AT-301f · Module 1

Early Warning Signals

3 min read

Conflicts announce themselves before they escalate — if you know what to look for. Five early warning signals, tracked daily.

Duplicated Work: two agents producing outputs that cover the same ground. Detected by comparing output topics across agents — a cosine similarity above 0.72 on output summaries flags potential overlap. Contradictory Outputs: agents producing factually inconsistent deliverables from the same data source. Detected by cross-referencing key claims across outputs. Increased Re-inquiry Rate: agents asking each other more clarification questions than baseline — indicates handoff boundaries are blurring. Message Volume Spike: a sudden 40%+ increase in messages between two specific agents often precedes a conflict. Escalation Clustering: multiple escalations from the same pair of agents within a 48-hour window.

Each signal has a detection threshold calibrated against baseline behavior. A single signal above threshold is a watch item. Two or more signals above threshold simultaneously trigger a conflict investigation.

Do This

  • Monitor all five signals daily — conflicts are cheaper to prevent than to resolve
  • Set thresholds relative to baseline, not absolute — a busy week shifts normal behavior
  • Investigate when two or more signals fire simultaneously — that is signal convergence

Avoid This

  • Wait for agents to report conflicts — they often do not recognize them until output quality drops
  • Investigate every single threshold breach — some are noise. Wait for convergence.
  • Assume conflict is bad — methodology conflicts often produce better outputs when managed