assess-ranking-consistency
Purpose
Audit pairwise and aggregate rankings for incoherent cycles, reversals, and unsupported rank transitions.
Input contract
yamlrequired: [ranked_items, pairwise_judgments, comparison_criteria] optional: [weights, tie_policy, prior_consistency_report] constraints: [judgments identify compared items, direction, confidence, and criterion]
Procedure
- Reconstruct the directed comparison graph and normalize ties and missing edges.
- Search triads and longer cycles for violations of declared transitivity or criterion direction.
- Compare aggregate order with its supporting pairwise judgments and flag reversals or low-support placements.
- Return inconsistency records, affected items, and the minimum judgments requiring review.
Output contract
yamlproduces: [comparison_graph, inconsistency_records, review_set] delta_fields: [findings, evidence_updates, uncertainties, open_questions]
Quality gates
- Each inconsistency cites the smallest cycle or reversal and the judgments that create it.
- Ties remain ties unless the input model explicitly supplies a tie-break rule.
Failure and counterexamples
Do not call a sparse graph inconsistent merely because it lacks a comparison. Distinguish missing edges from contradictory edges.
Provenance map
- resolved: consistency-check
- resolved: rank-comparison


