Platform: Closed-Loop Attribution

What this is

A governance model in which every loss — physical, data, network, or commercial — is attributed to the node that caused it, charged proportionately, and never pooled into an unowned overhead category. The cycle count is the garbage collection pass; the delta is the bill.

Purpose

Closes the accountability gap that retail has historically accepted as unavoidable. In an open-loop system, variance pools into "shrinkage" and the offending node escapes. In a closed-loop system, the graph knows what should be there, the sweep surfaces what is not, and attribution reaches the source — not the nearest downstream absorber.

Agents use this model when: building accountability reports, routing escalations to the correct module owner, attributing infrastructure cost overruns, or evaluating whether a variance has been fully closed or merely relocated.

Structure

The closed-loop model runs five attribution layers simultaneously. Every layer has garbage. Every layer runs a GC sweep. Every sweep produces a delta. Every delta belongs to a node.

Layer	What accumulates	The sweep	Offender class
Commercial / GTM	Dead stock, backroom inventory, conversion miss, demand window miss	Sell-through vs plan, velocity by seller, markdown rate by buyer	Buyer, planner, forecast, hiring decision
Physical inventory	Inventory variance — theft, damage, vendor shortage, miscount	Cycle count vs perpetual ledger	Vendor, ops, floor execution, equipment
System data	Orphaned records, stale cache, UOM drift, catalog mismatch	Referential integrity check, schema audit	Integration, migration, developer, vendor API
Network / protocol	Bad packets, dead letters, retry storms, failed handshakes	DLQ audit, packet loss review	Source service, integration partner, infra config
Compute / code	Slow queries, memory leaks, oversized model calls, redundant roundtrips	Cost-per-action audit, performance profiler	Author, release, architectural decision

Invariants

Unknown is not a valid attribution class. If attribution cannot be completed, the incompletion is itself a signal and must be surfaced, not swallowed.
Relocating cost is not resolving it. Moving inventory to the back room, moving data to an archive, or moving a failure to a dead letter queue does not close the accountability loop. The cost follows the source node, not the physical location.
Carrying cost is a margin cost, not an ops cost. Every day an unresolved inventory position ages, it accrues cost that belongs to the upstream decision-maker who created the position — not to the store or service that inherited it.
Proportional charging, not flat allocation. A node responsible for 8% of volume but 40% of variance owns 40% of the delta pool. Flat allocation is the mechanism of open loops.

Consumers

Controller agent — uses this model to route escalations, attribute cross-module variances, and score module performance against plan
Module Q (Loss Prevention) — operationalizes physical and transaction layer attribution via Chirp rules and Fox cases
Module M (Merchandising) — accountable for commercial layer failures; buyer and planner performance is measured against this model
Module D (Distribution) — vendor shortage and receiving discrepancy attribution path
Infrastructure agents (CPA) — compute and network layer attribution; cost-per-action audit against this model

Closed Loop — Full Wiki Article — complete five-layer model with full offender taxonomy and proportional charging detail
Platform Thesis — Rail 1 (No Unknown Loss) is the macro statement; this card is the operational mechanism
Retail: Backroom Cost Transfer — the specific pattern of pushing inventory cost downstream; governed by this model
Retail: Inventory Audit — physical layer sweep mechanics
Retail: Chargeback Matrix — vendor attribution and chargeback execution at the physical layer
Retail: Vendor Scorecard — vendor-level proportional charging surface