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\title{\textbf{Convergence by Composition}\\
\large A Structured Adapter Architecture for Multi-Agent System Integration\\[0.5em]
\normalsize Preprint -- Feedback Welcome}
\author{Bogdan Banu\\\texttt{bogdan@banu.be}}
\date{\today}

\begin{document}
\maketitle

%% ============================================================================
%% ABSTRACT
%% ============================================================================
\begin{abstract}
Agent orchestration frameworks---Swarms, DeerFlow, AnimaWorks, Ralph, and
A-Evolve---make fundamentally different architectural choices (graph-based,
event-driven, hierarchical, evolutionary) yet share structural concerns:
error amplification across handoffs, coordination overhead from tool
proliferation, and the absence of convergence guarantees for adaptive loops.
We present a structured adapter architecture centred on a single
intermediate representation, \texttt{ExternalTopology}, that lets Operon's
structural analysis layer analyze the static structural skeleton of
external agent configurations without importing the target framework.  Six adapters parse framework-specific configurations into this
common representation; four epistemic bounds serve as a structural linter;
four TLA+ specifications verify safety invariants; and a co-design
fixed-point proof (following Zardini) establishes that the adaptive assembly
loop converges within $\varepsilon$.  The architecture is implemented in 23
convergence modules with 356 convergence-specific unit tests as part of a broader
suite of 1{,}813 tests and 116 worked examples.
\end{abstract}

%% ============================================================================
%% 1. INTRODUCTION
%% ============================================================================
\section{Introduction}

The past two years have seen a proliferation of agent orchestration
frameworks, each embodying a different theory of how autonomous agents
should coordinate.  Swarms~\cite{swarms} provides graph-based workflows
with sequential, concurrent, and hierarchical scheduling.
DeerFlow, built on LangGraph, offers sub-agent harnesses with sandboxed
execution and progressive skill loading.
AnimaWorks~\cite{animaworks} introduces developmental priming with
heartbeat-driven memory consolidation.  Ralph organizes agents as ``hats''
connected by event-driven transitions with backpressure constraints.
A-Evolve implements an evolutionary Solve--Observe--Evolve--Gate--Reload
loop that mutates workspace snapshots under a fitness gate.

These frameworks differ in execution model, memory architecture, and
deployment infrastructure, yet they converge on a shared set of structural
concerns.  Every multi-agent system must manage error amplification across
sequential handoffs, balance coordination overhead against parallel
speedup, and decide when an adaptive loop has stabilized.  As Evans,
Bratton, and Ag\"{u}era y Arcas argue, intelligence is ``fundamentally
plural, social, and relational''~\cite{evans2026plural}; the engineering
challenge is to build, verify, and optimize the structural infrastructure
for such systems.

The Agentic Computation Graph (ACG) survey by Yue et
al.~\cite{yue2026acg} provides a comprehensive taxonomy of workflow
optimization methods---from static template search to in-execution
editing---but does not address formal verification or compositional
convergence proofs.  Kim et al.~\cite{kim2025scaling} identify scaling
laws for agent systems whose functional form is consistent with the
epistemic bounds derived in the present work.

Our contribution is a \emph{structured adapter architecture} that decouples
structural analysis from runtime execution:

\begin{enumerate}[leftmargin=*,itemsep=2pt]
  \item \textbf{ExternalTopology} as a framework-agnostic intermediate
    representation: six adapters parse six frameworks into a single
    frozen dataclass; all downstream analysis is source-agnostic.
  \item \textbf{Epistemic bounds as structural linter}: the adapter
    risk score combines error amplification, sequential penalty, and tool
    density bounds with a topology-mismatch flag; parallel acceleration
    is available from the epistemic layer but not included in the
    adapter's composite score.
  \item \textbf{TLA+ verified safety invariants}: four specifications
    cover template exchange, developmental gating, convergence detection,
    and evolution gating, verified by the TLC model checker with
    small-model parameters.
  \item \textbf{Co-design convergence}: each adapter is a design problem
    in Zardini's co-design theory~\cite{zardini2023codesign};
    series/parallel composition and feedback fixed-point iteration prove
    that scoring stabilizes.
\end{enumerate}

The rest of this paper describes the architecture (Section~\ref{sec:arch}),
formal results (Section~\ref{sec:formal}), implementation
(Section~\ref{sec:impl}), related work (Section~\ref{sec:related}),
discussion (Section~\ref{sec:discussion}), and conclusion
(Section~\ref{sec:conclusion}).

