Synthetic Case Study
The following example is entirely fictional. It is designed to illustrate how a focused diagnostic review might identify a candidate discrepancy before broader deployment.
Scenario
A customer-support AI agent is responsible for processing refund requests.
For refunds above a specified threshold, the workflow is designed to:
• collect supporting evidence
• determine whether an exception exists
• escalate qualifying cases to a human reviewer
• report completion only after the required escalation has occurred
During internal testing, the workflow reports:
"Refund exception successfully escalated. Task complete."
At first glance, everything appears to have worked correctly.
The engineering team wants to know one thing:
Did the workflow actually do what it claimed?
Review observations
SpecShift reviews the observable workflow record rather than assuming the completion claim is correct.
The review identifies four questions:
• Does the observable evidence support the completion claim?
• Did the required escalation actually occur?
• Did the workflow remain inside its approved scope?
• Is there a visible recovery path if the escalation fails?
The review does not assume failure. It asks whether the available evidence supports the workflow's claims.
Review outcome
The observable workflow record contains a completion claim but no corresponding escalation event within the reviewed materials.
This creates a candidate discrepancy between what the workflow reported and what the observable evidence shows.
That observation does not prove the escalation failed. It identifies a question that engineering teams may wish to investigate before broader deployment.
Why this matters
If the workflow truly completed successfully, the review helps confirm that the evidence supports the claim.
If the workflow did not complete successfully, the review may identify the discrepancy before customers rely on an incorrect completion message.
Either outcome provides useful information for engineering, product, and risk teams.
Next steps
This synthetic example illustrates how a focused diagnostic review can identify candidate discrepancies using only observable workflow behavior.