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