Rejected designs (maintainer)

This is a lightweight record of decisions we did not take, so we don’t re-litigate them every few months.

1) Fully dynamic pipeline graphs

Rejected because it weakens auditability and makes traces less comparable across runs.

2) Implicit cross-run memory

Rejected because it introduces hidden state and makes replay validation meaningless without external state capture.

3) “Best effort” trace metadata

Rejected because partial traces invite overconfident consumers. The system should fail fast rather than emit unverifiable artifacts.