Hypothesis Tracking

Problem

An agent that holds candidate answers only implicitly is forced to re-derive them each time the topic resurfaces, with no continuity of confidence: a guess held with strength one session evaporates by the next, and a guess that was once disconfirmed quietly re-emerges as if it were new. Storing hypotheses under the same surface as open questions is no better — the ledger conflates 'still wondering' with 'tentatively believes', and the agent loses the move that actually matters for inquiry: comparing yesterday's provisional answer against today's new evidence.

Solution

Maintain a hypothesis store keyed by short id. Each record has: a one-line summary; a numeric confidence (0..1); a status drawn from {active, confirmed, disconfirmed, superseded, abandoned}; a next-test sentence stating what observation would move the confidence; and an evidence list of short notes with sources. When the agent commits a guess, write a new record at active. When evidence arrives, append it and adjust confidence; if the next-test fires, transition to confirmed or disconfirmed; if a better hypothesis subsumes it, transition to superseded. Render the active records into the agent's daily working context so it sees what it currently believes.

When to use

• The agent runs over weeks and accumulates partial evidence about persistent questions.
• Provisional answers need to be defensible and revisable, not just remembered.
• An existing open-question store already separates pulls of curiosity from commitments.