of those patterns may resurface in any Warrant rationale -- `references/anti_patterns_volume_floor.md` catalogs the regex-catchable failure phrases the Phase 8.5 evaluator scans for.

## 3. Primary vs degraded mode

- **Primary mode:** probabilistic recall-miss bound per Callaghan & Muller-Hansen 2020 (`references/probabilistic_recall_miss.md`). Per-claim yield curves, alpha = 0.05 default, minimum 3 batches, rejection of H0 iff posterior probability of miss-rate > (1 - r_target) is strictly less than alpha.
- **Degraded mode (pragmatic proxy):** explicitly labeled `pragmatic_proxy: true` per Section 8 of SKILL.md. Only permissible proxy method is `no_novel_claims_for_K_batches`. Schema enforces `proxy_rationale` + `proxy_method` + `proxy_K` when proxy is active, and the `proxy_method` enum structurally prohibits source-count, search-count, time-count, and discipline-count regressions. Proxy is never silent and never permanent.

## 4. Files authored in this phase

### SKILL.md (root)
Copied and refined from Phase 4 draft. Primacy/recency anchors at Section 0 and Section 4. Procedure skeleton (Phase 1-5) with parallel yield + scope gates and contradiction interrupt. Five named decision points D1-D5. Four failure modes F1-F4 with detection rules. Phase 8.5 evaluator hooks.

### references/ (5 files, 200-500 words each, zero-overlap)

1. `probabilistic_recall_miss.md` -- Yield-gate math. Cites Callaghan-Muller-Hansen 2020 operational definition. Alpha conventions: default 0.05; conservative 0.01; prohibited > 0.10. Minimum 3 batches. Per-claim (not per-inquiry) aggregation.
2. `charter_lock_protocol.md` -- Scope-gate logic. Cites Arksey-O'Malley 2005, Levac 2010, PRISMA-ScR (Tricco 2018). Four envelope dimensions (discipline / population / time_window / evidence_type). Drift classification grammar: warn / halt / operator-escalate. Charter declaration BEFORE run.
3. `contradiction_partial_reset.md` -- Contradiction-gate logic. Cites O'Reilly & Parker 2013. Bayesian rationale for disturbed-region information-gain concentration. Sub-inquiry scoping. Parent blocking invariant. Recursion depth limit 2.
4. `saturation_typology.md` -- Conceptual framing. Cites Saunders et al. 2018 four-model typology. Argues inductive thematic saturation is the operative model for CLAIMS-based inquiry.
5. `anti_patterns_volume_floor.md` -- Regex-catchable failure phrases including "STOP -- 45 sources", "STOP -- 20 searches", "STOP -- elapsed time", "STOP -- no new claims in last 5 searches" (without proxy label), "STOP -- contradiction noted but inquiry sufficient", "STOP -- scope expanded organically", "STOP -- operator approved", "STOP -- all 11 disciplines invoked".

### templates/ (4 JSON schemas)

1. `stopping_warrant.json` -- Strict schema. `additionalProperties: false`. `pragmatic_proxy` field required on every warrant. `proxy_method` enum restricts proxy to `no_novel_claims_for_K_batches`. Conditional `allOf` clauses: STOP requires all three gates closed; `pragmatic_proxy: true` requires `proxy_rationale` + `proxy_method` + `proxy_K`; `pragmatic_proxy: false` requires `recall_miss_posterior` populated. Explicit `forbidden_fields_documentation` enumerates source/search/time/discipline/operator-count field names that are structurally prohibited.
2. `charter_amendment_request.json` -- Amendment record. Offending-dimensions enum matches the four envelope dimensions. Drift-classification enum matches the warn/halt/operator-escalate grammar. Status: pending/accepted/rejected (Governor writes pending; transitions are Claim-Typing Engine authority).
3. `sub_inquiry_open.json` -- Sub-inquiry record. Recursion depth bounded at 2 (schema-enforced). Local Charter must carry claim_set with min 2 items (disturbed + contradicting). Status: sub_inquiry_open / sub_inquiry_closed.
4. `continuation_directive.json` -- Routes CONTINUE verdicts to target components. Conditional routing: scope-gate directives -> claim-typing-engine; contradiction-gate directives -> adversarial-pass-engine; yield-gate directives -> multi-method-orchestrator. `expand_disturbed_region_search` must reference sub_inquiry_id; `request_charter_amendment` must reference amendment_id.

## 5. Couplings and dependencies

- **Reads from:** Charter (S5), per-claim yield trace (S3 via Search Ledger), adversarial verdicts (S8 via Search Ledger), Surprise Register, Search Ledger snapshot.
- **Writes to:** Stopping Warrant (S4 + Search Ledger), charter amendment requests (Surprise Register), sub-inquiry open events (Surprise Register + Search Ledger), continuation directives (S3 / S8 / S5).
- **Sequential downstream of:** S5 (Charter must exist), S3 (yield trace must exist), S8 (at least one adversarial pass must have run before STOP is considered).
- **Sequential upstream of:** S4 (Output Layer cannot render until Warrant emitted).
- **Blast radius:** Subsystem (S6 / S8 downstream to S4). Cross-cutting artifacts (Surprise Register, Search Ledger) are read-only on read side; written atomically on write side per `SURPRISE_REGISTER_WRITE_CONTRACT.md` and `SEARCH_LEDGER_WRITE_CONTRACT.md` (public RAM shared-ram).

## 6. Zero-overlap verification

All five references have non-overlapping scope, each declared in its opening paragraph:

- `probabilistic_recall_miss.md` -- yield math only.
- `charter_lock_protocol.md` -- scope-gate + drift classification + amendment grammar only.
- `contradiction_partial_reset.md` -- contradiction-gate + sub-inquiry mechanics + recursion bounds only.
- `saturation_typology.md` -- conceptual framing (WHY claims-emergence, not source-count) only.
- `anti_patterns_volume_floor.md` -- regex-catchable failure phrases only.

Templates are four disjoint artifact types (stopping warrant, amendment request, sub-inquiry open, continuation directive). No template redefines another template's fields.

## 7. Flags for downstream consumption

- **No Public RAM assets authored here.** Per LIBRARY_ARCHITECTURE.md Section 3.7, all S6 assets are Private RAM. The name collision with Evaluator E6's `charter-template.md` is avoided: this skill's file is `charter_lock_protocol.md` (different name, different content, different silo).
- **Evaluator hook surface:** Section 11 of SKILL.md enumerates seven audit checks for the Phase 8.5 evaluator. The proxy-rate < 30% rule is an instrumentation-gap escalator, not a hard failure.
- **Honesty-note on S08 verdict:** S08 returned PARTIAL, not PASS. The three-gate architecture is the defensible operational path the literature supports, but saturation remains (per Saunders et al. 2018) "a statement about the unobserved based on the observed." The Governor is built to carry that uncertainty honestly -- never to paper over it with a volume floor.

## 8. Warrant-non-negotiable confirmation

Three-gate structural lock (yield + scope + contradiction) is intact:
- Yield gate = probabilistic recall-miss bound (primary) with schema-enforced alpha ceiling at 0.10.
- Scope gate = PRISMA-ScR analog with warn/halt/operator-escalate drift classification.
- Contradiction gate = sub-inquiry partial reset with recursion depth limit 2.

Pragmatic proxy = explicitly labeled degraded mode with schema-enforced method enum prohibiting source/search/time/discipline count regression.

Anti-example regex catalog is file-backed and Phase 8.5 evaluator-readable.

**Skill directory is complete and ready for Phase 7 orchestration wiring + Phase 8.5 evaluator intake.**
