# PAT-0360 — Propagation Amplification

## Ontology Metadata

Code: PAT-0360
Version: PAT-0360@0.1.0
Ontology release: 0.1.0
Updated: 2026-05-10T00:00:00Z
Canonical 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.

## Primary Lenses

- LEN-0250 — Propagation Lens
  - URL: /workbench/lenses/propagation-lens/
  - Summary: Traces how structural declarations, effects, or state changes propagate across boundaries or stages.
- LEN-0190 — Escalation Gradient Lens
  - URL: /workbench/lenses/escalation-gradient-lens/
  - Summary: Measures structural growth or intensification across sequential executions, states, or transitions.

## Secondary Lenses

- 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.

## Primary Issue Matches

- 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-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-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-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-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-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.

## Supporting Issue Matches

- 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-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-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-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-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.