decay

---

name: decay description: "Manage evidence freshness by identifying stale decisions and providing governance actions"

Evidence Freshness Management

Manages evidence freshness by identifying stale decisions and providing governance actions. Implements FPF B.3.4 (Evidence Decay).

Key principle: Evidence is perishable. Decisions built on expired evidence carry hidden risk.

---

Quick Concepts

What is "stale" evidence?

Every piece of evidence has a valid_until date. A benchmark from 6 months ago may no longer reflect current system performance. A security audit from before a major dependency update doesn't account for new vulnerabilities.

When evidence expires, the decision it supports becomes questionable - not necessarily wrong, just unverified.

What is "waiving"?

Waiving = "I know this evidence is stale, I accept the risk temporarily."

Use it when:

• You're about to launch and don't have time to re-run all tests
• The evidence is only slightly expired and probably still valid
• You have a scheduled date to refresh it properly

A waiver is NOT ignoring the problem - it's explicitly documenting that you know about the risk and accept it until a specific date.

The Three Actions

Situation	Action	What it does
Evidence is old but decision is still good	Refresh	Re-run the test, get fresh evidence
Decision is obsolete, needs rethinking	Deprecate	Downgrade hypothesis, restart evaluation
Accept risk temporarily	Waive	Record the risk acceptance with deadline

---

Action (Run-Time)

Step 1: Generate Freshness Report

1. List all evidence files in .fpf/evidence/
2. For each evidence file:
   • Read valid_until from frontmatter
   • Compare with current date
   • Classify as FRESH, STALE, or EXPIRED

Step 2: Present Report

## Evidence Freshness Report

### EXPIRED (Requires Action)

| Evidence | Hypothesis | Expired | Days Overdue |
|----------|------------|---------|--------------|
| ev-benchmark-2024-06-15 | redis-caching | 2024-12-15 | 45 |
| ev-security-2024-07-01 | auth-module | 2025-01-01 | 14 |

### STALE (Warning)

| Evidence | Hypothesis | Expires | Days Left |
|----------|------------|---------|-----------|
| ev-loadtest-2024-10-01 | api-gateway | 2025-01-20 | 5 |

### FRESH

| Evidence | Hypothesis | Expires |
|----------|------------|---------|
| ev-unittest-2025-01-10 | validation-lib | 2025-07-10 |

### WAIVED

| Evidence | Waived Until | Rationale |
|----------|--------------|-----------|
| ev-perf-old | 2025-02-01 | Migration pending |

Step 3: Handle User Actions

Based on user response, perform one of:

Refresh

User: "Refresh the redis caching evidence"

1. Navigate to the hypothesis in .fpf/knowledge/L2/
2. Re-run validation to create fresh evidence

Deprecate

User: "Deprecate the auth module decision"

1. Move hypothesis from L2 to L1 (or L1 to L0)
2. Create deprecation record:

# In .fpf/evidence/deprecate-auth-module-2025-01-15.md
---
id: deprecate-auth-module-2025-01-15
hypothesis_id: auth-module
action: deprecate
from_layer: L2
to_layer: L1
created: 2025-01-15T10:00:00Z
---

# Deprecation: auth-module

**Reason**: Evidence expired, technology landscape changed

**Next Steps**: Run `/fpf:propose-hypotheses` to explore alternatives

3. Move the hypothesis file:

mv .fpf/knowledge/L2/auth-module.md .fpf/knowledge/L1/auth-module.md

Waive

User: "Waive the benchmark until February"

1. Create waiver record:

# In .fpf/evidence/waiver-benchmark-2025-01-15.md
---
id: waiver-benchmark-2025-01-15
evidence_id: ev-benchmark-2024-06-15
waived_until: 2025-02-01
created: 2025-01-15T10:00:00Z
---

# Waiver: ev-benchmark-2024-06-15

**Evidence**: ev-benchmark-2024-06-15
**Hypothesis**: redis-caching
**Waived Until**: 2025-02-01
**Rationale**: Migration pending, will re-run after completion

**Accepted By**: User
**Created**: 2025-01-15

**WARNING**: This evidence returns to EXPIRED status after 2025-02-01.

---

Natural Language Usage

You don't need to memorize evidence IDs. Just describe what you want.

Example Workflow

User: /fpf:decay

Agent shows report with stale evidence

User: Waive the benchmark until February, we'll re-run it after the migration.

Agent: Creating waiver for ev-benchmark-2024-06-15 until 2025-02-01.
       Rationale: "Re-run after migration"

       [Creates .fpf/evidence/waiver-benchmark-2025-01-15.md]

User: The vendor API is being discontinued. Deprecate that decision.

Agent: Deprecating hypothesis-vendor-api from L2 to L1.
       [Moves file, creates deprecation record]

       Next step: Run /fpf:propose-hypotheses to explore alternatives.

---

WLNK Principle

A hypothesis is STALE if any of its evidence is expired (and not waived).

This is the Weakest Link (WLNK) principle: reliability = min(all evidence). One stale piece makes the whole decision questionable.

---

Audit Trail

All actions are logged:

Action	What's Recorded
Deprecate	from_layer, to_layer, reason, date
Waive	evidence_id, until_date, rationale, date

Files created in .fpf/evidence/:

• deprecate-{hypothesis}-{date}.md
• waiver-{evidence}-{date}.md

---

Common Workflows

Weekly Maintenance

/fpf:decay                    # See what's stale
# For each stale item: refresh, deprecate, or waive

Pre-Release

/fpf:decay                    # Check for stale decisions
# Either refresh evidence or explicitly waive with documented rationale
# Waiver rationales become part of release documentation

After Major Change

# Dependency update, API change, security advisory...
/fpf:decay                    # See what's affected
# Deprecate obsolete decisions
# Start new hypothesis cycle for replacements