dedup-survivor-selection-is-topology-reliable

IN derived (depth 1)

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.

Summary

When the system finds duplicate beliefs, it keeps the one that other beliefs depend on most, which preserves the largest portion of the reasoning network without disruption. This works correctly because the index tracking those dependencies matches the actual structure of the justification graph, so the "most connected" choice is genuinely the best one to keep.

Justifications

SL — Dependent-count-based survivor selection is only reliable when the dependents index is trustworthy

Antecedents (all must be IN):

  • dedup-keeps-most-connected-node — In auto-dedup mode, the node with the most dependents survives each cluster; ties break by lexicographic ID, and losers are retracted after dependents are rewired.
  • dedup-rewrites-both-antecedents-and-outlist — 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

Unless (any of these IN defeats this justification):

  • dependents-index-is-fragile-denormalization — The dependents set is a manually-maintained denormalized reverse index that is never persisted and must be rebuilt on every load, creating a consistency obligation on all mutation paths

Dependents

These beliefs depend on this one:

Details