# Background

Cognitive Harness addresses three problems in autonomous reasoning:

1. **State decay**: Decisions, evidence, and validated knowledge become disconnected from subsequent reasoning.
2. **Underspecified action**: A goal does not determine which knowledge gap to close.
3. **Coupled layers**: Storage leaks into reasoning; reasoning artifacts pollute storage.

## Influences

| Source | Influence |
|---|---|
| Müller CAFCR (TU Delft, 2004) — Customer Objectives, Application, Functional, Conceptual, Realization | Lines/Threads of Reasoning, viewpoint traversal |
| EPR (1935) | Completeness criterion → warrant concept (analogy) |
| Harness-of-Harness (2026) | Supporting literature on orchestration separation, progressive disclosure (not validation of Superretometer mechanisms) |
| ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 | Architecture description concepts |

Cognitive Harness is an adaptation of ideas from these sources. It does not reproduce copyrighted material and is not endorsed by the original authors.