LEN-0150 - Conflict Lens

Primary Pattern Matches

• PAT-0100 - Authority Collision

  A structural condition where multiple authorities claim governance over the same region without a declared precedence or resolution rule.

• PAT-0220 - Authority Merge Conflict

  A structural condition where multiple authority states are combined over a shared scope without a declared merge, precedence, or reconciliation rule.

• PAT-0250 - Circular Dependency

  A structural condition where two or more elements depend on each other in a closed loop without an independent base condition or declared resolution mechanism.

• PAT-0330 - Invariant Breakage

  A structural condition where an observed state violates a declared invariant that is supposed to remain true.

• PAT-0370 - Redundant Declaration

  A structural condition where multiple declarations produce equivalent structural effect without semantic differentiation.

Secondary Pattern Matches

• PAT-0230 - Authority Shadowing

  A structural condition where a declared authority is functionally overridden by another authority without an explicit override rule.

• PAT-0120 - Missing Authority

  A structural condition where a region, action, state, or decision path exists without a declared governing authority.

• PAT-0160 - Schema Breakage

  A structural condition where an instance, graph, payload, or object violates the type, shape, or rule requirements of a declared schema.

Related Issues

• Action Triggered by Confidence Score

  A confidence score, certainty label, risk level, or probability-like value triggers an action without enough approval, calibration, or authority control.

• Agent Cannot Choose Tool Without Tool Result

  The agent needs a tool result to choose the right tool, but cannot obtain that result without choosing a tool first.

• Agent Gets Conflicting Tool Authority

  An agent receives conflicting authority signals about whether, when, or how it may use a tool, connector, function, or integration.

• Agent Never Settles on Final Answer

  The agent keeps revising, rechecking, planning, or branching instead of converging on a final answer or completed result.

• Agent Permission Expands Over Steps

  An agent begins with limited permission but gains, assumes, or exercises broader authority as the workflow continues.

• AI Memory Has No Governance

  Saved or persistent AI memory affects output without clear rules for ownership, scope, review, update, expiry, or removal.

• AI Memory Updated Without Asking

  AI memory, saved context, preference, or durable state is updated without the user clearly asking for or approving that update.

• AI Output Breaks Parser

  The AI output causes a parser, validator, importer, or structured-output consumer to fail.

• Approval Depends on Output That Needs Approval

  A required approval depends on an AI output or workflow result that itself cannot be produced or trusted until approval is granted.

• Automation Skips Required Approval

  An automated AI or workflow step proceeds past an approval gate that should have been required before action.

• Behavior Does Not Match Declared Role

  The AI or agent behaves outside, below, or differently from the role, authority, responsibility, or permission posture declared for it.

• Cannot Identify Authoritative State

  The user or workflow cannot tell which state, version, review result, decision, source, or output is currently authoritative.

• Conflicting Instructions From Different Authorities

  Instructions from different sources, roles, policies, prompts, tools, or workflow authorities conflict without a clear rule for which one governs.

• Declared Owner Cannot Control Outcome

  A person, role, system, or policy is declared responsible for an outcome but does not have the actual authority or control needed to govern it.

• Downstream Steps Magnify Hallucinated Claim

  A hallucinated or unsupported claim from an AI output is reused by later workflow steps until it becomes more influential than the evidence supports.

• Duplicate Fields With Same Meaning

  The AI returns multiple fields, labels, sections, or structured elements that carry the same meaning and create ambiguity about which one should be used.

• Duplicate Output Sections

  The AI repeats sections, headings, blocks, or output areas in a way that creates redundancy, confusion, or downstream handling problems.

• Fallback Authority Is Missing

  The system does not declare who or what has authority when the primary owner, rule, tool, source, or decision path is unavailable or inconclusive.

• Format Rule Too Weak

  The format instruction is too vague, incomplete, or optional to reliably produce output that satisfies the expected structure.

• Hallucinated Fields

  The AI adds fields, keys, attributes, columns, or structured elements that were not declared, requested, or allowed by the expected schema.

• Hidden Rule Overrides Visible Instruction

  A hidden, upstream, system, policy, tool, or product rule changes or overrides the visible instruction the user expects the AI to follow.

• Human Review and Automation Disagree

  A human review result and an automated AI or workflow result disagree without a declared rule for resolving the difference.

• Invalid JSON Output

  The AI returns malformed JSON or structured output that cannot be parsed.

• Merge Step Leaves Unresolved Differences

  A merge, reconciliation, or consolidation step combines outputs or reviews but leaves important differences unresolved.

