---
id: troubleshooting.weak-applicability-logic
title: Weak Applicability Logic
summary: Fix standards that are applied to the wrong cases or skipped where they matter.
kind: error
product_area: troubleshooting
status: stable
updated: 2026-08-23
canonical: /docs/troubleshooting/weak-applicability-logic
---

# Weak Applicability Logic

Use this when policies or rubrics fire on irrelevant cases or miss cases where they should apply.

## Symptom

Benchmark results show failures that reviewers consider irrelevant, or important cases skip the standards that should govern them. The issue appears as false positives, false negatives, or confusing policy-level result counts.

## Likely causes

- The applicability condition uses a broad keyword or metadata field that does not prove the behavior is in scope.
- Cases lack the metadata or source context the applicability rule depends on.
- A policy boundary changed but applicability was not revised.
- Conversation context or retrieved-source state is not represented in the case.

## Diagnostic checks

- Inspect included and excluded cases side by side.
- Identify the exact source signal the applicability rule depends on.
- Check whether case metadata, dimensions, or context fields are missing or stale.
- Review recent policy or rubric revisions for boundary changes.

## Fix

- Rewrite applicability around source-backed signals, not broad topic labels.
- Add missing metadata or context before relying on the rule.
- Create examples that should be included and excluded, then test the boundary.
- Approve and version the corrected governed objects, then create the Benchmark boundary and Runs needed to evaluate the revised applicability.

## Prevention

- Define applicability before benchmark runs, not after reading failures.
- Keep case metadata and dimensions current.
- Review applicability whenever a policy or rubric version changes.
- Keep included and excluded example Cases linked to the governed standard where the current surface supports them.

## Related task pages

{% related-card-grid title="Related task pages" %}
- [Build policies and rubrics](/docs/operating-manual/build-policies-and-rubrics)
- [Work with Policies and Rubrics](/docs/correctness-governance/policies-and-rubrics)
- [Inspect evaluation results](/docs/benchmark-evaluations/inspect-results)
{% /related-card-grid %}

## Related reference pages

{% related-card-grid title="Related reference pages" %}
- [Applicability logic](/docs/object-model/applicability-logic)
- [Policies](/docs/object-model/policies)
- [Coverage dimensions](/docs/object-model/coverage-dimensions)
{% /related-card-grid %}

## Source confidence

Code-backed: Policy and Rubric detail routes expose governed scope and linked Cases, while Benchmark Evaluation results expose which evaluator outcomes appeared for Cases. The boundary-testing method remains a human interpretation of those inspectable artifacts.