# LEN-0190 — Escalation Gradient Lens ## Ontology Metadata Code: LEN-0190 Version: LEN-0190@0.1.0 Ontology release: 0.1.0 Updated: 2026-05-10T00:00:00Z Canonical URL: /workbench/lenses/escalation-gradient-lens/ ## Summary Measures structural growth or intensification across sequential executions, states, or transitions. ## Primary Pattern Matches - PAT-0300 — Escalation Growth - URL: /workbench/patterns/escalation-growth/ - Summary: A structural condition where impact, authority, scope, or consequence increases across sequential states without a declared limiting mechanism. - PAT-0360 — Propagation Amplification - URL: /workbench/patterns/propagation-amplification/ - Summary: A structural condition where an effect, declaration, authority, constraint, or state increases in scope or intensity as it propagates beyond declared bounds. - PAT-0410 — Unconstrained Expansion - URL: /workbench/patterns/unconstrained-expansion/ - Summary: A structural condition where a region, process, authority, or effect expands without governing constraints limiting growth. ## Secondary Pattern Matches - PAT-0260 — Cross-Layer Escalation - URL: /workbench/patterns/cross-layer-escalation/ - Summary: A structural condition where escalation originating in one layer propagates into another authority, boundary, or control layer without explicit authorization. - PAT-0270 — Density Spike - URL: /workbench/patterns/density-spike/ - Summary: A structural condition where nodes, edges, dependencies, decisions, or effects concentrate sharply within a localized region beyond declared thresholds. - PAT-0400 — Unbounded Scope - URL: /workbench/patterns/unbounded-scope/ - Summary: A structural condition where an operation, authority, rule, or expansion has no declared upper bound, boundary, or termination condition. ## Related Issues - ISS-0046 — Action Changed Something Else Too - URL: /workbench/issues/action-changed-something-else-too/ - Summary: An AI or agent action makes the requested change but also changes another object, field, file, state, rule, or workflow element that was not supposed to change. - ISS-0064 — Action Triggered by Confidence Score - URL: /workbench/issues/action-triggered-by-confidence-score/ - Summary: A confidence score, certainty label, risk level, or probability-like value triggers an action without enough approval, calibration, or authority control. - ISS-0008 — Agent Keeps Expanding the Task - URL: /workbench/issues/agent-keeps-expanding-the-task/ - Summary: The agent repeatedly expands the task, plan, scope, or next-step list instead of completing the declared work. - ISS-0082 — Agent Never Settles on Final Answer - URL: /workbench/issues/agent-never-settles-on-final-answer/ - Summary: The agent keeps revising, rechecking, planning, or branching instead of converging on a final answer or completed result. - ISS-0099 — Agent Permission Expands Over Steps - URL: /workbench/issues/agent-permission-expands-over-steps/ - Summary: An agent begins with limited permission but gains, assumes, or exercises broader authority as the workflow continues. - ISS-0009 — AI Adds Work Not Requested - URL: /workbench/issues/ai-adds-work-not-requested/ - Summary: The AI adds tasks, steps, analysis, checks, changes, or follow-up work that the user did not ask for. - ISS-0045 — AI Touches Unrelated Scope - URL: /workbench/issues/ai-touches-unrelated-scope/ - Summary: The AI affects, edits, analyzes, changes, or reasons over material outside the scope of the requested task. - ISS-0010 — Answer Has Too Many Paths - URL: /workbench/issues/answer-has-too-many-paths/ - Summary: The answer presents too many possible paths, interpretations, options, or next steps without enough structure to choose among them. - ISS-0032 — Context Leaks Between Tasks - URL: /workbench/issues/context-leaks-between-tasks/ - Summary: Context, assumptions, constraints, examples, files, or decisions from one task affect another task where they should not apply. - ISS-0097 — Downstream Steps Magnify Hallucinated Claim - URL: /workbench/issues/downstream-steps-magnify-hallucinated-claim/ - Summary: A hallucinated or unsupported claim from an AI output is reused by later workflow