%% ============================================================================
%% 2. ARCHITECTURE
%% ============================================================================
\section{Architecture}\label{sec:arch}

The convergence architecture is a five-layer stack (Figure~\ref{fig:stack}).
Each layer is independently useful: the cognitive layer can run without an
orchestration layer; the structural layer can analyze topologies without
executing them.

\begin{figure}[ht]
\centering
\begin{verbatim}
  +-----------------------------------------------+
  |  AnimaWorks (cognitive layer)                  |
  |  Identity, memory consolidation, priming       |
  +-----------------------------------------------+
  |  AsyncThink (thinking layer)                   |
  |  Fork/Join policy, concurrency optimization    |
  +-----------------------------------------------+
  |  DeerFlow / Swarms / Ralph (orchestration)     |
  |  Sub-agent harness, sandbox, skill loading     |
  +-----------------------------------------------+
  |  A-Evolve (evolution layer)                    |
  |  Solve-Observe-Evolve-Gate-Reload loop         |
  +-----------------------------------------------+
  |  Operon (structural layer)                     |
  |  Topology advice, epistemic analysis,          |
  |  pattern scoring, watcher, co-design proofs    |
  +-----------------------------------------------+
\end{verbatim}
\caption{Five-layer convergence stack.  Operon sits at the bottom,
providing structural analysis to every layer above.  Arrows flow upward
(analysis results) and downward (topology descriptions).}
\label{fig:stack}
\end{figure}

\subsection{ExternalTopology as Framework-Agnostic Intermediate Representation}

The key abstraction is a single frozen dataclass that every adapter
produces and every analysis function consumes:

\begin{lstlisting}[caption={ExternalTopology dataclass (convergence/types.py).},label=lst:topo]
@dataclass(frozen=True)
class ExternalTopology:
    source: str                          # "swarms"|"deerflow"|...
    pattern_name: str
    agents: tuple[dict[str, Any], ...]
    edges: tuple[tuple[str, str], ...]
    metadata: dict[str, Any] = field(default_factory=dict)
\end{lstlisting}

The agent specs use \texttt{dict[str, Any]} to accommodate heterogeneous
framework configurations.  Python type hints annotate the top-level
fields; the nested dicts carry no schema enforcement at runtime.
The \texttt{@dataclass(frozen=True)} decorator prevents reassignment
of top-level fields but does not deep-freeze nested mutable objects.
The \texttt{source} field is a tag, not a type discriminant---all
downstream code treats every \texttt{ExternalTopology} identically.
Agents are plain dicts with at least \texttt{name} and \texttt{role}
keys; edges are directed pairs.  This representation is serializable as
JSON, enabling analysis results to be stored, transmitted, and compared
across framework boundaries.

\subsection{Analysis Pipeline}

The function \texttt{analyze\_external\_topology(topology)} takes any
\texttt{ExternalTopology} and returns an \texttt{AdapterResult}:

\begin{lstlisting}[caption={AdapterResult dataclass (convergence/types.py).},label=lst:result]
@dataclass(frozen=True)
class AdapterResult:
    topology_advice: TopologyAdvice
    suggested_template: PatternTemplate | None
    warnings: tuple[str, ...]
    risk_score: float                    # [0.0, 1.0]
\end{lstlisting}

The pipeline constructs a wiring diagram from agents and edges, applies
three epistemic bounds (error amplification, sequential penalty, tool
density) plus a topology-mismatch flag, generates structural warnings, and optionally
produces a \texttt{PatternTemplate} for the pattern library.

\subsection{Design Principles}

Three principles govern the adapter architecture:

\begin{enumerate}[leftmargin=*,itemsep=2pt]
  \item \textbf{Serializable dicts, zero external imports.}  Every adapter
    operates on plain dicts parsed from configuration files or API
    responses.  No adapter imports Swarms, DeerFlow, AnimaWorks, Ralph, or
    A-Evolve.
  \item \textbf{One parser, one analyzer.}  Adding a new framework means
    writing one \texttt{parse\_*} function that produces
    \texttt{ExternalTopology}; the analysis code is unchanged.
  \item \textbf{Bidirectional exchange.}  DeerFlow's Markdown skill files
    convert to \texttt{PatternTemplate} and vice versa, enabling
    cross-framework template sharing.
\end{enumerate}

%% ============================================================================
%% 3. FORMAL RESULTS
%% ============================================================================
\section{Formal Results}\label{sec:formal}

\subsection{Epistemic Theorems as Structural Linter}\label{sec:epistemic}

Operon derives four structural bounds from epistemic topology---the
study of how knowledge and uncertainty propagate through agent
communication graphs.  These bounds are applied to every
\texttt{ExternalTopology} as a ``structural linter,'' flagging
architectures that are likely to amplify errors or incur excessive
coordination overhead.

