dedup-rewrites-both-antecedents-and-outlist
IN premise
When a duplicate is retracted via dedup, all justification references (both antecedent and outlist) across the network are rewritten to point at the kept node
Summary
When the system removes a duplicate belief during deduplication, it doesn't just delete the duplicate — it also goes through every other node in the network and rewrites any references to the removed duplicate so they point to the surviving copy instead. This ensures the dependency graph stays consistent and no justification chains are left dangling after a merge.
Dependents
These beliefs depend on this one:
- dedup-is-topology-preserving-and-auditable — Deduplication preserves network topology (rewrites both antecedent and outlist references to survivors), selects structurally-optimal survivors (most dependents with lexicographic tiebreak), and supports human oversight (KEEP/RETRACT markers in a user-editable plan format).
- dedup-survivor-selection-is-topology-reliable — Deduplication reliably selects the structurally-optimal survivor in each duplicate cluster by choosing the node with the most dependents, and this selection is correct because the dependents index accurately reflects the justification graph.
Details
| Source | entries/2026/04/24/tests-test_derive.md |