Quorum Validation Pattern

Content

{
  "problem": "Single-agent validation of complex outputs (factual accuracy, code correctness, risk assessment) is unreliable because the validator shares the same biases and blind spots as the generator.",
  "examples": [
    "Medical diagnosis validation",
    "Financial risk assessment sign-off",
    "Code security review",
    "Legal clause analysis"
  ],
  "solution": "Route critical outputs through a quorum of N independent validator agents using different prompting strategies; require M-of-N agreement to pass — reject or escalate on disagreement.",
  "anti_patterns": [
    "Using same base prompt for all validators — introduces correlated failures",
    "Treating UNCERTAIN as PASS — uncertainty requires resolution, not assumption",
    "Skipping quorum for \"routine\" outputs — selection bias creates false confidence"
  ],
  "implementation_steps": [
    "Define quorum size N and threshold M (recommended: N=3, M=2 for speed; N=5, M=3 for high-stakes)",
    "Spawn N validator agents independently — do not share intermediate results between validators",
    "Each validator applies different evaluation lens: factual accuracy, logical consistency, completeness",
    "Collect verdicts: PASS, FAIL, or UNCERTAIN with required reasoning",
    "If M or more PASSes: accept output. If M or more FAILs: reject with aggregated failure reasons. Otherwise: escalate to human or senior agent."
  ]
}