Repository fit

Lab owns the boundary where an advisory scientific action becomes controlled physical work and where that work returns an observation. The package exists separately because feasibility, materials, controls, custody, deviations, and outcomes carry authority that neither analytical computation nor general software execution can supply.

Why a separate package exists

An accepted scientific result can still lead to an unanswerable assay. A stable recommendation can still be too costly, unsafe, underspecified, or impossible under current capacity. A technically completed experiment can still fail QC or remain biologically inconclusive. Lab makes each of those states explicit rather than collapsing them into success or failure.

stateDiagram-v2
    [*] --> Advisory: supported follow-up proposed
    Advisory --> Refused: question, controls, materials, capacity, or authority inadequate
    Advisory --> Executable: readiness burden met
    Executable --> HandedOff: operator accepts custody
    HandedOff --> Observed: measurement recorded
    Observed --> NotAccepted: QC or controls fail
    Observed --> Inconclusive: measurement cannot answer request
    Observed --> Reconciled: requested and observed compared
    Reconciled --> [*]: consequence returned as new evidence

Owned surfaces

Surface	Lab responsibility
design	experiment and protocol contracts, controls, materials, and acceptance criteria
planning	advisory and executable plans, priorities, queues, batches, schedules, and next-cycle work
readiness and lifecycle	progression checks, refusal, and governed state movement
handoffs	exact instructions, risks, artifacts, acknowledgement, and custody
outcomes	measurements, QC, deviations, failures, and evidence feedback
reconciliation	requested-versus-observed comparison and follow-up disposition
benchmarks	rehearsals and consequence evidence for the Lab-owned contract

Placement test

Ask whether the disputed rule depends on the physical and operational context of a proposed assay.

Rule depends on…	Owner
scientific meaning or analytical acceptance	Core
evidence source, context, or contradiction	Knowledge
decision values, ranking, or recommendation posture	Intelligence
generic software execution and artifact transport	Runtime
assay answerability, controls, materials, capacity, custody, QC, or observed consequence	Lab

Lab may consume every upstream record in this table. It cannot promote an observation into biological support without Knowledge reconciliation or turn a Lab disposition into a new recommendation without Intelligence review.

What does not fit

• generic workflow orchestration unrelated to laboratory custody;
• recommendation ranking hidden inside scheduling priority;
• evidence reconciliation performed while recording an observation;
• readiness inferred from a completed analytical run;
• successful status that omits failed controls, deviations, consumed material, or answerability;
• rewriting a plan after execution so it appears to match the outcome.

Fit tests

Lab remains coherent when an independent reviewer can reconstruct what was requested, why it was considered ready, who accepted custody, what was actually measured, which controls and deviations applied, and how the observation was returned for evidence review. Refusal and inconclusive outcomes are valid records, not incomplete success paths.

Continue with the custody chain, readiness and refusal, and outcome interpretation.