core/docs/analysis/problemframe-bindings-contract-readiness-2026-06-18.md

ProblemFrame Bindings and Contract Readiness — 2026-06-18

Limitation

PR #830 recognized scalar, unit, hazard, and process-frame presence but left semantic roles declarative. On train 50 / holdout 500, actor/object bindings, bound question targets, and runnable organ contracts were all zero. A process trigger therefore could not prove that an organ had the facts it required.

Map

Three directions were considered:

1. Extend the canonical ProblemFrame with span-grounded mentions, bindings, bound relations, and a bound question target.
2. Build a parallel diagnostic graph beside ProblemFrame.
3. Infer readiness in reporting scripts from raw text.

Direction 1 was selected. It preserves one source of structural truth and lets contract assessment operate only on typed frame evidence. Directions 2 and 3 would permit disagreement or raw-text fallback at the readiness boundary.

Binding Model

GroundedMention retains kind, exact SourceSpan, original source text, and an optional substrate fact ID. MentionBinding currently represents only the two load-bearing edges: quantity-to-entity and quantity-to-unit. IDs and collection order derive from source position and stable tie-breaks.

The builder recognizes a deliberately narrow set of local forms. It does not derive answers, inspect case IDs, or introduce organ-local parsers.

Bound Relation Model

BoundRole points a declared semantic role at a grounded mention or fact. BoundRelation groups those role edges with their evidence spans. The first diagnostic relations are:

• transfer: agent, patient, quantity, object;
• subgroup_partition: whole, part, fractional scale;
• percent_of: whole, part, percent scale.

Subgroup and percent relations are distinct so readiness cannot be fabricated by pooling role names from unrelated candidates.

Question Target Model

BoundQuestionTarget records the requested surface, target kind, evidence, and the grounded target mention. An interrogative that cannot be grounded remains an explicit target with target_mention_id=None; absence and unresolved state are not conflated.

Contract Assessment Model

ContractAssessment is a diagnostic projection with candidate organ, missing bindings, unresolved hazards, evidence spans, explanation, and runnable. percent_partition is runnable only when:

• a whole and subgroup are grounded by a subgroup relation;
• a percent relation refers to that same subgroup surface;
• the question target is grounded;
• no relevant blocking hazard remains.

Container and temporal contracts are emitted as explicit future-facing gaps. Assessment does not admit an organ to serving.

Adequacy Metrics

The new report reads committed case text and optional existing verdict metadata. Gold answers are not used to synthesize bindings or contracts.

Metric	Before train 50	After train 50	Before holdout 500	After holdout 500
frame built	50	50	500	500
scalar present	47	47	470	470
unit present	21	21	202	202
entity mention present	0	50	0	494
quantity binding present	0	46	0	452
bound process relation present	0	16	0	124
bound question target present	0	42	0	402
contract candidates	0	42	0	423
contract_runnable_count	0	1	0	1

contract_runnable_count is the honest readiness metric. Trigger presence is not readiness.

Why percent_partition Remains Deferred

Case gsm8k-train-sample-v1-0046 now has five quantity bindings, four bound relations, a grounded question target, and a runnable diagnostic contract. That is progress, not a serving migration. Only 1/42 train candidates and 1/423 holdout candidates meet the conservative contract, so broad admission would still require fallback or overclaim coverage.

Migration becomes safe when the target corpus has adequate runnable coverage, the remaining gap taxonomy is explicitly addressed, an organ consumes only ProblemFrame evidence, and the serving safety lanes remain wrong-free. This change intentionally leaves serving, answer admission, report.json, and sealed artifacts unchanged.

Masterstroke

Readiness is represented as a conjugate of construction: the builder propagates source evidence into typed relations, while contract assessment exposes exactly where that propagation fails to close. The design makes a nominal frame call insufficient; an organ is runnable only when its intrinsic role geometry is actually bound.