npbuilds Scope Bounder — The Boundary Surfacer
A thin coordinator that calls assumption-excavator (philosophy/logic) with depth=surface, category=scope and translates the output into the scope axis on statement-grader.
The hardest part of scope-bounding is recognizing that universal statements are usually wrong; the easiest part is asking "for whom, when, and in what context?" This skill makes the easy part routine.
The Three Boundary Types
| Boundary | What it specifies | Failure signal |
|---|---|---|
| Time | Period the statement applies to | "Always" implicitly — no temporal anchor |
| Population | People, accounts, units the statement applies to | "Customers" with no segmentation; "users" without cohort |
| Context | Conditions, environment, regime under which the statement holds | No mention of regime, market state, or operational context |
A statement that explicitly bounds all three is well-scoped. A statement that bounds two of three is acceptable. One or zero boundaries explicit triggers the re-state loop on this axis.
Process
Step 1 — Call assumption-excavator
Pass:
- The statement
- Domain context
depth=surface(don't excavate every assumption — only scope)category=scope
Receive:
- Hidden scope assumptions across the three boundary types
- For each: visibility (hidden/semi-visible/visible-but-unchallenged), contestability, load-bearing assessment
Step 2 — Categorize each boundary
For each of (Time, Population, Context):
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Explicit | The statement names this boundary directly |
| Implicit-defensible | The boundary is implicit but clearly inferable from context |
| Implicit-questionable | The boundary is implicit and ambiguous; a reasonable reader could interpret differently |
| Missing | The statement makes no claim about this boundary; it's universal-by-default |
Step 3 — Score the scope axis
| Pattern | Scope axis score |
|---|---|
| All three explicit; defensible | 5 |
| Two explicit; one implicit-defensible | 4 |
| One explicit; two implicit-defensible | 3 |
| One or two explicit; one or more implicit-questionable | 2 |
| One or zero explicit; rest missing or questionable | 1 |
Step 4 — Generate hints
For each Missing or Implicit-questionable boundary, produce a hint:
- "Specify the time period: is this Q3 2026? The next 12 months? Indefinitely?"
- "Specify the population: enterprise customers? Free-tier users? All segments?"
- "Specify the context: under current pricing? After the rebrand? In the EU regulatory regime?"
Output Format
SCOPE — [first 60 chars of statement...]
─────────────────────────────────────────────
Time: [explicit | implicit-defensible | implicit-questionable | missing] | [signal]
Population: [status] | [signal]
Context: [status] | [signal]
Score: [1-5]
Hints (per missing/questionable boundary):
- [hint]
Output Contract for six-eyes
Feeds the scope axis on statement-grader (axis 3). Hints feed the re-state loop's input to Phase 4.
Scope Boundaries (of the skill itself)
- scope-bounder handles: the three-boundary check and scoring.
- scope-bounder does NOT: evaluate whether the bounded scope is correct — it evaluates whether the scope is explicit. A confidently-bounded but wrong scope still scores well; that's a different audit (often answerability).
Failure Modes
| Failure | Response |
|---|---|
assumption-excavator unavailable |
Inline a degraded version: ask the three boundary questions directly without the full assumption framework |
| Statement is so short there's no scope claim to surface | Return "ungraded" and route back to Phase 1 (Intake) for restatement |
| Two boundaries are tangled (population implicitly bounds time) | Note the entanglement; score the more-explicit of the two normally and flag the tangle |
Connections
statement-grader(binding-vow) — feeds the scope axisassumption-excavator(philosophy/logic) — primary cross-domain call (with category=scope)wicked-vs-tame(binding-vow) — wicked problems often have inherently fuzzy scope; that's a property of the problem type, not a defect
Sources
- The three-boundary frame (time / population / context) is canonical in epidemiology and program evaluation; see Rothman's Epidemiology for the reference treatment.
- See [[kahneman-framing]] for the universal-by-default cognitive bias that scope-bounder targets.