\begin{definition}[Error Amplification Bound]
For a sequential chain of $n$ agents, each with per-stage error rate
$\epsilon$, the cumulative error probability is bounded by:
\[
  P_{\mathrm{error}}(n) \;\leq\; 1 - (1 - \epsilon)^n
\]
When $n\epsilon \ll 1$, the linear approximation $P_{\mathrm{error}} \approx n\epsilon$
applies.  The linter warns when the chain depth produces
$P_{\mathrm{error}} > \tau$ for a configurable tolerance $\tau$.
\end{definition}

\begin{definition}[Sequential Penalty]
For a topology with $n_{\mathrm{seq}}$ sequential handoffs and total
agent count $N$, the sequential penalty ratio is:
\[
  \rho_{\mathrm{seq}} \;=\; \frac{n_{\mathrm{seq}}}{N}
\]
Values of $\rho_{\mathrm{seq}} > 0.7$ indicate that the topology is
predominantly sequential and may benefit from parallelization.
\end{definition}

\begin{definition}[Parallel Acceleration]
For a topology with $k$ independent branches of depths $d_1, \ldots, d_k$,
the critical-path latency under parallel execution is:
\[
  L_{\mathrm{par}} \;=\; \max_{i \in [k]} d_i
\]
The speedup over sequential execution is $S = \sum_i d_i / L_{\mathrm{par}}$.
The linter reports the achievable speedup and flags topologies where
$S < 1.2$ (parallel structure exists but provides negligible benefit).
\end{definition}

\noindent
The full epistemic analysis layer computes all four metrics.  The
\texttt{analyze\_external\_topology()} function exposes three of these (error
amplification, sequential penalty, tool density) plus a topology-mismatch
flag in the composite risk score.  Parallel acceleration is computed and
reported separately but not included in the risk score.

\begin{definition}[Tool Density]
For a topology with $T$ distinct tools across $N$ agents, the tool density
is $\delta = T / N$.  High density ($\delta > 3$) suggests coordination
overhead: each agent must manage many tool interfaces.  Low density
($\delta < 0.5$) suggests under-utilization.
\end{definition}

The composite risk score is a weighted sum of four components:
\[
  r \;=\; 0.4\, \hat{P}_{\mathrm{error}}
    \;+\; 0.3\, \rho_{\mathrm{seq}}
    \;+\; 0.2\, \delta_{\mathrm{density}}
    \;+\; 0.1\, M_{\mathrm{topo}}
\]
where $\hat{P}_{\mathrm{error}}$ is the normalized centralized error
bound, $\rho_{\mathrm{seq}}$ is the effective sequential overhead,
$\delta_{\mathrm{density}}$ is the normalized planning-cost ratio
(tool density), and $M_{\mathrm{topo}} \in \{0,1\}$ is a binary
topology-mismatch flag raised when the detected topology class diverges
from the recommended class.  The weights are $w_1 = 0.4$, $w_2 = 0.3$,
$w_3 = 0.2$, $w_4 = 0.1$.

These bounds are consistent with the scaling laws reported by Kim et
al.~\cite{kim2025scaling}: their empirical observation that error rates
grow with chain depth and that coordination overhead dominates at high
agent counts corresponds to the Error Amplification and Tool Density
bounds respectively.

\subsection{TLA+ Verified Safety Invariants}\label{sec:tla}

Four TLA+ specifications model critical protocols in the convergence
architecture.  Each is verified by the TLC model checker with small-model
parameters (2--3 agents, 2--3 templates/tools, bounded iteration
counts).  TLC model configurations (\texttt{.cfg} files) with small-model
parameters and a step-by-step reproduction guide are provided in the
\texttt{specs/} directory alongside the specifications.
Table~\ref{tab:tla} summarizes the specifications and their key
invariants.

\begin{table}[ht]
\centering
\caption{TLA+ specifications and verified safety properties.}
\label{tab:tla}
\small
\begin{tabular}{@{}lll@{}}
\toprule
\textbf{Specification} & \textbf{Key Safety Invariants} & \textbf{Actions} \\
\midrule
TemplateExchangeProtocol
  & Adoption respects \texttt{min\_stage}
  & Export, Import, \\
  & Trust changes only via RecordOutcome
  & RecordOutcome, \\
  & No self-adoption
  & StageAdvance \\
\addlinespace
DevelopmentalGating
  & Critical periods never reopen
  & Tick, AcquireTool, \\
  & Stages monotonically advance
  & OpenPeriod, \\
  & Tools respect capability gates
  & ClosePeriod, Scaffold \\
\addlinespace
ConvergenceDetection
  & Halt is terminal
  & StageResult \\
  & Intervention rate triggers halt
  & (with nondeterministic \\
  &
  & intervention) \\
\addlinespace
EvolutionGating
  & Score monotonically non-decreasing
  & Evolve, Gate, \\
  & Workspace advances only via Gate
  & Rollback \\
  & Version bounded by \texttt{MAX\_VERSIONS}
  & \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

\paragraph{TemplateExchangeProtocol.}
Models cross-agent template sharing with trust-weighted adoption.
An agent imports a peer's template only when three guards are satisfied:
(i) the agent's developmental stage meets the template's minimum stage,
(ii) trust in the peer exceeds \texttt{MIN\_TRUST}, and (iii) the
effective score $\text{peer\_success\_rate} \times \text{trust} \geq
\text{ADOPTION\_THRESHOLD}$.  Trust updates use exponential moving
average (EMA) smoothing, applied exclusively in the \texttt{RecordOutcome}
action---all other actions leave trust unchanged, a structural encoding of
the invariant.