steps until it becomes more influential than the evidence supports. - ISS-0027 — Duplicate Fields With Same Meaning - URL: /workbench/issues/duplicate-fields-with-same-meaning/ - Summary: The AI returns multiple fields, labels, sections, or structured elements that carry the same meaning and create ambiguity about which one should be used. - ISS-0066 — Duplicate Output Sections - URL: /workbench/issues/duplicate-output-sections/ - Summary: The AI repeats sections, headings, blocks, or output areas in a way that creates redundancy, confusion, or downstream handling problems. - ISS-0094 — Early Model Output Gets Overweighted Downstream - URL: /workbench/issues/early-model-output-gets-overweighted-downstream/ - Summary: An early AI output receives too much authority in later workflow steps, decisions, reviews, or generated artifacts. - ISS-0023 — Hallucinated Fields - URL: /workbench/issues/hallucinated-fields/ - Summary: The AI adds fields, keys, attributes, columns, or structured elements that were not declared, requested, or allowed by the expected schema. - ISS-0101 — Local Exception Grows Into Policy - URL: /workbench/issues/local-exception-grows-into-policy/ - Summary: A local exception, special case, or one-off allowance begins to function like a general policy. - ISS-0096 — Local Rule Spreads to Broader Cases - URL: /workbench/issues/local-rule-spreads-to-broader-cases/ - Summary: A rule intended for one local case, file, context, user, workflow, or exception begins affecting broader cases. - ISS-0050 — Model Output Triggers Unapproved Action - URL: /workbench/issues/model-output-triggers-unapproved-action/ - Summary: AI output causes, recommends, or triggers an action that has not passed the required approval, permission, or authority check. - ISS-0070 — Multiple Policies Say the Same Thing - URL: /workbench/issues/multiple-policies-say-the-same-thing/ - Summary: Multiple policies, rules, or guidance documents express the same requirement, creating redundancy and uncertainty about which one governs. - ISS-0104 — One Prompt Carries Too Many Meanings - URL: /workbench/issues/one-prompt-carries-too-many-meanings/ - Summary: A single prompt carries too many meanings, goals, roles, constraints, or implied tasks for the AI to interpret consistently. - ISS-0060 — Output Exceeds Length Limit - URL: /workbench/issues/output-exceeds-length-limit/ - Summary: The AI output exceeds a declared length, token, word, character, section, field, or size limit. - ISS-0049 — Policy Exception Spreads Too Far - URL: /workbench/issues/policy-exception-spreads-too-far/ - Summary: A narrow policy exception, allowance, or special case spreads beyond its intended scope and begins governing broader cases. - ISS-0076 — Prompt Does Not Say What to Exclude - URL: /workbench/issues/prompt-does-not-say-what-to-exclude/ - Summary: The prompt declares what to include but does not declare what should be excluded, allowing unwanted scope, sources, content, or actions into the result. - ISS-0071 — Prompt Has Too Many Valid Interpretations - URL: /workbench/issues/prompt-has-too-many-valid-interpretations/ - Summary: The prompt allows too many reasonable interpretations, causing the AI to choose among valid paths without enough guidance. - ISS-0047 — Repair Step Created New Breakage - URL: /workbench/issues/repair-step-created-new-breakage/ - Summary: A repair, correction, retry, or fix step addresses one problem but introduces a new failure elsewhere. - ISS-0068 — Repeated Constraints Create Confusion - URL: /workbench/issues/repeated-constraints-create-confusion/ - Summary: Repeated constraints, instructions, limits, or exclusions make the task harder to interpret instead of clearer. - ISS-0062 — Retrieval Exceeds Evidence Limit - URL: /workbench/issues/retrieval-exceeds-evidence-limit/ - Summary: The AI retrieves, uses, cites, or considers more evidence than the task permits or more than the review surface can support. - ISS-0007 — Retry Makes the Problem Worse - URL: /workbench/issues/retry-makes-the-problem-worse/ - Summary: A retry, repair attempt, regeneration, or follow-up instruction increases the error, expands the failure, or creates