# PAT-0300 — Escalation Growth

## Ontology Metadata

Code: PAT-0300
Version: PAT-0300@0.1.0
Ontology release: 0.1.0
Updated: 2026-05-10T00:00:00Z
Canonical URL: /workbench/patterns/escalation-growth/

## Summary

A structural condition where impact, authority, scope, or consequence increases across sequential states without a declared limiting mechanism.

## Primary Lenses

- LEN-0190 — Escalation Gradient Lens
  - URL: /workbench/lenses/escalation-gradient-lens/
  - Summary: Measures structural growth or intensification across sequential executions, states, or transitions.
- LEN-0290 — Variance / Entropy Lens
  - URL: /workbench/lenses/variance-entropy-lens/
  - Summary: Measures structural variability across repeated or comparable evaluations and identifies divergence beyond expected bounds.

## Secondary Lenses

- LEN-0250 — Propagation Lens
  - URL: /workbench/lenses/propagation-lens/
  - Summary: Traces how structural declarations, effects, or state changes propagate across boundaries or stages.

## Primary Issue Matches

- 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-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-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-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-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.

## Supporting Issue Matches

- 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-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-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-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-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-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-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.