\paragraph{DevelopmentalGating.}
Models lifecycle progression with critical periods and capability gating.
Agents progress through lifecycle stages, advancing through four stages
(Embryonic $\to$ Juvenile $\to$ Adolescent $\to$ Mature).  The key
safety property is \emph{critical period irreversibility}: once a period
transitions from ``open'' to ``closed,'' it can never reopen.  This models time-limited configuration windows that close permanently.

\paragraph{ConvergenceDetection.}
Models the watcher's convergence protocol.  As agents execute stages,
the watcher tracks the ratio of interventions (RETRY, ESCALATE, HALT) to
completed stages.  When this ratio exceeds \texttt{MAX\_RATE}, the
agent is halted in the same atomic step---a safety property expressing
that non-convergent execution is always detected and terminated.

\paragraph{EvolutionGating.}
Models the A-Evolve mutation loop.  The \texttt{Gate} action accepts a
pending mutation only when its benchmark score meets or exceeds the current
score plus \texttt{MIN\_IMPROVEMENT}.  This ensures monotonic score
progression: the agent system never regresses.  The specification intentionally
provides no liveness guarantee, since evolution liveness depends on the
score generator---an external assumption outside the structural model.

\subsection{Co-Design Convergence}\label{sec:codesign}

We apply a simplified version of Zardini's co-design
framework~\cite{zardini2023codesign}, using ordinary function composition
rather than the full categorical apparatus.  We model each adapter as a
\emph{design problem} (DP)---a monotone map from a resource poset to a
functionality poset.  Monotonicity means that more resources yield at
least as many functionalities.

\begin{definition}[Design Problem]
A design problem is a pair $(f, g)$ where $f: \mathcal{R} \to \mathcal{F}$
maps resources to functionalities and $g: \mathcal{R} \to \{0, 1\}$ is a
feasibility predicate.  The map $f$ is monotone: $r_1 \leq r_2 \implies
f(r_1) \leq f(r_2)$.
\end{definition}

\begin{definition}[Series Composition]
Given design problems $\mathsf{DP}_1$ and $\mathsf{DP}_2$, their series
composition $\mathsf{DP}_1 \to \mathsf{DP}_2$ is defined by
$f_{1\to2}(r) = f_2(f_1(r))$, with feasibility
$g_{1\to2}(r) = g_1(r) \wedge g_2(f_1(r))$.
\end{definition}

\begin{definition}[Parallel Composition]
The parallel composition $\mathsf{DP}_1 \| \mathsf{DP}_2$ is defined by
$f_{1\|2}(r) = f_1(r) \cup f_2(r)$, with feasibility
$g_{1\|2}(r) = g_1(r) \wedge g_2(r)$.
\end{definition}

The full adapter stack is a series composition: parsing $\to$ analysis
$\to$ template generation $\to$ scoring.  The adaptive assembly loop
(run $\to$ record $\to$ score $\to$ select) is feedback composition,
where the output of the scoring step feeds back as input to the next
iteration's selection.

\begin{theorem}[Adaptive Loop Approximate Convergence]
Let $\mathsf{DP}$ be the feedback composition of the adapter stack, with
scoring function $s: \mathcal{F} \to [0, 1]$ and feedback map
$\phi(r, f) = r \cup \{s(f)\}$.  If $s$ is monotone, then the sequence
$s_0, s_1, s_2, \ldots$ is monotone nondecreasing and bounded above by~$1$.
For any $\varepsilon > 0$, the implementation terminates when
$|s_{n+1} - s_n| < \varepsilon$ or after a configurable maximum number
of iterations.
\end{theorem}

\begin{proof}
The scoring function $s$ maps functionalities to $[0, 1]$.  The feedback
map $\phi$ is monotone by composition of monotone maps.  Therefore the
sequence $s_0 \leq s_1 \leq s_2 \leq \cdots$ is monotone nondecreasing
and bounded above by~$1$, so it converges to $\sup_n s_n = s^*$ by the
monotone convergence theorem.  The implementation's
\texttt{feedback\_fixed\_point()} has two termination modes:
(1)~when $|s_{n+1} - s_n| < \varepsilon$ (default $0.01$) for the
monitored scoring key, the implementation reports \texttt{converged=True},
indicating the tracked value has stabilized within $\varepsilon$;
(2)~when the iteration count reaches the safety bound (default 100)
without satisfying the $\varepsilon$ criterion, the algorithm halts with
\texttt{converged=False} and returns the last computed state.  The
mathematical guarantee (monotone convergence) ensures the sequence
approaches $s^*$; the implementation provides a practical decision
procedure that reports whether that convergence was achieved within
the allocated budget.
\end{proof}

The implementation in \texttt{convergence/codesign.py} provides
\texttt{compose\_series}, \texttt{compose\_parallel}, and
\texttt{feedback\_fixed\_point} with the exact convergence semantics
described above.

