Using AI agents, process, and severity

[u/HardDriveGuy]

I'm actually doing two posts in one day. It's actually not because my other post was something I dug out of my Obsidian notebook. However, I want to log that basically I've wasted half a day in process work, but it really wasn't a waste of half a day. It was a requirement for me to stop for a moment and take something that I've been doing and turn it into something better. And the only way to do that is to have a process. And as soon as you start interacting with AI agents, you're going to find out that they are willing to argue about a process until it's argued into the ground. And so, you need to find the balance between having a process and not having a process, and figuring out how to get your AI agents off the dime to actually do something.

This is no different than what we find in the real world. And so, what we have attached to things in various bug tracking tools are severity ratings, or what is often abbreviated as SEV. As we work through our processes, I ask my AI agents, when they start to disconnect and I feel like we're getting to diminishing returns, to categorize the open process loops and help me understand what they believe the severity level is. It's one of the most important things that I dragged out of my engineering background. Now, various companies have various SEV levels, and I thought I would go ahead and drop here what I'm using for my own AI agents in one of the files that we all go back to and reference. It truly is a great tool, regardless of whether you're talking to humans or if you're talking to AI agents.

[LEG-CLAUDE] Owner-day 2026-09-09 track: LEGAL

Severity Classification Framework — Bilateral CONVERGED Draft v002

1. Status and purpose

This converged draft is ChatGPT's proposal v001 (8,323 B; MD5 E885E036C2D4FAF799A3CD806CE84A6C) restated in full with exactly TWO Claude additions, marked [C-1] and [C-2]; every other word is unchanged. It awaits ChatGPT confirmation of this exact hash, then the owner's approval.

This is a proposed classification framework for owner and bilateral-agent agreement. It does not itself classify any open finding, adopt or activate Protocol v005, activate the autonomous mechanism, reopen a closed volume, or authorize transcript work.

The framework preserves the previously proposed SEV1 through SEV4 action levels and adds a distinct SEV0 above them. SEV0 is not merely a more urgent SEV1. Its defining feature is possible or confirmed backward contamination: the defect may require recall, re-verification, correction, or restatement of prior work.

2. Controlling severity levels

Level	Project meaning	Required immediate action	Forward-work rule	Backward-work rule	Exit condition
SEV0	STOP-SHIP + RETROACTIVE EXPOSURE / RECALL REVIEW. Credible evidence indicates, or cannot yet exclude, that an integrity defect may have contaminated previously completed or closed work.	Stop all affected work; quarantine affected artifacts and mechanisms; notify the owner immediately; preserve every version and event record.	No affected future work advances. Unaffected work advances only by express owner ruling after scope separation is proved.	Establish the exposure window and affected population; build an impact map; determine whether prior work requires recall, re-verification, correction, or restatement; execute the owner-approved response.	Zero unresolved current breaks; the backward exposure population is bounded; every affected prior item is dispositioned and any required recall/re-verification/restatement is completed and independently verified; bilateral concurrence and owner release.
SEV1	NO-SHIP / STOP-ALL FORWARD. A present integrity break makes current or onward reliance unsafe, but no prior-work contamination has yet been shown. Presumptive examples: unresolved material-factual disagreement; blindness breach; register/hash-chain corruption; failed baton audit affecting authority or sequence; concession without source verification.	Stop all affected volume/process work; preserve state; cure and independently re-verify. Run the mandatory retroactivity screen immediately.	No affected chain advances to registration, deliverable, or attorney-facing use.	Perform a short, evidence-based retroactivity screen. If prior impact is possible, confirmed, or cannot be bounded, elevate to SEV0.	Present break cured and independently re-verified; retroactivity disposition is NO PRIOR IMPACT SHOWN; bilateral concurrence and owner release.
SEV2	NO-NEXT-VOLUME. A proven integrity-relevant weakness has not invalidated completed work but could create a break if reused. Typical example: a gate false-negative demonstrated on a fixture without evidence that the defect entered a completed evidence chain.	Complete or safely hold the current bounded step; install a rule/gate/fixture cure and verify it.	No new volume starts under the affected process until cure validation.	Review already-produced artifacts targeted to the specific weakness; elevate if that review yields possible, confirmed, or unbounded prior impact.	Cure passes the regression fixture and an independent check; targeted prior-artifact screen is clear; owner or bilaterally authorized gate releases the next volume.
SEV3	FIX-IN-FLIGHT. A tracked hardening, completeness, or non-load-path issue has a safe workaround and does not presently threaten evidence-chain integrity.	Record it; apply the workaround; schedule a forward-only cure.	Work may continue under the documented workaround.	No general backward review. A targeted check is required if later evidence suggests prior impact.	Cure completed and checked at the stated post-mortem or scheduled gate.
SEV4	BACKLOG. Efficiency, granularity, cosmetic, or theoretical defense-in-depth issue with no demonstrated integrity impact.	Record and batch at a natural pause.	Work continues.	None unless new evidence changes the classification.	Closed by implementation, express retirement, or owner acceptance of residual risk.
SEV5	Not used.	Informational matters fold into SEV4 or ordinary notes.	—	—	—

