Cascade Rule

Companion to `00-process-design.md`, Section 4.

When closing a gap at Level **N**, propagate the change **down through Levels N+1..7 BEFORE picking up generic gaps at higher levels**. Track each propagated change as an entry in the gap node's propagationStatus field; the gap is **not** closed until every applicable level reads done or not-applicable (with a one-line reason).

Why it matters

The most common failure mode of any debt-loop discipline is fixing the originating level and forgetting that downstream projections still encode the old truth. After such a half-fix, prose, generators, code, SDK, and UI all *appear* internally consistent but disagree with the graph. The cascade rule turns this into a structurally enforced property: an open propagationStatus entry is a visible obligation, queryable by every generator and surfaced in every wiki dashboard.

Worked example — Anthropic releases a new model variant

**Trigger (Level 1).** Anthropic announces claude-opus-4-7[1m], a long-context variant of claude-opus-4-7. The announcement adds a contextWindow: 1000000 attribute and notes that prompt caching behaves identically.

Level 1 — Real world vs graph + schema

• Add a new ModelVersion node model:claude-opus-4-7-1m under schema/examples/.
• Add an EvidenceSource for the announcement page; verify reachabilityCheck.status = ok.
• Add a Claim for contextWindow = 1_000_000 referencing that evidence.
• Decide whether the contextWindow attribute already exists on ModelVersion. If not, the schema (ontology-schema.yaml) gets a non-breaking minor bump adding the attribute.
• propagationStatus.level1 = done.

Level 2 — Graph vs docs

• Update 02-node-kinds/agent-stack.md (the file that holds ModelVersion's prose spec) to document contextWindow.
• Add the new attribute to attribute-types.yaml and a corresponding paragraph to 05-validation-rules.md if the attribute carries any invariant.
• Run the markdown-vs-YAML parity check (V-12.5) — it must pass.
• propagationStatus.level2 = done.

Level 3 — Quality / delivery process vs docs

• Bump CatalogVersion per 07-versioning.md. Add a release-notes entry. CI versioning gate must pass.
• propagationStatus.level3 = done.

Level 4 — Generators vs docs

• Re-run the glossary generator (new term: "1M context"), the product-card generator (new card for the variant), and the capability-matrix generator (new row).
• Diff the regenerated wiki output. Commit the diff.
• propagationStatus.level4 = done.

Level 5 — Code vs docs + above

• If validator code hard-codes a list of known model ids, replace with a graph query. Otherwise mark not-applicable: validator already reads dynamically from graph.
• propagationStatus.level5 = done or not-applicable.

Level 6 — SDK

• Regenerate the ModelVersionId TypeScript union; add the new variant. Type tests pass.
• propagationStatus.level6 = done.

Level 7 — Interfaces

• The --model CLI autocomplete should now offer the new variant via the regenerated SDK constant.
• Dashboard model-picker widget refreshes from the SDK on next deploy.
• propagationStatus.level7 = done.

Closing

The Gap moves to status: closed, closedAt is set, and propagationChain records each level's fix in order. Adversarial review (Section 5) signs off before close.

When a level is `not-applicable`

Set not-applicable only with a one-line justification:

• "No SDK type touches this attribute" (Level 6).
• "No CLI flag depends on this enum" (Level 7).

A not-applicable reason that turns out to be wrong is itself a Level-1 gap when discovered.