# PAT-0400 — Unbounded Scope

## Ontology Metadata

Code: PAT-0400
Version: PAT-0400@0.1.0
Ontology release: 0.1.0
Updated: 2026-05-10T00:00:00Z
Canonical 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.

## Primary Lenses

- LEN-0220 — Isolation Boundary Lens
  - URL: /workbench/lenses/isolation-boundary-lens/
  - Summary: Evaluates whether structural constraints, effects, and regions remain contained within declared boundaries.
- LEN-0160 — Constraint Sufficiency Lens
  - URL: /workbench/lenses/constraint-sufficiency-lens/
  - Summary: Evaluates whether declared constraints are sufficient to eliminate structural degrees of freedom.

## Secondary Lenses

- LEN-0190 — Escalation Gradient Lens
  - URL: /workbench/lenses/escalation-gradient-lens/
  - Summary: Measures structural growth or intensification across sequential executions, states, or transitions.

## Primary Issue Matches

- 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.

## Supporting Issue Matches

- 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-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-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-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.