Tension scan#

Use when: individually sensible demands appear to collide, or new evidence may have changed an earlier conflict.

Inputs: the obligations and their sources, the condition in which they interact, and any earlier formulation. Record which statements are accepted contracts, user goals, current behavior, or your own inferences.

Operation#

1. Establish why each demand matters independently. If only one has support, return that asymmetry rather than manufacturing two equally sound sides.
2. State the collision concretely: we need A and B, but under C, satisfying A undermines B through mechanism M. Work through a legal history or design consequence; a pair of opposing slogans is insufficient.
3. Look for a missing distinction in scope, authority, ordering, ownership, or checkpoint. Recompute the consequences with that distinction explicit.
4. Check whether both original obligations survive. Removing a guarantee can be a proposed tradeoff, but does not demonstrate that the tension dissolved.
5. On a recheck, identify the evidence that makes the tension remain live, sharpen, move, weaken, or dissolve. Read it against the original purpose; recent or vivid material alone does not justify changing the question.

Return: the sourced demands, concrete collision and mechanism, possible missing distinction, and current status; or no supported tension, with the missing support identified. Preserve materially different interpretations when the available authority cannot choose among them.

Control: restate the case without an A-versus-B framing. Does the conflict still exist? Keep a generated collision separate from an observed one.

Distortion: invented symmetry, apparent resolution by deleting an obligation, or using an ordinary clarification to claim a major design discovery.

Stop when: the collision or its dissolution is demonstrated at the stated scope, or a specific missing fact or design decision is identified.

Adapted from Field Lab's tension statement, with selection handled by the repository task rather than an interactive instrument menu.