docs: add HITL discussion — Wiggum Breaks as formal autonomy boundary
New subsection in Discussion framing Wiggum Breaks as the formal boundary between autonomous and human-supervised operation. Derives HITL from convergence theory rather than pre-defined approval gates. Covers oscillation, divergence, and repeated shadow detection as provably unproductive conditions that trigger human escalation.
This commit is contained in:
@@ -733,6 +733,70 @@ toward specific cognitive orientations---but the shadow mechanism prevents them
|
|||||||
from drifting too far, maintaining a productive operating range analogous to
|
from drifting too far, maintaining a productive operating range analogous to
|
||||||
what \citeauthor{lu2026assistant} achieve through activation capping.
|
what \citeauthor{lu2026assistant} achieve through activation capping.
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
\subsection{Wiggum Breaks as Human-in-the-Loop Boundaries}
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
A central question in autonomous agent systems is: \emph{when should the
|
||||||
|
system stop acting and ask a human?} Most frameworks treat this as an
|
||||||
|
implementation detail---a timeout, a retry limit, an exception handler.
|
||||||
|
ArcheFlow treats it as a first-class architectural concept through the
|
||||||
|
\emph{Wiggum Break}.
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
The Wiggum Break defines the \textbf{formal boundary between autonomous and
|
||||||
|
human-supervised operation}. It is not a failure mode; it is the system's
|
||||||
|
\emph{designed} response to situations where autonomous resolution is
|
||||||
|
provably unproductive:
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
\begin{itemize}
|
||||||
|
\item \textbf{Oscillation} (finding present $\to$ absent $\to$ present)
|
||||||
|
indicates a genuine tension in the review criteria that no amount of
|
||||||
|
cycling will resolve---only human judgment about which criterion takes
|
||||||
|
priority.
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
\item \textbf{Divergence} (convergence score $< 0.5$ for two consecutive
|
||||||
|
cycles) indicates that the implementation is getting worse with each
|
||||||
|
iteration---the agents lack the context or capability to solve the
|
||||||
|
problem, and continuing wastes resources.
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
\item \textbf{Repeated shadow detection} (same dysfunction three times)
|
||||||
|
indicates that the corrective action framework has exhausted its
|
||||||
|
options---the task structure is incompatible with the assigned archetype,
|
||||||
|
and a human must re-scope.
|
||||||
|
\end{itemize}
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
This framing inverts the typical HITL paradigm. Rather than asking
|
||||||
|
``how much autonomy should the system have?'' and pre-defining approval
|
||||||
|
gates, ArcheFlow asks ``under what conditions is autonomy
|
||||||
|
\emph{provably unproductive}?'' and derives the HITL boundary from
|
||||||
|
convergence theory. The system runs autonomously by default and escalates
|
||||||
|
only when it can demonstrate---through quantitative metrics, not
|
||||||
|
heuristics---that continued autonomous operation will not improve the
|
||||||
|
outcome.
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
This approach has three advantages over pre-defined approval gates:
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
\begin{enumerate}
|
||||||
|
\item \textbf{Adaptive autonomy}: Simple tasks never trigger a Wiggum
|
||||||
|
Break; complex tasks trigger one quickly. The HITL boundary adapts to
|
||||||
|
task difficulty without manual configuration.
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
\item \textbf{Auditable escalation}: Every Wiggum Break emits a
|
||||||
|
\texttt{wiggum.break} event with the trigger condition, run state, and
|
||||||
|
unresolved findings. The human receives not just a request for help,
|
||||||
|
but a structured summary of \emph{why} autonomous resolution failed
|
||||||
|
and what specifically needs their judgment.
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
\item \textbf{Minimal interruption}: Pre-defined gates (``approve every
|
||||||
|
PR'', ``review every design'') interrupt the human on tasks the system
|
||||||
|
could have handled autonomously. Convergence-derived breaks interrupt
|
||||||
|
only when the system has evidence that it cannot proceed productively.
|
||||||
|
\end{enumerate}
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
The Wiggum Break thus operationalizes a principle from resilience
|
||||||
|
engineering: the system should be \emph{autonomy-seeking} (preferring to
|
||||||
|
resolve issues itself) but \emph{escalation-ready} (able to produce a
|
||||||
|
useful handoff when self-resolution fails). The quality of the handoff---not
|
||||||
|
just the fact of escalation---is what makes HITL effective.
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
\subsection{Limitations}
|
\subsection{Limitations}
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
\begin{enumerate}
|
\begin{enumerate}
|
||||||
|
|||||||
Reference in New Issue
Block a user