E.15:4.4 - Choose the least costly adequate route

Direct bounded repair. Use this ordinary route when the defect and one non-dominated repair are understood. Make the repair, inspect its actual consumers, perform the selected focused checks, and stop. Do not generate dummy alternatives or a search record.

Alternative comparison. Open this branch only when at least two materially plausible designs remain, a current SoTA choice can change the action, or a repeatable search is itself useful. State what the alternatives differ on and which intended use decides among non-dominated candidates. C.18 and C.19 may generate and retain alternatives when novelty or diversity is genuinely part of the question; E.22 and E.21 frame and evaluate pattern qualities.

Keep hard constraints separate from quality comparisons. A failed identity rule, broken reference, missing required result, or unreadable first action is a defect to repair, not a low score to trade away. Compare readability, precision, assurance cost, breadth, or other qualities on their applicable scales. Select by the stated intended use and protected trade-offs; do not add heterogeneous values into an undeclared winner score.

Return a decision gap. If the repair depends on an unresolved ontology, authority, source choice, or architecture decision, return that exact gap to its pattern or decision record. More variants do not compensate for a missing governing distinction.