Helen detector
Stale Premise detector
The Stale Premise detector finds active work built on a foundation the organization already invalidated. It is a deterministic check on the context chain and can block implementation until the work has a valid premise.
- Method
- Deterministic walk up the context chain
- Implementation policy
- Blocking
What it catches
The detector starts from live backlog, todo, in-progress, in-review, or active artifacts. It walks every parent path until it finds the nearest ancestor closed as abandoned, obsolete, or duplicate.
A completed parent does not invalidate its children. A migrated parent also remains valid because its work moved rather than lost authority.
Evidence Helen records
The finding identifies the live subject, its state, the closest invalidating ancestor, the ancestor's closure reason, and how many steps separate them in the chain.
If several invalid ancestors exist at the same distance, Helen selects one deterministically. The same context chain therefore produces the same cited premise.
How to reconcile it
Close the descendant if the work is no longer needed. Move it under a valid parent if the intent survived. If the ancestor was closed incorrectly, restore its premise through the normal human decision process.
Detector boundary
It does not treat completed or migrated ancestors as invalid, and it does not evaluate drafts or closed work.
Research basis
Staw, B. M. (1976). Knee-deep in the big muddy: A study of escalating commitment to a chosen course of action. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 16(1), 27–44.