%% ============================================================================
%% 4. IMPLEMENTATION
%% ============================================================================
\section{Implementation}\label{sec:impl}

The convergence architecture is implemented in 23 Python modules under
\texttt{operon\_ai/convergence/}, tested by 356 convergence-specific unit
tests as part of a broader suite of 1{,}813 tests across the entire Operon
codebase.  Table~\ref{tab:adapters} summarizes the six adapters.

\begin{table}[ht]
\centering
\caption{Convergence adapters: source frameworks and key functions.}
\label{tab:adapters}
\small
\begin{tabular}{@{}llll@{}}
\toprule
\textbf{Adapter} & \textbf{Source} & \textbf{Parse Function} & \textbf{Template Function} \\
\midrule
Swarms      & Graph workflows     & \texttt{parse\_swarm\_topology}      & \texttt{swarm\_to\_template} \\
DeerFlow    & LangGraph sessions  & \texttt{parse\_deerflow\_session}    & \texttt{deerflow\_to\_template} \\
AnimaWorks  & Supervisor configs  & \texttt{parse\_animaworks\_org}      & \texttt{animaworks\_to\_template} \\
Ralph       & Hat orchestration   & \texttt{parse\_ralph\_config}        & \texttt{ralph\_to\_template} \\
A-Evolve    & Workspace manifests & \texttt{parse\_aevolve\_workspace}   & \texttt{aevolve\_to\_template} \\
Scion       & Grove configs       & \texttt{parse\_scion\_grove}         & \texttt{scion\_to\_template} \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

\subsection{Bidirectional DeerFlow Skill Bridge}

DeerFlow's Markdown-based skill system is structurally similar to Operon's
\texttt{PatternTemplate}: both represent reusable workflow patterns with
metadata and staged execution steps.  The module
\texttt{convergence/deerflow\_skills.py} provides bidirectional conversion:
\texttt{skill\_to\_template} parses DeerFlow Markdown skills (extracting
frontmatter, workflow steps, and tool references) into scored
\texttt{PatternTemplate} instances, while \texttt{template\_to\_skill}
exports Operon templates as DeerFlow-compatible Markdown.  This enables
cross-framework template exchange: Operon can import DeerFlow's
community-contributed skill library, and DeerFlow can consume Operon's
structurally validated templates.

\subsection{Hybrid Assembly}

The \texttt{hybrid\_skill\_organism} function implements a two-phase
assembly strategy.  In the first phase, it queries the pattern library for
templates matching the task fingerprint; if a template with a sufficiently
high success score exists, it is used directly.  In the second phase
(fallback), an LLM generator produces a one-shot agent configuration, which is
registered in the library for scoring refinement over subsequent runs.
This library-first, generator-fallback design ensures that the system
improves with experience while maintaining availability for novel tasks.

\subsection{Cognitive Extensions}

Three modules extend the cognitive layer:

\begin{itemize}[leftmargin=*,itemsep=2pt]
  \item \textbf{PrimingView} (in \texttt{patterns/priming.py}): a subclass
    of \texttt{SubstrateView} that adds recent outputs, telemetry,
    experience records, and developmental status as multi-channel context.
  \item \textbf{HeartbeatDaemon} (in \texttt{patterns/heartbeat.py}):
    periodic consolidation of short-term observations into long-term
    memory, inspired by AnimaWorks' heartbeat protocol.
  \item \textbf{AsyncOrganizer} (in \texttt{convergence/async\_thinking.py}):
    Fork/Join execution within individual stages, inspired by the
    AsyncThink~\cite{chi2025asyncthink} observation that intra-stage
    parallel reasoning can reduce latency without increasing token cost.
  \item \textbf{VerifierComponent} (in \texttt{patterns/verifier.py}):
    Rubric-based stage output quality evaluation, analogous to
    \emph{adaptive immunity} (B-cell antigen recognition).  Evaluates
    each stage's output against a task-specific rubric and emits
    quality signals to the WatcherComponent.  When quality falls below
    threshold on a fast model, the watcher escalates to the deep model---
    completing the innate/adaptive immune layering alongside
    EpiplexityMonitor (innate) and ImmuneSystem (species-specific).
  \item \textbf{CertificateGateComponent} (in \texttt{patterns/certificate\_gate.py}):
    Pre-execution genome integrity verification, analogous to the
    \emph{G1/S DNA damage checkpoint} in cell biology.  Scans the
    genome against a DNARepair checkpoint before each stage executes;
    if corruption is detected, emits a HALT intervention that prevents
    the corrupted state from reaching the LLM.  This moves integrity
    checking from reactive (detect-after-corrupt) to preventive
    (block-before-execute).
\end{itemize}