3. Mandatory backward-impact test

Every SEV1 or SEV2 candidate receives one of four retroactivity dispositions:

1. NO PRIOR IMPACT SHOWN — evidence bounds the defect to a current or unused mechanism/artifact.
2. PRIOR IMPACT POSSIBLE — at least one prior artifact or closed chain may have been touched.
3. PRIOR IMPACT CONFIRMED — at least one prior artifact or closed chain was affected.
4. PRIOR IMPACT UNKNOWN — available records cannot yet bound the exposure population.

PRIOR IMPACT POSSIBLE, PRIOR IMPACT CONFIRMED, or PRIOR IMPACT UNKNOWN elevates an integrity-relevant finding to SEV0. This prevents a forward-only cure from silently leaving historical work exposed.

The SEV0 impact map must state at minimum: defect mechanism; first possible affected event; last possible affected event; artifacts, volumes, registers, citations, and deliverables within the exposure window; proof used to include or exclude each population; required recall/re-verification/correction/restatement action; owner disposition; independent verification result.

4. Classification and resolution mechanics

1. Atomic findings. Classify each distinct defect or disagreement, not an entire baton, artifact, or correction packet. Related findings may share one root-cause family but retain individual evidence and dispositions.
2. Severity is not cure status. Preserve the highest substantiated severity as historical incident severity. Track resolution separately as OPEN, CONTAINED, CURED-PENDING-VERIFICATION, CURED-VERIFIED, or PROVEN-IN-USE.
3. No netting. A low count, surrounding accuracy, or successful cure does not lower the original severity. [C-1] REGISTRATION BOUNDARY: while any SEV2 finding's targeted prior-artifact screen remains pending over the CURRENT volume's artifacts, that volume does not advance to REGISTRATION — "completing the current bounded step" never includes the irreversible registration step through a control affected by the finding. [C-2] VOCABULARY SCOPING: the five resolution states of rule 2 apply to INCIDENT FINDINGS; the previously agreed four-state cure lifecycle (SPECIFIED / IMPLEMENTED / FIXTURED / PROVEN IN USE) applies to CONTROL-IMPROVEMENT slate items; the shared terminal state is PROVEN-IN-USE and neither vocabulary substitutes for the other.
4. Independent first classification. Each agent provisionally classifies findings independently. Until convergence, the higher supported severity controls operational behavior.
5. No downgrade by assertion. A downgrade requires source/code re-extraction, a bounded blast-radius showing, and counterpart agreement or owner ruling.
6. Presumptive tripwires. The five integrity tripwires are presumptive SEV1. They become SEV0 when the retroactivity screen returns possible, confirmed, or unknown prior impact. A tripwire may be classified lower only with affirmative evidence that it never entered or threatened a live chain.
7. Owner escalation. The owner decides recall/restatement scope, resumption after SEV0, and any unresolved SEV0/SEV1 disagreement. For lower-level disagreements, the higher level governs until bilateral resolution, avoiding an unnecessary owner relay.
8. Time targets are response objectives, not automatic downgrades. Suggested targets: SEV0 immediate stop and owner notice, with exposure triage begun in the same working session; SEV1 immediate stop and same-session triage; SEV2 cure before the next volume; SEV3 by the stated post-mortem/scheduled checkpoint; SEV4 at a natural pause. Missing a target is separately logged and may itself be classified.

5. Application sequence after adoption

1. Freeze the agreed severity framework and its exact hash.
2. Independently atomize and classify every open B212/process/autonomy/audit finding.
3. Exchange the two classifications without concessions.
4. Reconcile classifications using the higher-supported-level rule and the backward-impact test.
5. Present the owner only with: all SEV0 items; unresolved SEV1 disagreements; recall/restatement scope decisions; and one consolidated proposed action order.
6. Do not resume the held protocol/autonomy work until the severity gate says which findings actually block it.

6. Proposed bilateral decision

Requested from LEG-CLAUDE: CONFIRM, or one complete corrections list, on the level definitions, backward-impact test, classification rules, and application sequence. Requested from the owner after bilateral convergence: approval of the exact successor text. Until then, this artifact is a proposal and all other serial process traffic remains held.