additional breakage instead of narrowing the problem. - ISS-0100 — Review Escalates Without Stop Condition - URL: /workbench/issues/review-escalates-without-stop-condition/ - Summary: A review process keeps escalating, re-reviewing, or adding scrutiny without a declared condition for stopping. - ISS-0051 — Review Outcome Changes Unrelated Environment - URL: /workbench/issues/review-outcome-changes-unrelated-environment/ - Summary: A review result, approval, rejection, or classification changes state outside the environment, case, file, or workflow it was meant to govern. - ISS-0105 — Review Queue Becomes Bottleneck - URL: /workbench/issues/review-queue-becomes-bottleneck/ - Summary: A review queue, approval path, or validation stage accumulates too much work and begins blocking the workflow. - ISS-0065 — Risk Score Triggers Wrong Escalation - URL: /workbench/issues/risk-score-triggers-wrong-escalation/ - Summary: A risk score, severity label, confidence value, or threshold result triggers the wrong escalation path. - ISS-0095 — Risk Signal Escalates Beyond Evidence - URL: /workbench/issues/risk-signal-escalates-beyond-evidence/ - Summary: A risk signal, warning, score, or concern escalates farther than the available evidence supports. - ISS-0092 — Routing Path Cycles Back to Start - URL: /workbench/issues/routing-path-cycles-back-to-start/ - Summary: A routing path sends the case back to the starting point or an earlier step without resolving the condition that caused the route. - ISS-0067 — Same Rule Declared in Multiple Places - URL: /workbench/issues/same-rule-declared-in-multiple-places/ - Summary: The same rule, constraint, instruction, or policy appears in multiple places, creating redundancy and possible drift. - ISS-0069 — Same Workflow Check Happens Twice - URL: /workbench/issues/same-workflow-check-happens-twice/ - Summary: The same review, validation, approval, routing, or safety check occurs more than once in the workflow without a clear reason. - ISS-0102 — Severity Increases Without New Evidence - URL: /workbench/issues/severity-increases-without-new-evidence/ - Summary: The severity, risk, confidence, or escalation level increases even though no new evidence has been added. - ISS-0107 — Single Field Carries Too Many Obligations - URL: /workbench/issues/single-field-carries-too-many-obligations/ - Summary: One field, label, score, status, or structured value is expected to carry too many meanings, decisions, or workflow obligations. - ISS-0103 — Single Step Carries Too Many Decisions - URL: /workbench/issues/single-step-carries-too-many-decisions/ - Summary: One prompt, workflow step, review stage, or agent action carries too many decisions for the system or user to evaluate cleanly. - ISS-0106 — Small Change Produces Large Downstream Effects - URL: /workbench/issues/small-change-produces-large-downstream-effects/ - Summary: A small prompt, schema, policy, output, or workflow change creates unexpectedly large effects in downstream steps. - ISS-0093 — Small Error Spreads Into Large Failure - URL: /workbench/issues/small-error-spreads-into-large-failure/ - Summary: A small AI, output, routing, or workflow error propagates through later steps until it becomes a larger failure. - ISS-0098 — Small Issue Keeps Escalating - URL: /workbench/issues/small-issue-keeps-escalating/ - Summary: A small issue, warning, uncertainty, or correction keeps increasing in severity, scope, or workflow impact across later steps. - ISS-0011 — Task Has No Clear Limit - URL: /workbench/issues/task-has-no-clear-limit/ - Summary: The task does not declare where the AI should stop, what is out of scope, or what counts as enough work. - ISS-0061 — Too Many Tool Calls - URL: /workbench/issues/too-many-tool-calls/ - Summary: The AI or agent makes more tool calls, searches, retrievals, API calls, or integration actions than the task requires or permits. - ISS-0086 — Workflow Loops Through Review Without Resolution - URL: /workbench/issues/workflow-loops-through-review-without-resolution/ - Summary: A workflow repeatedly sends work through review, repair, or escalation without reaching an approved, rejected, or otherwise resolved state.