# PAT-0380 — Silent Mutation

## Ontology Metadata

Code: PAT-0380
Version: PAT-0380@0.1.0
Ontology release: 0.1.0
Updated: 2026-05-10T00:00:00Z
Canonical URL: /workbench/patterns/silent-mutation/

## Summary

A structural condition where a change occurs without a corresponding declared update, authority update, or version change.

## Primary Lenses

- LEN-0280 — Reference Stability Lens
  - URL: /workbench/lenses/reference-stability-lens/
  - Summary: Evaluates whether structural references, identifiers, nodes, and edges remain consistent across execution cycles or comparable states.
- LEN-0180 — Determinism Lens
  - URL: /workbench/lenses/determinism-lens/
  - Summary: Evaluates whether identical structural inputs produce equivalent structural outputs across repeated executions.

## Secondary Lenses

- LEN-0260 — Provenance Trace Lens
  - URL: /workbench/lenses/provenance-trace-lens/
  - Summary: Attaches stable lineage to structural regions by mapping origin, reference history, and transformation path.

## Primary Issue Matches

- ISS-0059 — Output Changed Without Declared Change
  - URL: /workbench/issues/output-changed-without-declared-change/
  - Summary: Output shape, content, format, fields, or behavior changes without a declared change to the prompt, schema, model, workflow, or governing rule.
- ISS-0058 — Prompt Behavior Changed Without Version Change
  - URL: /workbench/issues/prompt-behavior-changed-without-version-change/
  - Summary: A prompt begins producing different behavior even though no prompt version, model version, workflow version, or declared dependency change is recorded.

## Supporting Issue Matches

- ISS-0040 — Actual Policy Differs From Declared Policy
  - URL: /workbench/issues/actual-policy-differs-from-declared-policy/
  - Summary: The policy the AI or workflow actually follows differs from the policy that is documented, declared, displayed, or expected.
- ISS-0031 — Context Changes After Restore
  - URL: /workbench/issues/context-changes-after-restore/
  - Summary: Restoring, reopening, resuming, or reloading a task changes the context that the AI uses to continue the work.
- 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-0034 — Stale Context Affects Output
  - URL: /workbench/issues/stale-context-affects-output/
  - Summary: Old context, prior instructions, outdated references, or earlier task state continue to affect output after they should no longer apply.