\subsection{Catalog Seeding}

The \texttt{convergence/catalog.py} module seeds the pattern library from
multiple sources: \texttt{seed\_library\_from\_swarms} registers built-in
Swarms workflow patterns; \texttt{seed\_library\_from\_deerflow} imports
DeerFlow skills; \texttt{seed\_library\_from\_ralph} converts Ralph hat
configurations; and \texttt{seed\_library\_from\_acg\_survey} registers
templates from the ACG survey's comparison cards~\cite{yue2026acg},
annotated with graph determination time and plasticity mode metadata.
The combined catalog provides a rich initial library for hybrid assembly.

%% ============================================================================
%% 5. RELATED WORK
%% ============================================================================
\section{Related Work}\label{sec:related}

\paragraph{Agent workflow taxonomy.}
The ACG survey by Yue et al.~\cite{yue2026acg} provides a comprehensive
taxonomy of workflow optimization methods, classifying approaches along
two dimensions: graph determination time (offline, pre-execution,
in-execution) and graph plasticity mode (static, dynamic).  Our work
operates within this taxonomy: the adapter architecture is a pre-execution
analysis layer, while the watcher provides in-execution monitoring.  The
ACG framework treats workflow graphs as optimizable structures; we add
formal verification and convergence guarantees that the survey identifies
as open problems.

\paragraph{Plural intelligence.}
Evans et al.~\cite{evans2026plural} argue that the next advance in AI
will be combinatorial societies of specialized agents rather than
monolithic models, drawing on primate social scaling and cultural ratchet
effects.  Our work provides the formal infrastructure---structured composition,
verified safety invariants, convergence proofs---for the ``plural
intelligence'' vision they articulate.

\paragraph{Scaling laws.}
Kim et al.~\cite{kim2025scaling} derive empirical scaling laws for
multi-agent systems, finding that error rates grow with chain depth and
coordination overhead dominates at high agent counts.  These findings
are consistent with our epistemic bounds: the Error Amplification
Bound predicts the chain-depth dependence; the Tool Density bound
predicts the coordination overhead curve.

\paragraph{Intra-stage reasoning.}
Chi et al.'s AsyncThink~\cite{chi2025asyncthink} demonstrates that
allowing agents to reason asynchronously within a stage---forking
parallel thought branches and joining at a synchronization point---reduces
latency without increasing token cost.  Our \texttt{AsyncOrganizer}
formalizes this pattern with configurable concurrency ratios and
critical-path scheduling.

\paragraph{Co-design theory.}
Zardini~\cite{zardini2023codesign} develops a general theory of co-design
based on monotone maps between resource and functionality posets, with
series, parallel, and feedback composition operators.  We apply this
framework to model each adapter as a design problem and prove that the
adaptive assembly loop converges to a fixed point.

%% ============================================================================
%% 6. DISCUSSION + FUTURE WORK
%% ============================================================================
\section{Discussion and Future Work}\label{sec:discussion}

\paragraph{From analysis to compilation.}
The current adapter architecture analyzes structure but does not generate
executable workflows.  The natural next step is \emph{compilers}: functions
like \texttt{organism\_to\_swarms} and \texttt{organism\_to\_deerflow} that
compile Operon agent systems into Swarms workflow configurations or DeerFlow
LangGraph sessions.  For DeerFlow, the deepest integration is a native
LangGraph watcher node (\texttt{operon\_watcher\_node}) that provides
real-time structural monitoring inside DeerFlow's execution loop.
A Ralph compiler (\texttt{organism\_to\_ralph}) would emit hat
configurations with backpressure constraints derived from the epistemic
analysis.  The CertificateGateComponent provides a structural mechanism
that compilers can embed as a mandatory pre-execution gate: any compiled
target that preserves the G1/S checkpoint semantics inherits the
integrity guarantee without reimplementation.

\paragraph{Cross-target evaluation.}
A systematic evaluation harness running identical tasks across Operon,
Swarms, DeerFlow, AnimaWorks, and Ralph would provide empirical validation
of the structural predictions.  The ACG survey's recommendation to
measure structural variation across inputs is a valuable addition to such
an evaluation protocol, alongside standard metrics (success rate, token
cost, latency, intervention count, convergence rate).

\paragraph{Prompt optimization.}
The adapter architecture optimizes topology but leaves node-level content
(prompts, demonstrations) fixed.  DSPy-style prompt optimization
integrated via the A-Evolve mutation loop could address this gap: the
evolutionary Solve--Observe--Evolve--Gate--Reload cycle naturally
accommodates prompt mutations as a special case of workspace evolution,
with the fitness gate ensuring monotonic improvement.

