The case is not a PDF attachment or a giant archive. It is the live state of the investigation: what happened, what was tested, what was ruled out, what can be done now, and what should happen next.
Incident stateAccelerator reset after thermal soak
Device, workload behavior, environment, and timeline preserved.
Current possibility setTwo mechanisms remain
Four alternatives ruled out with linked evidence.
Minimal reproducerApproved synthetic pattern
Operating preconditions and expected response included.
Current dispositionReturn with stated limits
Vendor-only telemetry named as the next settling test.
Experiment ledgerActions, parameters, controls, resultsExcluded causesEvidence and reasoning for each exclusionCustodyActor, time, release, receiving environment
What persists
The case remembers the reasoning, not just the files.
A receiving engineer can continue from the current frontier instead of reconstructing the incident from logs and prose.
Original incident state
The physical device, workload behavior, conditions, and timing that made the event real.
Live possibility set
What could still explain the event, what has been ruled out, and the evidence for both.
Experiment ledger
Every approved action, parameter, matched control, result, and decision in sequence.
Minimal reproducer
The smallest approved workload and operating conditions that carry the phenomenon.
Decision state
Current disposition, operating envelope, confidence, expiry conditions, and recurrence checks.
Next capability request
When certainty is incomplete, the exact protected test most likely to settle the decision.
Cross-organizational continuation
The same case can be re-instantiated under local control.
Each party contributes only the capability and result needed at that stage. The causal thread remains continuous.
01
Operator case
Incident context and local isolation remain intact.
02
Portable capsule
The reproducer, exclusions, schema, and requested capability travel.
03
Vendor replay
Protected tools run locally; only scoped outputs join the case.
04
Supplier child case
A narrower component question can fork without losing ancestry.
05
Structured return
The finding merges back into the parent case and the fleet action.
Scoped disclosure
The phenomenon travels. Proprietary environments do not.
Stays local
Raw production data
Customer workloads, broad telemetry, secrets, and unrestricted infrastructure access.
Travels with the case
The reproducible phenomenon
Synthetic reproducer, expected response, conditions, exclusions, and evidence references.
Stays local
Proprietary vendor capability
Internal tests, design data, registers, and implementation details remain protected.
Returns to the case
A scoped result
Signed finding, corrective action, confidence, limitations, and validation evidence.
Persistent, not static
The case changes state as evidence arrives.
It can fork for a supplier question, merge a signed result, expire an operating recommendation when conditions change, and reopen if the phenomenon returns.
Open→Actionable→In replay→Closed↺Reopen on recurrence
ζ
Continue the investigation
Carry the investigation—not another attachment.
Explore a case format built to survive operator, vendor, and supplier boundaries.