ME.18:0 - Use This When

Use this pattern only after A.3.1.MR has recovered an ordinary candidate account or honest lower result and a named receiving decision still cannot be made without a larger evidence programme. Typical triggers are heterogeneous settings, disputed variants, tacit cues or judgments, incomplete records, consequential use, or a need for a stronger held-out application.

Begin with the receiving decision and the few candidate-account claims whose uncertainty changes it. Select evidence forms for those claims rather than collecting every available trace or interview.

The first useful result is a claim-to-evidence matrix and sampling decision. It states what would support, contradict, split, or lower each claim and why the selected evidence form can distinguish those outcomes. This makes the specialist burden visible before the study grows.

Use the larger evidence programme only when ordinary candidate recovery is insufficient for the named decision. No observation, interview, log, or synthesis backdates a Method into past Work, promotes a log into a MethodDescription, or admits a Method without A.3.1.