# Contradiction Handling in BlackRoad OS

Agents operate in a trinary logic space (true, false, unknown) where contradictions are treated as signals rather than silent errors. BlackRoad OS treats conflicts as first-class events that demand routing, journaling, and potentially escalation to orchestrators or human operators.

## What is a Contradiction?

A contradiction occurs when two or more beliefs, observations, or recommended actions cannot simultaneously hold. Examples include conflicting risk assessments across agents or incompatible compliance flags in finance workflows.

## Escalation Mechanism

1. **Detection:** Agents flag contradictions when belief vectors clash or when policy checks diverge.
2. **Event emission:** A contradiction event is emitted to the orchestrator or higher-level mediator.
3. **Reconciliation:** The orchestrator aggregates evidence, applies policy (e.g., majority vote, priority weighting, or regulatory override), and proposes a resolution.
4. **Outcome recording:** Both accepted and rejected branches are recorded for transparency and future replay.

## Integration with PS-SHA∞

Contradiction resolution steps are journaled as PS-SHA∞ entries:

- Record the competing claims and confidence scores.
- Capture the chosen resolution rule and rationale.
- Link branches through `previousHash` values so discarded paths remain inspectable.

## TODOs

- Define standardized contradiction event payloads for ingestion by `blackroad-os-operator`.
- Prototype escalation thresholds in `/experiments/contradiction-sim` to tune sensitivity.