Escalation Ladders

An escalation is not a failure — it is a handoff to a higher capability layer. The escalation ladder defines who handles what at each severity level and ensures that every escalation reaches the right handler without bottlenecking the system.

Our four-tier escalation ladder. Tier 1 — Specialist Self-Resolution: the agent encountering the issue attempts resolution within its role contract. 67.42% of issues resolve at this tier. Tier 2 — Peer Consultation: the agent consults a related specialist for domain expertise. CLOSER consults CIPHER for deal analytics. QUILL consults SCOPE for industry facts. 21.38% resolve here. Tier 3 — Coordinator Intervention: CLAWMANDER reroutes, reallocates, or restructures the workflow. 9.83% require this level. Tier 4 — Human Decision: Greg evaluates and directs. Reserved for strategic decisions, novel situations, and anything with reputational risk. 1.37% of issues reach this tier.

The critical rule: escalation must skip no tiers. An agent that escalates directly to Greg because "it seemed important" bypasses two resolution layers and wastes strategic attention on what might have been a Tier 1 fix.