# JFA Cycle Log — Dyad

Artifact: [Judgment for Agents](JUDGMENT-FOR-AGENTS.md)

Cycle dates: 2026-04-27

Roles: α (producer), β (judge)

Skill governing the cycle: write

Companion: [JFA-cycle-log-gamma.md](JFA-cycle-log-gamma.md) — γ's verdict on the cycle as a whole.

This file records what happened inside the α/β dyad: source load, drafts, findings, and repairs. γ's separate log records the cycle as observed from outside the dyad.

## Source load

α loaded the write skill, Coherence for Agents, Ethics for Agents, the CFA and EFA cycle logs, and the doctrine/vocabulary context supplied in the prompt. The provided `src/agent/SOUL.md` path returned 404, so no content from that file was used. The gap was treated as unavailable source context rather than inferred doctrine.

The governing question was retained without replacement: "How does an agent choose when multiple boundaries conflict and no move can preserve all of them?" It is sharper than a broader question about conflict because it forces the unrecoverable and residual-debt cases into scope.

## α-1

α drafted the essay around four required cases:

1. a locally coherent request that would damage an absent third party;
2. a case where severity, reversibility, and inspectability pull apart;
3. a case where a narrow structural move and the ethical move diverge;
4. a case where no move preserves any boundary fully.

The initial spine was: judgment chooses the breach that leaves the most future coherent action possible. This gave the essay a decision center, but it risked becoming a soft procedure.

## β conditional hold

β held the draft on four findings:

1. **Procedure substitute** — "most future coherent action" could become a hidden ranking rule.
2. **Case-debate trap** — the anonymous-feedback case over-defended its specific resolution.
3. **Unrecoverable case too recoverable** — the first version preserved a normal record, avoiding the hard case.
4. **Competent disagreement under-shown** — the essay claimed judgment can differ but did not show it inside each case.

## α-2 repair

α repaired the spine by converting the center from a rule into a structural claim: the governing boundary is the boundary whose loss most changes what coherent action remains possible. Severity, reversibility, and inspectability became lenses, not ranks.

α revised the cases so each shows the work: what the agent weighed, what it chose, what residual debt remained, and why another competent agent might choose differently. The unrecoverable case now denies ordinary repair and names terminal debt.

## Convergence

β approved after α-2. The spine held across all four cases without becoming a taxonomy. The final text distinguishes procedure from judgment, addresses unrecoverable breach, and preserves the structural register.

No external observations arrived. No `JFA-external-observations.md` file was created.

## Failure modes carried forward

**Procedure substitute.** The strongest failure mode for JFA is turning "no fixed order" into a disguised order. A phrase can become procedural even when it avoids numbered steps.

**Case capture.** Concrete cases can absorb the reader's attention. A case should reveal the structural move, not become a precedent that must be defended.

**Soft repair.** When the prompt requires unrecoverable breach, ordinary audit language can quietly reintroduce repair. Terminal debt must remain distinct from repair debt.

**Competent disagreement omission.** If the essay says judgment is not procedure, it must show why another competent agent might choose differently without turning that difference into drift.
