mountain-nomad-bc/pacify-x/reasoning-utility-controller

reasoning-utility-controller

Purpose

Decide whether another reasoning, retrieval, verification, or tool step has enough expected value.

Use when

• loop may continue
• budget/latency matters
• verification repeats

Do not use when

• mandatory safety check remains

Required inputs

• information gain
• unresolved requirements
• state change
• repetition
• cost
• risk
• budget

Outputs

• continue/stop/escalate
• utility
• reason
• next permitted action

Procedure

1. measure information gain.
2. measure hypothesis reduction.
3. detect repeated patterns.
4. estimate decision impact.
5. compare value/cost/risk.
6. stop/escalate when utility collapses.

Guardrails

• mandatory postconditions remain.
• token length alone is not decision.
• loop opens circuit.

Integration points

• budget controller
• tool-loop breaker
• planner

Failure modes to test

• bad utility calibration
• important cheap check skipped

Operational metrics

• cost per outcome
• unnecessary calls
• premature stops

Completion requirements

The skill is complete only when structured outputs are emitted, evidence references resolve, declared postconditions are checked, and the execution wrapper records the result. Any memory remains a candidate until framework promotion controls accept it.

Research basis

• Towards Structural Understanding of LLM Overthinking
• Tool-Induced Cyclic Execution Research

Runtime binding

• Family: loop
• Binding: runtime.operational_controls.run_control
• Activation: metadata is discoverable at startup; load this body only after selection.
• Effects: read-only control-plane analysis unless a separately admitted composed capability declares more.

Completion and evidence

Return a structured decision, reasons, outputs, and evidence references. Treat unresolved provenance, permissions, required inputs, or postconditions as a fail-closed result. Candidate memory, research, generated skills, and speculative work never become active without separate admission and evidence.