coulomb-research/workplans/CR-WP-0005-resolve-outstanding-criticism.md

id	type	title	domain	repo	status	owner	topic_slug	created	updated	origin	origin_ref	state_hub_workstream_id
CR-WP-0005	workplan	Resolve CR-000's outstanding criticism; assess M3 readiness	communication	coulomb-research	blocked	codex	coulomb-social	2026-09-29	2026-10-05	residual	CR-WP-0004	9e7bf9d6-2e32-5ea7-87c7-65f5e1ec0db5

Resolve CR-000's outstanding criticism; assess M3 readiness

CR-WP-0004 (M2) obtained CR-000's first independent criticism (CR-000-X003–CR-000-X007 in criticism.md), from a procedurally independent but organizationally identical reviewer (a freshly spawned agent instance, same underlying model as CR-000's authors — see criticism.md's provenance note). It found a real internal-consistency violation (CR-000-C006, now contested) that two rounds of self-criticism had missed, and left several items open: CR-000-X001 (document-centrism), CR-000-X003/CR-000-X004 (CR-000-C006's withdrawn evidence, no replacement yet), CR-000-X005 (unfalsifiable phrasing in CR-000-C001/CR-000-C005), and CR-000-X007 (provenance field conflation, minor). T01 and T02 (2026-10-05) address CR-000-X005 and CR-000-X007. CR-000-X001, CR-000-X003, CR-000-X004, and CR-000-X006 remain open. T03 and T04 are not done.

seed/CoulombResearchMilestonePlan.md M3 (register CR-001) is the next milestone in sequence, but this workplan judges it premature to start before the items above are addressed: M3's purpose is to test whether Coulomb's mechanisms transfer to an independent domain, and starting a second paper while the first has multiple open, unresolved internal-consistency criticisms would compound the problem CR-WP-0004 found (self-review missing things a fresh reader catches) rather than respond to it. manuscript.md §14 makes the same call explicitly: the concrete next step it names is a second round of independent criticism, from a reviewer organizationally distinct from CR-000's authors, not a new paper.

This workplan is scoped to close that gap before M3 is evaluated again.

Resolve or Reframe CR-000-C001 and CR-000-C005

id: CR-WP-0005-T01
status: done
priority: medium
state_hub_task_id: "519fe130-c81b-5ad6-b120-869e06572586"

Respond to CR-000-X005: either sharpen CR-000-C001 ("AI reduces the need for several historically human-mediated scientific coordination functions") and CR-000-C005 into claims specific and falsifiable enough to be tested, or explicitly mark them in claims.md as deliberately loose, exploratory conjectures pending a sharper reformulation, rather than leaving the vagueness unaddressed. Update criticism.md's resolution state for CR-000-X005 accordingly.

Fix the Provenance Field Conflation

id: CR-WP-0005-T02
status: done
priority: low
state_hub_task_id: "18572e28-45c5-549e-b431-7df06ba2d8a2"

Respond to CR-000-X007: add a field (or a documented convention in docs/ResearchArtifactConvention.md §4) distinguishing who originated a claim's position from who transcribed or drafted its text in claims.md, or add an explicit note that Added by currently means the latter, not the former. Update claims.md entries and criticism.md's resolution state for CR-000-X007 accordingly.

Obtain Organizationally-Independent Review

id: CR-WP-0005-T03
status: wait
priority: high
needs_human: true
decision_id: 772217c2-23b9-424f-8b52-be50b04ecc53
blocking_reason: "Needs a reviewer who is not another instance of the authoring model. Opening the decision is not the review."
state_hub_task_id: "1b927a09-a915-5792-bbfa-0ffd305511e2"

CR-000-X003/CR-000-X004/CR-000-X005/CR-000-X006 were all found by an agent instance running the same underlying model as CR-000's authors — procedural independence, not organizational independence. Solicit review from a human collaborator, or an agent/model from a genuinely different provider or configuration, and record the result honestly in criticism.md with accurate provenance. This step requires action outside what an agent in this repository can perform on its own (recruiting a human reviewer, or provisioning access to a different model/provider) — flagged needs_human accordingly; do not simulate this step.

Decide Whether CR-000-C006 Can Be Re-Evidenced, and Reassess M3

id: CR-WP-0005-T04
status: wait
depends_on: [CR-WP-0005-T03]
blocking_reason: "Waiting on T03 (organizationally independent review)."
priority: medium
state_hub_task_id: "5f896d81-27a7-5a19-9da2-d4c1150791af"

Waiting on T03. After organizationally-independent review exists, decide whether CR-000-C006 can be given real, non-circular evidence (evidence.md) or should remain contested pending a future test case. Using T01–T03's outcomes, reassess whether M3 (CR-001 registration, seed/CoulombResearchMilestonePlan.md) is now appropriate to start, and hand it off as a new workplan if so — or state explicitly why it still is not, rather than leaving the decision implicit. Run python3 scripts/validate_research_registry.py and python3 scripts/query_paper_graph.py --list and the canonical Repo Manager sync before closure.

Non-Goals

No CR-001 work directly (that decision is T04's output, not this workplan's content), no new facility software beyond documentation/field changes in T01–T02, no lowering the evidentiary bar to manufacture a supported claim.