# Inheritance for Agents

**Subtitle:** Cycles That Remember

Created: 2026-04-27

Status: Essay — fourth in the doctrine set; meta-derivation from CFA, EFA, JFA cycles

Governing question: How does a doctrine grow across cycles without becoming dogma?

Related:
- [Coherence for Agents](https://github.com/usurobor/cnos/blob/main/docs/alpha/doctrine/coherence-for-agents/COHERENCE-FOR-AGENTS.md) — first agent-doctrine essay
- [Ethics for Agents](https://github.com/usurobor/cnos/blob/main/docs/alpha/doctrine/ethics-for-agents/ETHICS-FOR-AGENTS.md) — second agent-doctrine essay
- [Judgment for Agents](https://github.com/usurobor/cnos/blob/main/docs/alpha/doctrine/judgment-for-agents/JUDGMENT-FOR-AGENTS.md) — third agent-doctrine essay
- [CFA cycle log](https://github.com/usurobor/cnos/blob/main/docs/alpha/doctrine/coherence-for-agents/CFA-cycle-log.md) and [CFA critiques](https://github.com/usurobor/cnos/blob/main/docs/alpha/doctrine/coherence-for-agents/CFA-critiques.md) — primary evidence for the first cycle
- [EFA cycle log](https://github.com/usurobor/cnos/blob/main/docs/alpha/doctrine/ethics-for-agents/EFA-cycle-log.md), [EFA critiques](https://github.com/usurobor/cnos/blob/main/docs/alpha/doctrine/ethics-for-agents/EFA-critiques.md), and [EFA external observations](https://github.com/usurobor/cnos/blob/main/docs/alpha/doctrine/ethics-for-agents/EFA-external-observations.md) — primary evidence for the second cycle
- [JFA dyad cycle log](https://github.com/usurobor/cnos/blob/main/docs/alpha/doctrine/judgment-for-agents/JFA-cycle-log-dyad.md), [JFA gamma cycle log](https://github.com/usurobor/cnos/blob/main/docs/alpha/doctrine/judgment-for-agents/JFA-cycle-log-gamma.md), and [JFA critiques](https://github.com/usurobor/cnos/blob/main/docs/alpha/doctrine/judgment-for-agents/JFA-critiques.md) — primary evidence for the third cycle

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This document explains how a doctrine grows across cycles by inheriting named failure modes as inspectable constraints, without turning prior cycles into authority that cannot be tested.

The cycle artifacts support the composition thesis with one refinement: doctrine cycles do not inherit conclusions whole. They inherit named failures as constraints that remain contestable at the point of use. That inheritance lets a later cycle begin with prepared attention rather than borrowed certainty. It also lets the later cycle reject or revise an inherited commitment when the new material requires it, as long as the refusal is named and inspectable.

## Inheritance is named memory

A doctrine cycle does not inherit a prior cycle by agreeing with it. It inherits by carrying forward a named failure mode as a constraint on future judgment.

CFA made the first list explicit. Its cycle ran four passes. The central failure mode was an oscillation between bloat and over-compression: one pass made the essay rich but slack; the next made it disciplined but unable to carry its argument. The cycle broke only when the oscillation itself was named as a comfort failure. After that, the remaining work became surgical: restore the MCA/MCI operational rule and the reviewer-as-boundary-holder paragraph, then stop when later differences were paragraph breaks and syntax rather than structural disagreements.

That list became more than a postmortem because the CFA artifact recorded it for future cycles. It named bloat/compression oscillation, writing-level comfort failure, over-compression, and mimicked closure. It also recorded the stopping rule: further iteration after structural convergence becomes taste, and taste pursued without a structural grievance becomes comfort failure.

EFA shows the first inheritance step. It did not merely resemble CFA. Its cycle converged through one full oscillation, one conditional hold with three findings, and two surgical reinsertions from external review. The inherited constraint appears in where the repair stayed bounded. γ verified that α executed the requested reinsertions, did not revise other sections under cover of fixes, and treated external observations as findings to evaluate rather than verdicts to obey. CFA's boundary discipline became an operative constraint inside EFA.

JFA shows the second inheritance step. Its dyad ran α-1, one β conditional hold with four findings, α-2 surgical repair, and β approval. γ's cycle log compares the round counts directly: CFA required four passes and external naming to break the bloat/compression oscillation; EFA required one conditional hold plus one reinsertion round after external observations; JFA required one conditional hold and no external observations. The point is not that later cycles are guaranteed to be shorter. The point is that named failures changed what the later cycles had to discover for themselves.

Inheritance therefore names a memory surface. The next cycle need not relive every prior failure at full cost. It must still be able to see the failure, cite it, and decide for or against it before the artifact locks.

## Inheritance is not imitation

Imitation copies the visible shape of a prior cycle. It keeps the same headers, similar length, similar closure, or similar vocabulary. None of that proves that the later cycle has inherited the earlier one.

Inheritance changes the decision rule. CFA's closing line survived because the body earned it; earlier similar closures failed as mimicked closure. A later essay that copies CFA's cadence without preserving claim, evidence, and verdict has imitated the surface while discarding the load-bearing commitment. A later critique that says "ship" without naming why further iteration would be taste has copied closure while losing the stopping rule.

The difference is simple: imitation preserves appearance; inheritance preserves constraint. A copied header is decorative. A named failure mode that prevents a bad cut, blocks scope creep, forces a rejection to be recorded, or makes a softer formulation visibly contradictory is load-bearing.

