Control Packs · REL-002 · v1.0.0
Irreversible Dependency Reconciliation
Reconcile ambiguous external results before retrying an irreversible operation.
Status: review · Review: not independent. This is design guidance; review status does not establish independent verification or compliance.
What this safeguard addresses
Make irreversible dependency operations idempotent where possible and reconcile ambiguous outcomes before retry or compensation.
- Unknown dependency result is retried unsafelyA timeout or partial response leads to a duplicate irreversible effect because the local system does not reconcile the remote state.
Versioned applicability rule
{
"all": [
{
"characteristic": "EXTERNAL_DEPENDENCY",
"equals": true
},
{
"characteristic": "IRREVERSIBLE_ACTION",
"equals": true
}
]
}Decisions for the project owner
Leave a decision open when its value is unknown. Suggested values become confirmed only through an explicit user decision.
- What is the recovery path when an irreversible dependency operation has an unknown result?The system must not silently choose retry, compensation, or operator escalation.REL-002-Q1 · choice
Requirements for the coding agent
- REL-002-R1Use idempotency or reconciliation before retry, preserve ambiguous outcomes, bound compensation, and expose unresolved operations for review.
Tests and evidence to retain
- IRREVERSIBLE_RECONCILIATION_TESTExercise success, timeout, duplicate request, ambiguous result, reconciliation, compensation, and operator hold.
- implementation_location
- test_result
- telemetry_definition
- operational_procedure
Passing a published example shows that example's behavior. A coding agent's implementation report remains a claim until its evidence is independently checked.
Related guidance
- CP-10 · System RecoveryNIST_SP_800_53_5_2_0 · partially addressesReconciliation, compensation bounds, and operator hold address a defined recovery path; they do not cover all contingencies.
- SI-13 · Predictable Failure PreventionNIST_SP_800_53_5_2_0 · partially addressesIdempotency and reconciliation reduce duplicate-effect failure modes; they do not establish full prevention.
- AU-10 · Non-repudiationNIST_SP_800_53_5_2_0 · informsPreserved remote state and correlation inform attribution of ambiguous operations; they do not establish non-repudiation.
Mappings indicate contextual relevance or partial support. They do not establish equivalence, certification, government endorsement, or complete framework implementation.
- Amazon Web Services Builders' Library — Timeouts, retries, and backoff with jitterGUIDANCE_RELIABILITY
- Internet Engineering Task Force — HTTP SemanticsRESEARCH_IDEMPOTENCY
- National Institute of Standards and Technology — Security and Privacy Controls for Information Systems and OrganizationsGUIDANCE_NIST_SP_800_53_5_2_0