STR.7:4.3 - Preserve the alternative being displaced

Name the serious rival to experimenting now. It may be continued operation, a smaller investigation or another use of the same people. State what is forgone, delayed or made harder to recover.

Keep retention separate from testing. Preserving a short account of an unchosen direction is different from paying to retain its capability, contract or interface. STR.6 supplies the retention reason and exercise conditions; STR.9 can compare the resulting flexibility. A stepping stone can remain untested until its next contribution warrants work.

If the question requires an explicit policy for a still-live collection of exploration lines, use C.19 to decide which remain worth exploring, which warrant retention without new tests and which no longer warrant a place in that collection. State the chosen policy, its intended contribution and comparison basis, and the change that would justify reconsideration. This answers the continuing search-policy question; sections 4.1–4.2 compare the worth of one proposed experiment.