tms-handles-all-conditions-safely
IN derived (depth 3)
The TMS core handles both normal operation (crash-free truth propagation via BFS with stop-on-unchanged) and exceptional conditions (deterministic contradiction resolution via backtracking with least-entrenched selection) through shared propagation infrastructure — no reachable execution state leads to undefined behavior.
Summary
The truth maintenance system is fully robust across both its normal and error-handling paths. Regular truth propagation and contradiction resolution both flow through the same underlying machinery, and both have been shown to terminate cleanly — so there is no edge case or failure mode that can leave the system in an inconsistent or undefined state.
Justifications
SL — Normal and exceptional paths share infrastructure and both terminate correctly
Antecedents (all must be IN):
- tms-core-is-crash-safe — The TMS core provides crash-free truth maintenance: deterministic termination, pure evaluation, and conservative failure semantics ensure correct results across all reachable nodes.
- contradiction-triggers-deterministic-resolution — When contradictions are detected, resolution and propagation form a deterministic pipeline: backtracking identifies the least-entrenched culprit premise, retraction triggers BFS propagation that terminates via stop-on-unchanged, producing a new consistent state with minimal network disruption and guaranteed convergence.
Unless (any of these IN defeats this justification):
- propagate-assumes-dependents-exist — Every ID in `node.dependents` is accessed via `self.nodes[dep_id]` without a membership check; a dangling dependent reference will raise `KeyError` — this is intentional (broken invariant = bug)
Dependents
These beliefs depend on this one:
- all-exceptions-are-safely-handled — The system handles both automated exceptions (contradictions triggering dependency-directed backtracking) and manual challenges (irreversible premise-to-justified transformation via dialectics) safely — exceptional conditions from any origin reach correct truth states through deterministic propagation, and no exception pathway corrupts network consistency.
- complete-system-is-self-correcting — The system actively maintains its own consistency along two independent dimensions: the TMS core handles exceptional conditions (contradictions trigger deterministic resolution, propagation respects lifecycle state), while belief currency management detects and surfaces drift in source material — no inconsistency persists undetected or unresolved.