Stress Test Dialectical Escalation

---
name: stress-test-dialectical-escalation
description: 'Tactic: Progressive debate escalation based on confidence thresholds.
  Each round increases attack sophistication until defender collapses or proves resilient.'
type: tactic
strategies:
- critic-defender-judge
- adversarial-escalation
dependencies:
  sops:
  - confidence-calibration
  - debate-critic
  - debate-defender
  - debate-judge
---

# Dialectical Escalation Tactic

Progressive pressure escalation — attack sophistication increases each round based on defender confidence.

## Orchestration

1. **debate-critic** generates attack at current escalation level
2. **debate-defender** responds with counter-arguments
3. **debate-judge** evaluates exchange, scores defender confidence (0.0–1.0)
4. **confidence-calibration** determines next action:
   - confidence > 0.7 → escalate to next level
   - confidence 0.3–0.7 → repeat at same level with different angle
   - confidence < 0.3 → defender collapsed, record vulnerability
5. Repeat until max rounds reached or saturation detected

## Escalation Levels

- **L1 Surface**: Factual accuracy, evidence quality, citation validity
- **L2 Structural**: Logical coherence, argument dependencies, internal consistency
- **L3 Foundational**: Core assumptions, paradigm fit, alternative explanations

## Subagents Dispatched

- debate-critic (attack generation per level)
- debate-defender (response generation)
- debate-judge (round scoring)
- confidence-calibration (escalation decision)

## Termination Conditions

- Max rounds exhausted (budget-dependent: 4/8/12)
- Defender confidence drops below 0.3 (collapsed)
- Saturation detected (no new attack vectors found)
- All escalation levels completed with confidence > 0.7 (survived)

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## Available SOPs

Optional, no fixed order; the final leaf is always a sop.

| SOP | When to use |
| --- | --- |
| confidence-calibration | Calibrates confidence scores based on debate progression. Determines whether to escalate, continue, or terminate based on cumulative evidence. |
| debate-critic | Generates structured criticism from attack stance using Toulmin model. Produces claims, grounds, warrants, and rebuttals targeting artifact weaknesses. |
| debate-defender | Responds to attacks with counter-evidence and counter-arguments. Defends artifact using evidence, clarification, and rebuttal while acknowledging valid criticisms. |
| debate-judge | Evaluates debate exchanges, adjudicates argument quality, and produces round verdicts with confidence scores and reasoning. |

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