npbuilds Stakes Assessor — Fast-Lane vs Deep-Lane Gate
Problem construction is automatic (Reiter-Palmon). A friction-heavy suite that overlaps with cognitive default will get bypassed precisely when most needed. The fast-lane / deep-lane split is binding-vow's structural answer: low-stakes statements clear in ≤30 seconds; high-stakes statements get the full seven-phase audit. This skill makes the call.
The skill is opinionated: it defaults toward higher stakes when uncertain. The cost of running standard mode on a low-stakes statement is wasted seconds; the cost of running quick mode on a high-stakes statement is a misframed decision.
The Three Levels
| Stakes | Mode default | Time budget | Phase coverage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low | quick | ≤30s | Phases 1, 5, 6 (statement-grader only) |
| Medium | standard | 2–5 min | All phases, single pass |
| High | deep | 5–15 min | All phases + frame rotation ≥3 alternatives + dual-audience compression + full audit |
The mode is a default. The orchestrator can upgrade (e.g., quick → standard if early grader signals fail) but rarely downgrades.
Five-Axis Scoring
Stakes are scored across five axes. Each axis returns low / medium / high; aggregate is the maximum (worst-case rules).
| Axis | Low signal | Medium signal | High signal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reversibility | Easily reversible (text edit, draft) | Reversible with effort (project pivot, role change) | Irreversible (public publication, capital commitment, signed contract) |
| Magnitude | Personal/team scale, low resource | Mid-scope: a project, a quarter, a hire | Org-wide, multi-quarter, multi-million, public-facing |
| Time horizon | This week | This quarter | Multi-year or career-long |
| Audience reach | Self or 1–3 people | A team / department | Public, board, organization-wide, regulator |
| Optionality | Many easy alternatives if this is wrong | A few alternatives, with switching cost | Few or no alternatives; locked in if committed |
Aggregate rule: the worst (highest-stakes) of the five axes drives the verdict. A statement that's low on four axes and high on one (e.g., irreversible) is high stakes.
Detection Signals
Quick triage before running the five-axis scoring:
| Phrase / context | Likely stakes |
|---|---|
| "Quick thought on...", "FYI...", "rough draft" | Low |
| "I'm noodling on...", "thinking through..." | Low or Medium |
| "We need to decide whether..." | Medium |
| "This is for the board / regulator / public release" | High |
| "Once we ship this we can't roll back" | High (irreversibility) |
| "Multi-quarter program", "8-figure decision", "headcount allocation" | High (magnitude) |
| "Career decision", "company strategy", "legal exposure" | High |
| Statement is about an essay angle (not yet drafted) | Low to Medium (draft is reversible) |
| Statement is about a public-facing artifact about to ship | High (irreversibility + reach) |
Process
- Quick triage — scan for any High signal in the table above. If present, jump to step 4.
- Score the five axes explicitly. Each axis: low / medium / high.
- Aggregate — take the worst-case (highest) axis as the verdict.
- Surface irreversibility as a separate flag — even at medium aggregate, if any axis is "irreversible," flag it. The orchestrator may upgrade to deep mode based on this alone.
- Return verdict + axis scores + irreversibility flag.
Output Format
STAKES — [first 60 chars of statement...]
─────────────────────────────────────────────
Verdict: [low | medium | high]
Mode default recommendation: [quick | standard | deep]
Axis scores:
Reversibility: [low | medium | high] [signal]
Magnitude: [low | medium | high] [signal]
Time horizon: [low | medium | high] [signal]
Audience reach: [low | medium | high] [signal]
Optionality: [low | medium | high] [signal]
Irreversibility flag: [none | present — note]
Rationale: [which axis drove the verdict]
When to Upgrade
The orchestrator may upgrade the mode beyond the stakes default in these cases:
| Trigger | Upgrade |
|---|---|
| Irreversibility flag is set, even at medium aggregate | medium → deep |
Audience-classifier returns public with skeptical sub-context |
upgrade by one level |
Problem-typology returns wicked or mess |
upgrade by one level |
| Early Phase 6 grader signals show multiple-axis failure | trigger Re-state Level 3 (deep) |
Conversely, the orchestrator may not downgrade against the stakes verdict. A high-stakes problem doesn't get quick mode just because the user is in a hurry.
Edge Cases
| Pattern | Handling |
|---|---|
| User explicitly requests quick mode on a high-stakes statement | Run quick mode AND surface the stakes verdict prominently. Don't silently override; let the user own the trade-off |
| Statement is high on one axis (e.g., audience reach) but the user dismisses it ("it's just a blog post") | Apply the worst-case rule; flag the disagreement. Public publication is genuinely high-reach even if the author treats it casually |
| Stakes are unclear because the statement is too vague to assess | Return "deferred — need more specificity"; route back to Phase 1 |
| Stakes shift across iterations (statement starts low-stakes but becomes high-stakes after reformulation) | Re-run stakes-assessor on the reformulated statement; mode may change |
Output Contract for six-eyes
Called from Phase 2 (Diagnose), in parallel with problem-typology and audience-classifier. Returns:
- Stakes verdict (low / medium / high)
- Mode default recommendation
- Per-axis scores
- Irreversibility flag
six-eyes uses these to set the mode for the run. If irreversibility is flagged, the orchestrator upgrades the mode even if aggregate stakes are medium. This is the Reiter-Palmon mitigation: low-stakes statements clear fast, but anything irreversible gets full audit regardless.
Connections
problem-typology(binding-vow) — runs in parallel; some typologies (wicked, mess, adaptive) imply high stakes by defaultaudience-classifier(binding-vow) — runs in parallel; public audience often implies high stakesstatement-grader(binding-vow) — independent skill but mode-selection feedback loop: catastrophic grader failures may upgrade stakes retroactivelyxy-detector(binding-vow) — XY patterns often hide high-stakes decisions inside low-stakes-shaped questions
Sources
- Reiter-Palmon, R., Mumford, M. D., & Redmond, M. R. (1994). Problem construction model — the "automatic problem construction" finding is the empirical anchor for the fast/deep split.
- The five-axis scoring is derived from synthesizing irreversibility-focused decision theory (Bezos's "Type 1 vs Type 2 decisions") with magnitude-and-reach concepts from operational risk management.
- See [[binding-vow-research-findings]] vault note for the empirical foundation discussion.