Contract-Preserving Lower-to-Upper Recalibration in Hierarchical Agent Systems: An Integrated Framework

Abstract

Soft and Hard De-Attraction (SHDA) specifies when verified lower-level recovery can support an upper-level revision without changing the external success contract. This condition is the framework's central axis, contract-preserving correctability: the joint condition, over separately judged coordinates, under which verified lower-level evidence may be admitted as the next correction and to which the system must return after each correction, containment, or revision. Because the components share budgets, strengthening one can break another; SHDA therefore organizes them as one closed loop along the axis, in which balance is an allocation of the shared budgets, not compensation. When a certified obligation fails, premise-level fault localization (T10) localizes the violation, within the recorded scope, to a false registered premise and its owner, a named record gap, or an unsound rule or checker; earliest failure sets diagnostic priority rather than establishing a causal mechanism. Under explicit assumptions, T1-T9 connect endogenous-error tracking, precision gates and probes, finite-phase progress, revision-aware certificate validity, transport between theorem epochs, repair costs, and same-episode outcomes. The scalar bounds and concentration tools are established ingredients; the proposed contribution is the integration layer: the objects, laws, and operations that exist only where the components meet. Three validation reports supply synthetic-loop tests (X3), planted-cause identification and fresh-audit repair comparisons (X2), and finite reachability checks (X1); their evidence is not interchangeable. In X2, certified full refresh matched budget-feasible diagnosis-guided repair in joint completion at nearly equal or lower cost, but a complete repair library and risk components with no failures observed in the retained runs left the repair value of diagnosis and risk untested; X1 separates post-fence compliance from safety under physical invalidation. The evidence supports scoped constructions and implementation obligations, not algorithmic superiority, deployed-agent safety, or unconditional convergence. Note on Version 2.0. This version replaces Version 1.0 (September 2026; about 9,200 words) and is a substantial revision (about 39,500 words). It organizes the framework around the contract-preserving correctability axis, adds premise-level fault localization (T10), states the conditional results as T1-T9, and adds three validation reports: finite reachability checks (X1), planted-cause identification and fresh-audit repair comparisons (X2) and synthetic-loop tests (X3). The Technical Supplement is revised as well (about 12,500 to 54,900 words). Files: the manuscript and the Technical Supplement as PDFs, and one supplement archive (132 files) with reproduction code, compact results and the validation reports. The Version 1.0 files remain available in the previous version of this record. Scope and status. This is the flagship of the Integrated Framework series on contract-preserving lower-to-upper recalibration (SHDA). The upload also contains the revised Technical Supplement, which states and proves T1-T9 and specifies the typed state, lineage, operations, attribution, disclosure and re-entry rules, the execution pipeline and the records. Companion A (residual genesis and dynamic feedback route attribution), Companion B (intervention-disclosure visibility and time-bounded selective nondisclosure), Companion C (family-scoped capability control, typed lineage and atomic re-entry) and the technical working paper SHDA Algorithms for Scoped Evidence Reuse and Recalibration are archived separately. The evidence consists of synthetic and finite-model checks; it does not establish deployed-agent safety or algorithmic superiority. AI use disclosure. Generative AI (GPT-6.0, OpenAI; Claude Opus 5.5, Anthropic) was used substantively in preparing this work, including source comparison, drafting and editing, and, where applicable, mathematical and counterexample checks and the writing and running of supplementary code. The research questions, framework and final claims were directed and reviewed by the author, who takes full responsibility for the content, including the accuracy of all references and reported numbers. Repository metadata were prepared with assistance from Claude (Anthropic).