Skip to content
CKS Documentation

ADR-006

Gossip Conflict Arbitration: LLM-Assisted Merge Resolution

Section titled “Gossip Conflict Arbitration: LLM-Assisted Merge Resolution”

Status: Implemented (resolve_gossip_conflict, arbitrate_inference_conflict)

Date: 2026-08-04

Category: Architecture Decision Record

Context

Section titled “Context”

arbitrate_inference_conflict (ADR-001) provides three paths to resolve an InferenceConfidenceConflict: interactive (caller picks winner_id), unattended (auto_resolve=True), and bypass (resolve_inference_conflict operation directly). Gossip conflicts (GossipConflictDetected, ADR-008) have no equivalent: merge_branch reports structural conflicts as a list of object_ids with target_diff/source_diff, and the caller must hand-roll a resolutions dict without any LLM assistance. This asymmetry forces the Critic Agent to dead-letter every structural gossip conflict as unresolvable, even when an LLM could propose sensible resolutions.

Decision

Section titled “Decision”

Add resolve_gossip_conflict as a new MCP tool, mirroring arbitrate_inference_conflict’s three-path shape:

  1. Interactive: returns conflicts (object_id + target_diff/source_diff) and a policy describing resolution criteria; caller picks per-object resolutions and calls again with a resolutions dict.
  2. Unattended (auto_resolve=True): the tool calls an LLM via the same provider dispatch as construct_knowledge/arbitrate_inference_conflict, asks it to pick branch_a/branch_b/custom per conflicting object, and returns a ready-to-use resolutions dict for merge_branch.
  3. Bypass: caller always retains the option to hand-craft resolutions and call merge_branch directly.

Consequences

Section titled “Consequences”
  • Closes the asymmetry between gossip and inference conflict resolution.
  • The Critic Agent can now auto-resolve structural gossip conflicts instead of dead-lettering them.
  • LLM provider dependency: same CKS_LLM_PROVIDER env vars as all other LLM-facing tools; no new configuration surface.