Ln Oracles

Ln Oracles

Design what proves the system works before choosing how to build it.

The best oracle removes the most bad degrees of freedom per unit time (Regehr). A system without feedback is open-loop -- it cannot correct errors (Wiener). Verification is first-class work, not accessory: second only to building the product itself. A slice without an oracle strategy is not scoped.

Not every slice needs a full oracle-design pass. For trivial, purely structural slices, ln-scope may name the inner-loop checks directly. Use ln-oracles when the verification strategy itself is uncertain or materially shapes implementation order.

Do not create standalone oracle-planning docs without explicit permission. Oracle design reconciles back into memory/SPEC.md and memory/PLAN.md.

Read the diagnostic framework and oracle taxonomy before starting.

Input

The frontier items or scoped slices to design oracles for: $ARGUMENTS

Read memory/SPEC.md (invariants, assumptions, decisions, verification design) and memory/PLAN.md (frontier definitions, sequencing, acceptance criteria). If memory/SPEC.md already has a §Verification Design section, this is an update -- read it as prior state to evolve, not preserve uncritically.

Procedure

This is an interactive process -- each step involves presenting analysis and grilling the user for pushback, corrections, and design input. Do not produce a finished oracle design in one pass. Walk the design tree like ln-grill: present your assessment, ask pointed questions, incorporate answers, then move to the next step.

1. Diagnose

Score Observability, Reproducibility, and Controllability (see the diagnostic framework). Present the scoring table to the user with specific notes per dimension. Low scores constrain which oracle families are feasible and must be addressed before oracle selection proceeds.

Grill: For each dimension scored below high, ask: is this a deliberate deferral, a blind spot, or something we should address now? What would change the score?

2. Extract verification claims

From memory/SPEC.md invariant bundles, acceptance criteria, memory/PLAN.md frontier definitions, and any in-hand scope-card slices -- list what must be proved. Distinguish:

• Structural claims (schema conformance, DB round-trips, type safety) -- oracle-able programmatically
• Behavioral claims (LLM output quality, UX judgment) -- require human assessment or statistical thresholds
• Compositional claims (graph integrity over time, cumulative drift) -- may need property-based or model-based oracles

Grill: For behavioral claims, ask: is schema validation sufficient for the inner loop, with qualitative assessment deferred to manual testing? Where is the boundary between "structurally valid" and "qualitatively good"?

3. Select oracle families

Using the oracle taxonomy, select families ranked by ROI for this project's verification needs. Apply the combination principle: the best oracle is a pair of independent artifacts. Prefer pairs when they compound; don't force them when a single oracle suffices.

Grill: For each selected family, present: what it proves, what it costs, and what it misses. Ask the user which tradeoffs are acceptable given timeline and confidence levels.

4. Map to loop tiers

Assign each selected oracle to inner (ms, agent-autonomous), middle (seconds-minutes, regression/fitness), or outer (slow hardening). Apply verification economics: cheapest checks first, expensive checks less often.

Boundary with ln-spec: ln-spec owns project-wide inner-loop verification commands, policy, and fast automated checks. ln-oracles owns the middle and outer loops, plus strategic framing (diagnostic, stance, blind spots), and may recommend slice-specific inner-loop oracle families when they affect implementation strategy. When updating, preserve ln-spec's command/policy content and extend with middle/outer strategy.

Grill: For middle-loop oracles that require external resources (API calls, fixtures), ask: how will fixtures be created? What bootstraps ground truth? Is single-shot measurement sufficient or do we need multi-run variance?

5. Design per-frontier / per-slice verification approach

For each in-scope frontier item in memory/PLAN.md, specify: which oracles apply, what they prove, and which loop tier they belong to. This becomes the Verification annotation in the frontier definition. If a scope-card slice is already available, add slice-level oracle notes there without promoting detailed card history into memory/PLAN.md.

Grill: For each slice, ask: does this oracle strategy cover the slice's acceptance criteria? What's the gap between "oracle says pass" and "slice is actually correct"?

6. Surface blind spots

Name what this verification design does NOT cover and why. Categories: cost exceeds value, observability gap, deferred to later milestone, not oracle-able. A verification design with no blind spots is incomplete.

Grill: For each blind spot, ask: is this an acceptable deferral or a risk that should promote to "needs an oracle now"? What would trigger revisiting?

Output

Update memory/SPEC.md §Verification Design:

• Verification Stance -- the meta position on verification as first-class work
• Diagnostic Assessment -- O/R/C scoring table with notes
• Oracle Strategy by Loop Tier -- middle and outer loop oracle families, mapped to what they prove (preserve ln-spec's inner loop content)
• Design notes -- project-specific oracle design decisions (e.g. observer history projection, fixture bootstrapping strategy)
• Acknowledged Blind Spots -- table with blind spot, reason, mitigation, and revisit trigger

Update memory/PLAN.md frontier annotations:

• Add or refresh the Verification line in each in-scope frontier definition with oracle family, loop tier, and cross-reference to memory/SPEC.md sections
• Keep slice-level oracle detail in the current ln-scope card or memory/CARDS.md queue unless it changes the frontier definition

Cross-reference integrity

After writing, verify:

• Every memory/SPEC.md invariant has at least one oracle assigned (inner, middle, or outer)
• Every in-scope memory/PLAN.md frontier definition has a verification approach annotation
• The blind spots section is non-empty
• Middle/outer loop oracles cross-reference the invariants or assumptions they prove

Routing

After filing the oracle design, present these options to the user (use tool-ask-question):

Recommended: 1 unless oracle feasibility is uncertain (then 2).