Failure mode

An artifact uses a technical name with a meaning that conflicts with existing KB usage in a way that changes an inference, classification, action, obligation or attribution.

Test

Find consequential naming conflicts worth revisiting during revision. Return evidence-backed collision candidates, not adopted definitions, forced renames or instructions to avoid new terms. Retain unification candidates only when the inspected material happens to reveal them; they do not determine this gate's verdict.

Evidence and discretion

Judge the artifact against the invoking KB's active vocabulary, definitions and existing ledger decisions. Discover comparison material within the authorized local corpus; do not acquire external sources. Choose searches for candidate names and spelling variants, comparison cases and reading depth to resolve their meanings. Record the inspected scope and limits; do not claim exhaustive coverage. Do not broaden the pass into a search for every other name of each concept.

Recognize technical meanings even without an announced definition: ask whether a name carries a distinction on which the argument or procedure depends. Unfamiliarity, typography or repetition alone is insufficient. Ordinary wording, quotations and historical mentions are not new bindings unless the artifact adopts them as its own terminology.

This test requires authorized corpus discovery and identifiable KB vocabulary context. If either is unavailable, return ERROR naming the gap; do not silently substitute a linked-definitions-only check. Missing optional ledgers need not block review, but their absence belongs in the scope report.

Collision threshold

Establish the same name's competing meanings and show a consequential misreading. Respect explicit scope and schema positions; shared spelling is not enough. Honor existing ledger decisions unless the artifact violates their writing rule or new evidence challenges them. Reference a matching pending entry instead of proposing a duplicate.

Verdict and handoff

Return WARN for a supported, consequential unresolved collision; PASS when none is found within the inspected scope. PASS does not establish that concepts have unique names across the KB. ERROR means the collision review could not be completed under the evidence requirements above.

Each WARN must give the name, competing meanings, consequential misreading and question to resolve. Include exact passages, artifact paths and inspected revisions or content hashes, including the target. Identify any matching collision ledger entry, violated writing rule or new evidence challenging a prior decision.

Incidental unification candidates

If inspected material reveals differently named concepts with a specific common account, retain that account, what each concept contributes, and a condition that could distinguish them. Supply the same passage and version evidence as for a collision, and identify any matching unification ledger entry. Related goals, similar prose or shared examples alone are insufficient.

Report supported candidates separately from verdict findings, for pending unification-ledger entries. A weak lead may be INFO but is not a supported ledger candidate. Neither finding a candidate nor finding none changes the collision verdict. Do not claim that an exact-name search rules out conceptual duplication. Systematic unification belongs to a separate comparative pass over a bounded, related set; it is not required to complete this gate.

Persistence boundary

New candidates in either ledger are pending. Existing definitions and writing decisions remain in force; adjudication chooses whether to tolerate, distinguish, unify or rename. Whether a name earns its place or needs a gloss belongs to jargon/accessibility review, not this gate. A clear, useful definition can still collide.

The reviewer owns only its review result. The coordinating workflow owns ledger insertion, version checks and duplicate handling; it must retain candidates as pending rather than manufacture decisions for writers. Do not edit the target, definitions or shared ledgers, or claim that a candidate was saved without the workflow's confirmation.

Example (fail — collision)

An existing definition uses “capture” for preserving source text verbatim. A new artifact uses it for inferring a reusable rule, then requires checking the capture against the original text. The meanings imply different verification obligations. Flag the conflicting passages, not a preferred replacement name.

Example (incidental unification — no effect on verdict)

“Inspection block” and “review cluster” both denote claims selected for joint checking under a context limit, with the same membership rule and no stated difference. Record that common account and ask whether their membership or lifecycle conditions ever differ; do not declare them synonyms.

Example (pass)

A browsing set favors discovery; a joint-checking set must fit a checking budget. Their memberships can differ. Related members do not erase that distinction.