# Value-First Modification (VFM) Scoring

Scoring rubric for evaluating proposed self-modifications. Any change to
agent config, prompts, behavior, or pipeline structure must score > 50
to be implemented.

## Dimensions

### Frequency (0-25 points)
How often does the issue this change addresses occur?

| Score | Criteria |
|-------|----------|
| 0-5 | Happened once, may not recur |
| 6-10 | Happens occasionally (1-2x per week) |
| 11-15 | Happens regularly (daily) |
| 16-20 | Happens frequently (multiple times per day) |
| 21-25 | Happens on nearly every run |

### Failure Reduction (0-25 points)
Does this change fix real failures?

| Score | Criteria |
|-------|----------|
| 0-5 | Cosmetic improvement, no failures prevented |
| 6-10 | Prevents occasional warnings or non-critical errors |
| 11-15 | Prevents errors that require manual intervention |
| 16-20 | Prevents errors that cause pipeline failure |
| 21-25 | Prevents errors that cause data loss or system damage |

### Burden Reduction (0-25 points)
Does this reduce human effort?

| Score | Criteria |
|-------|----------|
| 0-5 | Saves less than 1 minute per occurrence |
| 6-10 | Saves 1-5 minutes per occurrence |
| 11-15 | Saves 5-30 minutes per occurrence |
| 16-20 | Eliminates a manual step entirely |
| 21-25 | Eliminates multiple manual steps or a recurring task |

### Cost Savings (0-25 points)
Does this reduce API/compute costs?

| Score | Criteria |
|-------|----------|
| 0-5 | Negligible cost difference |
| 6-10 | Saves <10% on affected operations |
| 11-15 | Saves 10-25% on affected operations |
| 16-20 | Saves 25-50% on affected operations |
| 21-25 | Saves >50% or eliminates unnecessary API calls entirely |

## Decision threshold

| Total score | Decision |
|-------------|----------|
| > 50 | **Implement** — change is worth the risk |
| 26-50 | **Defer** — log for future consideration |
| <= 25 | **Reject** — not worth pursuing |

## Logging format

Every VFM evaluation must be logged, whether implemented or not:

```
VFM EVALUATION
Date: [timestamp]
Proposed change: [description]
Scores:
  Frequency: [score] — [justification]
  Failure reduction: [score] — [justification]
  Burden reduction: [score] — [justification]
  Cost savings: [score] — [justification]
Total: [sum]/100
Decision: implement / defer / reject
```

## Worked examples

### Example 1: Add retry logic to web search (Implement)
- Frequency: 18 (search fails ~3x daily due to timeouts)
- Failure reduction: 15 (prevents pipeline stall requiring manual restart)
- Burden reduction: 16 (eliminates manual re-run)
- Cost savings: 8 (slight cost from retry, but saves failed run cost)
- **Total: 57 → Implement**

### Example 2: Refactor prompt to use XML tags (Defer)
- Frequency: 25 (every run)
- Failure reduction: 3 (current format works fine)
- Burden reduction: 2 (no human effort saved)
- Cost savings: 5 (maybe slightly fewer tokens)
- **Total: 35 → Defer** (improvement is real but marginal)

### Example 3: Switch to experimental model (Reject)
- Frequency: 25 (every run)
- Failure reduction: 0 (current model has no failures)
- Burden reduction: 0 (no human effort saved)
- Cost savings: 10 (newer model might be cheaper)
- **Total: 35 → Defer** (stability > novelty per ADL)