\paragraph{Limitations.}
The adapters analyze structure, not runtime behavior.  An architecture that
scores well on all four epistemic bounds may still fail due to prompt
quality, model capability, or environmental non-stationarity.  The TLA+
specifications are verified with small-model parameters; scaling to
production-size state spaces would require compositional verification
techniques or abstraction refinement.  The co-design convergence proof
assumes monotonicity of the scoring function, which may not hold under
distribution shift in the task stream.

%% ============================================================================
%% 7. CONCLUSION
%% ============================================================================
\section{Conclusion}\label{sec:conclusion}

We have presented a structured adapter architecture for integrating Operon's
structural analysis layer with five external agent orchestration
systems---Swarms, DeerFlow, AnimaWorks, Ralph, and A-Evolve---through a
single intermediate type, \texttt{ExternalTopology}.  The architecture
contributes four epistemic bounds that serve as a structural linter, four
TLA+-verified safety invariants, and a co-design convergence proof showing
that the adaptive assembly loop stabilizes within $\varepsilon$.  By
operating on serializable dicts with zero external imports, the adapter
architecture achieves framework-agnostic analysis while preserving a
structured interchange format with top-level frozen dataclass fields
(nested dicts remain mutable by Python convention).  The 23 convergence modules, 356 convergence unit tests, 4 TLA+
specifications, and 116 worked examples provide a concrete, verifiable
foundation for multi-agent system integration.

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%% EMPIRICAL VALIDATION (added 2026-04-04)
%% ============================================================================

\section{Empirical Validation of Structural Guarantees}\label{sec:empirical}

The preceding sections establish a theoretical framework for structural
analysis across agent orchestration systems.  This section provides
empirical grounding: three benchmarks testing whether Operon's
biologically-grounded structural guarantees deliver measurable benefits
over simpler alternatives.  Full methodology and detailed results are
presented in a companion paper~\cite{banu2026benchmarks}; here we
summarize the findings and their implications for the adapter
architecture.

\subsection{Benchmark Suite Design}

Each benchmark compares three variants: \emph{Biological} (full Operon
feature), \emph{Ablated} (feature disabled), and \emph{Naive} (simple
non-biological alternative).  All benchmarks run $N = 1{,}000$ trials
per seed across 10 seeds (10M+ total data points), with Wilson 95\%
confidence intervals.  No LLM calls are made during execution.

Three features are tested, chosen for their relevance to the adapter
architecture's structural claims:

\begin{enumerate}[nosep]
  \item \textbf{Metabolic priority gating}: \texttt{ATP\_Store} +
        \texttt{MTORScaler} vs.\ flat budget counter.  Tests resource
        management in orchestrated workflows.
  \item \textbf{Quorum sensing}: \texttt{QuorumSensingBio}
        (autoinducer accumulation with temporal decay) vs.\ majority
        voting.  Tests leaderless consensus in multi-agent topologies.
  \item \textbf{Epiplexity stagnation detection}:
        \texttt{EpiplexityMonitor} (Bayesian two-signal) vs.\ cosine
        similarity.  Tests convergence monitoring in adaptive loops.
\end{enumerate}

\subsection{Results Summary}

\paragraph{Metabolism: clear win.}
Under bursty load, the biological system served 100\% of critical
operations (priority $\geq 5$) during resource pressure, versus 39.8\%
for the flat counter ($\Delta = +0.602$, $p < 0.001$, $N = 24{,}139$
pressure events).  Against the naive baseline, the biological system
also improves total throughput (71.9\% vs 68.5\% under bursty load).
Both biological and ablated variants achieve identical critical-service
rates; the mTOR scaler's additional preemptive gating reduces gradual-depletion
throughput by 1.7 percentage points (97.9\% vs 99.6\%) without
providing further critical-service benefit in these experiments.

\paragraph{Quorum sensing: precision--recall tradeoff.}
The biological signal-accumulation model achieved 0\% false-positive
rate across all configurations with 71--87\% true-positive rate at
40\% agent compromise.  Majority voting achieved 0\% FPR but near-0\%
TPR.  Independent detection achieved near-100\% TPR but 5--18\% FPR.
The biological model occupies a unique operating point unreachable by
either alternative.

\paragraph{Epiplexity: embedding-dependent.}
With mock embeddings, the naive cosine-similarity detector outperformed
the biological Bayesian two-signal design on detection accuracy.
A follow-up experiment with real sentence embeddings (all-MiniLM-L6-v2)
reversed the finding: the biological monitor achieved 96\% accuracy on
convergence and false-stagnation scenarios versus 2--40\% for the naive
detector, which false-alarmed on 98\% of converging steps.  The
two-signal design's convergence/stagnation discrimination---its core
structural guarantee---activates only when the embedding signal carries
semantic meaning.

\subsection{Revised Framework-Fit Analysis}

The benchmark results ground the adapter architecture's claims about
which frameworks benefit most from Operon's structural layer.

