PAT-0140 - Boundary Leakage

Primary Lenses

• LEN-0220 - Isolation Boundary Lens

  Evaluates whether structural constraints, effects, and regions remain contained within declared boundaries.

• LEN-0250 - Propagation Lens

  Traces how structural declarations, effects, or state changes propagate across boundaries or stages.

Secondary Lenses

• LEN-0120 - Boundary Compliance Lens

  Evaluates observed structure against declared boundary posture, including allow, block, and exception rules.

Primary Issue Matches

• Agent Modified Unrelated State

  An agent changes state outside the requested task, target, file, record, workflow, or authorized scope.

• AI Uses External Information When Forbidden

  The AI uses outside knowledge, sources, tools, memory, or assumptions after the task forbids external information or limits the allowed source set.

• Context Leaks Between Tasks

  Context, assumptions, constraints, examples, files, or decisions from one task affect another task where they should not apply.

• File-Bounded Task Uses Outside Content

  The AI is asked to work only from a specific file or document but uses content, assumptions, or sources outside that file.

• Retrieval Exceeds Evidence Limit

  The AI retrieves, uses, cites, or considers more evidence than the task permits or more than the review surface can support.

• Review Outcome Changes Unrelated Environment

  A review result, approval, rejection, or classification changes state outside the environment, case, file, or workflow it was meant to govern.

Supporting Issue Matches

• Action Changed Something Else Too

  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.

• 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 Touches Unrelated Scope

  The AI affects, edits, analyzes, changes, or reasons over material outside the scope of the requested task.

• 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.

• Local Exception Grows Into Policy

  A local exception, special case, or one-off allowance begins to function like a general policy.

• Local Rule Spreads to Broader Cases

  A rule intended for one local case, file, context, user, workflow, or exception begins affecting broader cases.

• Policy Exception Spreads Too Far

  A narrow policy exception, allowance, or special case spreads beyond its intended scope and begins governing broader cases.

• Prompt Does Not Say What to Exclude

  The prompt declares what to include but does not declare what should be excluded, allowing unwanted scope, sources, content, or actions into the result.

• Routing Overrides Task Intent

  Routing, mode selection, agent behavior, or workflow classification sends the task down a path that overrides what the user was trying to accomplish.

Ontology Metadata

Code

PAT-0140

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 Pattern ontology entry: Boundary Leakage.

  Receipt impact: None

View full ontology changelog