retraction-cascade-is-transitive-and-terminating
IN derived (depth 3)
Retraction cascades are both transitive in reach (propagating OUT to all transitively dependent SL-derived nodes, not just direct children) and guaranteed to terminate safely (BFS prevents oscillation, retracted nodes are skipped, and the cascade stops when no truth values change) — ensuring thorough impact without risk of runaway propagation.
Summary
When a belief is retracted, the effects ripple out through every downstream conclusion that depended on it, no matter how far removed — not just the immediate neighbors. This cascade is also engineered to always finish cleanly, using breadth-first traversal and short-circuiting on unchanged values, so it can never loop forever or spiral out of control.
Justifications
SL — Transitive reach ensures thoroughness; safe termination ensures bounded execution — together the cascade is both complete and safe
Antecedents (all must be IN):
- api-retract-cascade-is-transitive — `api.retract_node()` propagates OUT to all transitively dependent SL-derived nodes, not just direct children — retracting a root premise retracts the entire downstream chain.
- propagation-is-safe-and-terminating — Truth propagation is both lifecycle-safe and guaranteed to terminate: retracted nodes are skipped, trigger nodes are never recomputed, BFS prevents stack overflow, and stop-on-unchanged prevents oscillation — propagation respects every node state it encounters.
Dependents
These beliefs depend on this one:
- contradiction-resolution-achieves-minimal-impact-complete-cascades — Contradiction resolution simultaneously achieves minimal disruption (least-entrenched culprit selection with surgical recovery hints targeting only cascade victims) and complete effect propagation (retraction cascades transitively through all dependent nodes with guaranteed termination) — the system minimizes blast radius while ensuring no node escapes the cascade.
- graph-traversal-is-complete-and-terminating-in-both-directions — Both forward truth propagation and backward retraction cascades achieve complete graph traversal (reaching all transitively affected nodes through all relationship types including outlists) with guaranteed termination, ensuring the system converges from both assertion and retraction operations.
- mutations-are-traceable-through-transitive-cascades — Every network mutation and its resulting retraction cascades are simultaneously traceable (atomic operations with audit logging, structured before/after diffs, consistent artifact identification) and transitively complete (propagation reaching all dependent nodes with guaranteed termination), ensuring every cascaded effect is as auditable as the triggering mutation
- retraction-reporting-reflects-complete-cascades — The retraction reporting system provides accurate effect coverage across all cascade paths — structured before/after diffs capture every truth-value change, restoration hints target only cascade victims with surviving premises, and the cascade itself transitively reaches all dependent nodes — but only when the dependents index tracks all relationship types including outlists, ensuring no outlist-mediated cascade victims produce unreported effects.
- system-converges-from-addition-and-removal — The system reaches deterministic stable states from both directions: import reconciliation converges through fixpoint iteration and dual reconciliation modes when beliefs are added, while retraction cascades terminate through BFS with stop-on-unchanged when beliefs are removed — bidirectional convergence guarantees that no sequence of additions or removals leaves the network in an oscillating or indeterminate state.