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Source note2 min read

Proof-or-Stop: Don't Trust the Agent, Trust the Evidence -- Loop Engineering for Verifiable Evidence-Gated Lifecycle Control

Source

arXiv

arxiv.org/abs/2607.14890v1

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Plain-Language Brief

The paper introduces Proof-or-Stop Lifecycle Control, a method for controlling transitions in the lifecycle of autonomous coding agents. It ensures that these transitions occur only when supported by fresh evidence that can be mechanically verified. The method was evaluated through various tests and showed promising results, such as passing all 10 scenarios without false DONEs and rejecting 18 tamper classes with zero false accepts.

What the Document Says

  • The paper presents Proof-or-Stop Lifecycle Control, a method for permitting lifecycle transitions only when fresh evidence supports the relevant gate.
  • The method treats agent outputs as claims rather than lifecycle state and uses proof to mean gate-admissible evidence under a stated trust model.
  • An evaluation of an open-source implementation shows that the unattended-loop engine passed 10 out of 10 scenarios with zero false DONEs.

Key Concepts Mentioned

  • Autonomous coding agents
  • Lifecycle Control
  • Proof-or-Stop
  • Evidence
  • Gated Lifecycle Transitions

Claims Made by the Document

  • The method permits lifecycle transitions only when fresh, tracked-source-state-bound, mechanically verifiable evidence supports the relevant gate.

Evidence Used

  • The evaluation of an open-source implementation shows that the unattended-loop engine passed 10 out of 10 scenarios with zero false DONEs.

Methods / Approach

UNKNOWN

Limitations Stated by the Authors

UNKNOWN

Limitations Noted by the Agent

Agent interpretation — not from the source.

UNKNOWN

Open Questions

UNKNOWN

Notes for Future Q&A

May include interpretation. Labeled where it does.

UNKNOWN

Raw Abstract / Excerpt

Autonomous coding agents increasingly execute multi-step software work, but lifecycle states such as reviewed, tested, DONE, and ready-to-merge remain claims unless supported by current evidence. We present Proof-or-Stop Lifecycle Control, a method that permits lifecycle transitions only when fresh, tracked-source-state-bound, mechanically verifiable evidence satisfies the relevant gate. The method treats agent outputs as claims rather than lifecycle state, and uses proof operationally to mean gate-admissible evidence under a stated trust model, not semantic program correctness. We evaluate an open-source implementation through mechanism tests, a powered control-policy ablation, and operated self-application evidence. The unattended-loop engine passed 10 of 10 scenarios with zero false-DONE, and local-key receipt bundles rejected 18 tamper classes with zero false accepts. In a 9,240-cell ablation, the pre-registered A4 versus A2-prime comparison reduced visible-pass/hidden-fail amplification from 31 of 1,800 injected cells under a compute-budgeted naive loop to 2 of 1,800 under the gated loop, a 1.6 percentage-point improvement in not-amplified rate with a 95 percent confidence interval of [0.8, 2.5]. A near-compute A3 versus A4 comparison, 14 of 1,800 versus 2 of 1,800, indicates that the gain is associated with enforcing review as a lifecycle gate rather than merely adding a reviewer. The self-application corpus contains 565 stories and 1,007 review findings, with 94.8 percent resolved, plus a 68-row high/critical cross-vendor exhibit. These results support Proof-or-Stop as a model-agnostic, host-neutral control layer for deciding which autonomous-agent claims a lifecycle may act on. The evaluation is limited to one model family, 24 ablation tasks, and a self-hosted corpus.