# Hypothesis panel

Use for root-cause work: a flaky test, an intermittent bug, a metric
that moved. One agent that forms a theory then tests its own theory
finds evidence for it. Separate agents, each given different evidence,
form independent theories; separate agents then try to kill them.

## Steps

1. **Write the symptom** on the umbrella: what happens, how often, the
   repro command, and what would count as fixed.
2. **One hypothesis task per evidence source**: logs, the code path,
   recent commits, data, environment. Each agent sees only its source,
   so the theories do not anchor on each other. Each ends with:

   ```text
   HYPOTHESIS: h2 <cause>
   PREDICTS: <an observation that is true if h2 is the cause, false otherwise>
   ```

3. **One test task per hypothesis**, in its own workspace. The tester
   builds the experiment that would kill the hypothesis (force the race,
   revert the commit, feed the data) and reports
   `VERDICT: h2 SURVIVES | KILLED <evidence>`.
4. **If one survives**, add a fix task for it, then a review task
   ([adversarial-review](adversarial-review.md)). The fix is accepted
   only if the step 1 repro stops reproducing.
5. **If none survives**, start another round
   ([loop-until-done](loop-until-done.md)): the new hypothesis tasks get
   the killed hypotheses and their evidence as input.

Done when a fix closed `ACCEPT` and the repro from step 1 no longer
reproduces at the rate step 1 recorded.

## Traps

- **Two survivors** usually means the experiments were too weak. Design
  one experiment that separates them before you fix either.
- **Flaky repros need counts.** "Passed once" proves nothing for a 1 in
  50 failure. Put the run count in step 1.