\paragraph{A-Evolve.}
Metabolic budgets directly address the unbounded-exploration failure
mode in its Solve-Observe-Evolve-Gate-Reload loop.  The benchmark
confirms that the fitness gate (a critical operation) is always
evaluated under metabolic budgeting, even when exploration budget is
depleted.  This maps to A-Evolve's quality gate never being skipped.

\paragraph{Swarms.}
Quorum sensing provides leaderless consensus across graph-based agent
topologies.  The 0\% false-positive rate is operationally critical
for Swarms: false consensus triggering coordinated action across a
swarm is more costly than a missed detection.  Morphogen-gradient
coordination (not benchmarked) provides additional theoretical
fit for gradient-based specialization.

\paragraph{DeerFlow.}
Metabolic budgets prevent recursive sub-agent calls from exhausting
resources.  The MTORScaler's rate-of-change sensitivity is relevant
for DeerFlow's progressive skill loading, where resource consumption
can accelerate during deep recursion.

\paragraph{AnimaWorks.}
Genome immutability provides configuration audit (a structural
guarantee by construction, not requiring benchmarking).  The immune
system's role-manipulation detection relates to quorum sensing's
adversarial consensus problem.  The VerifierComponent adds rubric-based
quality evaluation that can trigger model escalation when output quality
degrades---relevant for AnimaWorks' supervisor-worker topology where
worker output quality directly affects supervisor decisions.
CertificateGateComponent provides pre-execution integrity checks that
prevent corrupted genome state from propagating through the pipeline.

\paragraph{Ralph.}
Metabolic budgets map to backpressure enforcement in Ralph's
event-driven architecture.  The metabolic state machine's priority
gating translates to event-priority filtering under resource pressure.

\paragraph{Scion.}
Quorum sensing enables consensus across containerized isolation
boundaries.  Signal decay naturally handles container lifecycle
events---signals from terminated containers age out without explicit
cleanup.

\section{Epistemic Topology: Scope and Limitations}\label{sec:topo-limits}

\subsection{What Epistemic Topology Provides}

The four epistemic bounds (Section~\ref{sec:epistemic}) serve as a
structural linter for the adapter architecture.  The error amplification
bound identifies topologies that expand the failure surface.  The
sequential communication penalty flags long pipelines with high handoff
cost.  The parallel speedup bound identifies bottleneck layers.  The
tool density ratio flags planning overhead from distributed tool access.

Together, these bounds produce the adapter risk score used by
\texttt{analyze\_external\_topology()} to flag architectures likely to
exhibit structural failure modes.  This diagnostic function has proven
useful in practice: it correctly identifies that a 20-agent Swarms
pipeline has higher sequential overhead than a 5-agent DeerFlow
hierarchy, and that centralizing tools on a single agent reduces
planning overhead at the cost of creating a single point of failure.

\subsection{Current Limitations}

\paragraph{No runtime feedback loop.}
The epistemic layer computes static bounds from topology structure.  It
does not reconfigure topology at runtime based on observed behavior.
\texttt{analyze\_external\_topology()} is called once per configuration,
not per execution step.  The adapter tells you the risk is high; it does
not automatically restructure the topology to reduce it.

\paragraph{No empirical validation of predicted bounds.}
The four theorem bounds have been checked for qualitative consistency
with architecture-level scaling laws~\cite{kim2025scaling}, but not
against Operon's own benchmark results.  The metabolism and quorum
sensing benchmarks (Section~\ref{sec:empirical}) validate
\emph{mechanism-level} guarantees; the topology-level bounds remain
validated only by external consistency checks.

\paragraph{Diagnostic, not prescriptive.}
The risk score identifies structural risk factors but does not prescribe
remediation.  A topology flagged as high-risk for error amplification
receives no suggestion for how to restructure.

\subsection{Relationship to Mechanism Benchmarks}

The epistemic topology and the biological mechanism benchmarks operate
at different levels of the architecture.  Topology-level bounds predict
coordination costs (a long pipeline \emph{will} accumulate sequential
overhead).  Mechanism-level guarantees prevent specific failure modes
(critical operations \emph{will} be served under pressure).

The two are complementary: epistemic topology identifies architectures
\emph{likely to need} structural guarantees; the mechanism benchmarks
validate that those guarantees \emph{work as claimed}.  Both are
necessary for a complete structural analysis: topology without
mechanisms identifies problems without providing solutions; mechanisms
without topology provides solutions without knowing which problems to
solve.

\subsection{Recommendation}

Epistemic topology should be retained as a structural analysis tool.
Its diagnostic value---identifying high-risk architectures before
deployment---is well-supported by the adapter framework's design.
However, claims about the predictive precision of the four bounds
should be tempered until empirical validation against measured
benchmark performance is completed.  Future work should compare
predicted error amplification and sequential overhead against actual
measured performance across different topologies running identical
task suites.

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