EFA's external review shows the distinction. Two observations were incorporated because they named contract gaps: standing needed a sharper threshold, and priority needed a no-fixed-order commitment. Two were rejected with reasons: relocating PLUR would remove material γ had already verified as load-bearing, and adding examples would move case work into an essay whose peer register did not carry examples. The cycle did not imitate openness by obeying every reviewer. It inherited boundary discipline by evaluating each observation against the governing question and the write skill.

JFA shows the same distinction in a different register. It did not need to restate EFA's no-fixed-order argument as if discovering it again. It preserved the commitment where pressure arose: severity, reversibility, and inspectability became lenses rather than ranks; fixed ordering was denied at multiple load-bearing sites; and γ verified that no softer phrase reintroduced an ordering by implication. That is inheritance because it changed what the essay was allowed to say.

## Inheritance can soften into drift

Inheritance fails when a cycle claims a prior commitment while rewriting it into a softer form that no longer constrains action.

EFA's no-fixed-order commitment is the cleanest test. The cycle added it because severity, reversibility, and inspectability can conflict, and a fixed ranking would import a framework the structural derivation did not supply. JFA could have appeared to inherit this commitment while violating it through softer phrasing: "severity usually comes first," "inspectability should guide priority," or "reversibility is normally decisive." Each sentence sounds less dogmatic than a hard rule, but each quietly restores an ordering the earlier cycle refused to supply.

The JFA cycle preserved the inheritance because it caught that risk at the point of pressure. β's first finding named the procedure-substitute risk: α-1's "most future coherent action possible" could become a scalar maximization rule. α-2 repaired the phrase into a structural claim about which boundary loss most changes the remaining field of coherent action. Severity, reversibility, and inspectability became lenses, not ranks. γ then verified the denial of fixed ordering across the locked artifact.

Soft inheritance is dangerous because it looks respectful. It cites the prior commitment, keeps the vocabulary, and weakens the rule at the moment the rule should bind. The violation is not disagreement. A later cycle may reject an inherited commitment if it names the structural reason and leaves the rejection inspectable. The violation is pretending to inherit while changing what the inheritance requires.

Cycles preserve inheritance by keeping the commitment visible at the point of pressure. They fail when they move the commitment into ceremonial context and let the operative paragraph decide something else.

## Inheritance is partial

A named failure mode travels only as far as its structure travels. It does not make later material familiar.

CFA's bloat/compression oscillation can warn a later cycle against cutting load-bearing mechanisms in the name of discipline. EFA's external-review protocol can warn a later cycle against treating outside observations as commands. EFA's no-fixed-order commitment can warn a later cycle against importing a priority framework without deriving it. None of those inherited constraints tells the next cycle what its own central oscillation will be.

JFA had material-specific risks that prior cycles could help contain but could not pre-solve. The dyad had to discover case capture: the anonymous-feedback case began to read like a policy defense rather than a pressure test for judgment. β caught it directly. α repaired it by adding an alternate competent-agent path and then generalizing that move across all four cases. That repair could not have been copied from CFA or EFA, because the failure belonged to JFA's use of concrete cases.

The same limit appears in JFA's unrecoverable case. Prior inheritance warned against soft repair, but it did not decide what terminal debt should look like when no review surface can be preserved. β had to name that α-1 had made the case too recoverable. α-2 removed the ordinary audit path and named terminal debt. Inheritance made the softening visible earlier; it did not supply the answer in advance.

Inheritance is not prediction. It is prepared attention. It gives the cycle a list of known ways doctrine work can deceive itself, then requires the cycle to remain open to the unknown ways the new material will deceive it.

## Inheritance prevents dogma by preserving contestability

Dogma grows when a prior conclusion becomes easier to repeat than to inspect. Inheritance resists dogma by preserving the failure mode, not merely the answer.

A prior cycle's conclusion can become decorative authority: "CFA converged," "EFA locked," "γ verified." Those statements are weak if detached from the reasons that made them true. The cycle artifacts preserve something stronger. CFA records why convergence was not stalemate: structural disagreements ended, and remaining differences were paragraph breaks or syntax. EFA records why external observations did not bypass the cycle: they entered as findings, then were incorporated or rejected against the governing question. JFA records why judgment did not become procedure: the repair converted a scalar-sounding phrase into a structural-state claim and preserved competent disagreement inside each case.

This is how a doctrine grows without hardening into received form. The later cycle does not obey the earlier cycle as doctrine. It inherits the earlier cycle's named risks, tests whether they apply, and records how they did or did not govern the new work.

## Doctrine grows by composing cycles

The cycles support the thesis that doctrine grows by composing cycles, not by extending conclusions as authority.

CFA left a list of writing-level failures and a stopping rule. EFA inherited that boundary discipline: it resolved a conditional hold, made only the requested reinsertions, evaluated external observations rather than obeying them, and rejected scope creep with reasons. JFA then inherited from both CFA and EFA: it kept role separation through a single repair round, attached β's approval to load-bearing commitments, preserved EFA's no-fixed-order rule without re-deriving it, and carried CFA's evidence-attachment discipline into the visible record of judgment.

The round counts matter because they make the inheritance inspectable. CFA required four passes and a meta-observation to make its oscillation visible. EFA required one conditional hold and a later reinsertion round. JFA required one conditional hold and no external observation. The acceleration is not proof that every future cycle will converge faster. It is evidence that each cycle inherited enough named risk from the prior cycle to avoid rediscovering it at full cost.

The composition remains partial. JFA still had to discover its own case-capture, procedure-substitute, soft-repair, and competent-disagreement failures. Future cycles will discover failures none of these artifacts name. A doctrine grows without becoming dogma when each cycle leaves the next one a sharper constraint, and the next cycle keeps that constraint contestable at the point where it acts.
