C.19.1:2 - Policy clauses (normative)

BLP-1 — Probe first; select audit depth by claim and risk. Every BLP use starts with the cheap scale-claim probe. A scale claim is current only when the exact bearer kind and direct pattern, a recoverable scale predicate, an objective vector, a comparison basis, an evidence form, and a named receiving use are present. If any of those is absent, return no scale claim yet; if a local analogy or policy remains useful, label it as such and do not present it as an empirical conclusion or manufacture a Scale-Audit.

When the scale claim is current, choose evidence proportional to the bearer, stakes, feasible observations, and receiving use. A selector-facing superiority claim, durable reusable-bearer policy, safety-material override, or expensive irreversible choice normally justifies a fuller audit. A reversible local probe may need only a small matched comparison. The method shall preserve:

(a) Parity and admissibility: comparable task family or use, safety boundary, budget basis, current editions, and set-returning Pareto comparison unless a declared policy lawfully selects another operation. (b) Bearer-appropriate scale dimensions: compute, data, model capacity, or freedom of action for computational methods when they actually vary; for another bearer, state its own capacity, resource, reuse, throughput, coordination, or other exact scale predicate and explain why it provides a comparable scale basis for the two candidates. (c) Uncertainty appropriate to the evidence: repeated seeds or bootstrap intervals for repeatable stochastic trials when useful; measurement error, interval estimates, case comparison, or another justified form for other bearers. Do not demand seeds from an organization design or FLOPs from an episteme. (d) Cost, resource, and safety visibility: report the accounts material to the decision through their direct patterns. Add B.3 only for a named assurance claim and receiving use, including when a material-reliance threshold requires such a claim. (e) Objective honesty: keep quality, risk, cost, and any policy-promoted coverage or illumination coordinates separate unless their Scale permits the declared operation. (f) Risk-selected design: choose a design that can answer this claim. Fractional factorial, Latin-hypercube, three-level sweeps, heteroscedasticity treatment, and repeated-seed designs are options for suitable multi-knob experiments, not a universal minimum. Record why the selected design is adequate and what it cannot establish. (g) Claim-matched tests: use knee or budget-constrained regret tests only when the asserted advantage depends on a knee or dominance inside the audited window.

BLP-2 — Preference rule with alpha and delta tolerances. Among admissible options with comparable assurance within delta and budget within alpha, a scale-based preference for one option over another is warranted when the first option’s response over the audited range Pareto-dominates the second’s, with uncertainty accounted for. If no option dominates within the evidence bounds, C.19.1 returns no scale-based preference; it does not turn greater generality into an empirical winner. A separately declared project policy may break that tie in favor of a more general bearer, but the result shall be labeled as that local policy or analogy, not as the empirical Bitter Lesson, and its E/E-LOG tie-breaker and edition shall be cited. For an agentic use, keep any alpha and delta values in the actual C.19.1 comparison, local-policy or waiver result consumed by the C.24 CallPlan.

BLP‑2.1 — Valid waiver grounds (override transparency). Overrides of a declared local generality preference are allowed only when: • Admissibility override: guard rails, ethics, or precedence make the general bearer inadmissible (E.5, E.3). • Scale‑probe overturn: under iso‑scale parity in the declared ScaleWindow, the heuristic sustainedly outperforms with uncertainty accounted for. • Complementary bias: the heuristic is an inductive bias that improves the general method without blocking scale (graceful degradation as S grows). All overrides record a BLP-waiver with rationale, admitted review System, direct waiver-review responsibility relation or exact A.6.RCD missing governor, and expiry or review in the DRR. Any system-role kind or assignment needed by the review Work is cited separately.

BLP-2.2 — Task-family specialization compatibility. A bounded specialization that makes no scale-advantage, selector-facing superiority, durable generality, or override claim may be used under its direct pattern with an explicit task family, work target, budget guard rails, and evidence locus. It needs neither a full Scale-Audit nor a BLP waiver merely because it is specialized.

If a scale claim becomes current, run the cheap probe first. Select a full audit only when the claim, stakes, feasible evidence, and receiving use justify it. A specialization produced by a general substrate or described as a complementary bias is not automatically compatible: state the exact non-blocking scale relation and evidence when that fact is relied on. Low-human-overlap or newly discovered approaches remain admissible under the same bounded-use, parity, safety, cost, and evidence rules; novelty neither proves nor defeats scale amenability.

BLP-3 — Prescription architecture is a separate question. The Bitter Lesson establishes no universal preference for prohibitions over positive instructions and no general right to autonomous sequencing. For tool-call planning, use C.24 with its budget, stop, replan, and Guard-Rail rules. For another WorkPlan or normative constraint, use the A.15 planning family, E.3, E.5, and the direct policy or commitment pattern. A project may adopt a minimal-prescription policy only with its own trigger, safety boundary, evidence, and review condition; it is not a consequence of a BLP comparison. BLP‑4 — Heuristic‑Debt register (mandatory). Record Heuristic Debt only when an admitted heuristic functions as reusable solution-family policy, selector-facing preference, durable override of a general scale-amenable alternative, DRR-backed scale waiver, or project-side choice that claims scale advantage or BLP override. Ordinary local bounded tactics that make no reusable-bearer, scale-advantage, selector-facing, or override claim may remain local and bounded without Heuristic Debt publication. BLP.HeuristicDebtEntry is a C.19.1-local or G.11-linked policy and debt entry; it is not a universal U.* record kind unless separately admitted under E.24.UK, with F.18 for naming, C.3 for Kind semantics, and E.9 for the decision record. For a live debt entry, record scope, admitted review System, direct debt-review responsibility relation or exact A.6.RCD missing governor, expiry or review window, and a de-hardening plan; any exact system-role kind or assignment needed by review Work remains separate. Track the entry in CalibrationLedger or BCT and cite it in SCR.

BLP-5 — Adaptation policy is a separate question. The Bitter Lesson does not by itself require feedback-driven adaptation or make disabling adaptation a waiver. When adaptation is current, use C.22.1 for the task-family adaptation claim, E.23 for repeated object-version improvement, and C.24 for tool-call planning and replanning, together with the applicable privacy and Guard-Rail patterns. A product policy may require or prohibit adaptation, but that result needs its own objective, evidence, risk boundary, and review date. BLP‑6 — Precedence & safeguards. BLP is constitutional (instantiates P‑10, P‑11, P‑7, and P‑1), but does not supersede Guard‑Rails (E.5) or precedence rulings (E.3). Where a declared NQD or C.19 E‑LOG policy promotes illumination into dominance, use that lens for the audited window.

BLP‑7 — Publication discipline. When a durable Scale-Audit is actually performed, its artifacts SHALL be exported to G.11 with the used edition pins, uncertainty method, alpha and delta tolerances when current, ComparatorSet, policy reference, and qualification window. A no scale claim yet or local bounded-use exit creates no audit package.