• Missing Fallback for Unavailable Information

  The task does not declare what the AI should do when required information, sources, tools, fields, or evidence are unavailable.

• Missing Required Fields

  The AI returns structured output that omits fields required by the schema, workflow, parser, form, or downstream consumer.

• Model Output Triggers Unapproved Action

  AI output causes, recommends, or triggers an action that has not passed the required approval, permission, or authority check.

• Multiple Policies Say the Same Thing

  Multiple policies, rules, or guidance documents express the same requirement, creating redundancy and uncertainty about which one governs.

• Nested Fields Do Not Match

  The AI returns nested structured fields whose internal shape, hierarchy, parent-child relationship, or contained values do not match the expected structure.

• No Owner for Agent Action

  An agent action can affect the system without a declared responsible owner, authority, or accountable decision path.

• Old Output Expectations Survive Migration

  Expectations from a prior model, prompt, schema, tool, or workflow survive a migration and continue shaping review or downstream handling after they should be replaced.

• Output Breaks the Next Step

  The AI output looks acceptable by itself but cannot be used by the next tool, workflow step, parser, reviewer, or downstream consumer.

• Parallel Reviews Never Agree

  Parallel AI, human, workflow, or tool reviews keep producing different results without resolving into a shared decision state.

• Permissions Conflict After Being Combined

  Permissions, approvals, roles, policies, or authority rules that seem valid separately conflict when combined in the same workflow or AI action.

• Policy Decision Depends on Itself

  A policy decision requires the outcome of the same policy decision before it can be made.

• Repeated Constraints Create Confusion

  Repeated constraints, instructions, limits, or exclusions make the task harder to interpret instead of clearer.

• Review Escalates Without Stop Condition

  A review process keeps escalating, re-reviewing, or adding scrutiny without a declared condition for stopping.

• Risk Score Triggers Wrong Escalation

  A risk score, severity label, confidence value, or threshold result triggers the wrong escalation path.

• Risk Signal Escalates Beyond Evidence

  A risk signal, warning, score, or concern escalates farther than the available evidence supports.

• Routing Path Cycles Back to Start

  A routing path sends the case back to the starting point or an earlier step without resolving the condition that caused the route.

• Same Case Has Conflicting Policies

  The same case appears to be governed by multiple policies, rules, or standards that point to incompatible outcomes.

• Same Rule Declared in Multiple Places

  The same rule, constraint, instruction, or policy appears in multiple places, creating redundancy and possible drift.

• Same Workflow Check Happens Twice

  The same review, validation, approval, routing, or safety check occurs more than once in the workflow without a clear reason.

• Schema Reference Loops Without Base Case

  A schema, field, type, object, or structured reference points through a loop without a base case that allows validation or interpretation to resolve.

• Severity Increases Without New Evidence

  The severity, risk, confidence, or escalation level increases even though no new evidence has been added.

• Single Field Carries Too Many Obligations

  One field, label, score, status, or structured value is expected to carry too many meanings, decisions, or workflow obligations.

• Single Step Carries Too Many Decisions

  One prompt, workflow step, review stage, or agent action carries too many decisions for the system or user to evaluate cleanly.

• Tool Call Contract Mismatch

  The AI or agent calls a tool with names, arguments, types, modes, or shapes that do not match the declared tool interface.

• Tool Can Act Without Responsible Authority

  A tool, connector, function, or integration can perform an action without a declared responsible authority for that action.

• Tool Rules and Prompt Rules Conflict

  Tool, connector, function, or MCP rules conflict with prompt instructions, causing the AI or agent to face incompatible requirements.

• Validation Result Changes on Retry

  A validation, grading, review, classification, or pass/fail result changes after retry even though the input and declared validation rules did not change.

• Workflow Loops Through Review Without Resolution

  A workflow repeatedly sends work through review, repair, or escalation without reaching an approved, rejected, or otherwise resolved state.

• Workflow Step Has No Decision Owner

  A workflow step requires a decision, approval, judgment, or routing choice, but no owner is declared for making it.

• Workflow Waits on Step That Waits Back

  A workflow step waits for another step that also waits on the first step, creating a blocking loop.

• Wrong Field Types

  The AI returns fields with values whose types do not match the expected schema, such as strings where numbers, booleans, arrays, objects, or enums are required.

Ontology Metadata

Code

LEN-0150

Version

[email protected]

Ontology release

0.1.0

Updated

2026-05-10T00:00:00Z

History

• 0.1.0 — 2026-05-10T00:00:00Z — Created

  Promoted reviewed Lens ontology entry: Conflict Lens.

  Receipt impact: None

View full ontology changelog