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RCAS

Root Cause Analysis Engines

1. Overview

Root Cause Analysis Engines (RCAS) are assistive calculation engines that analyze signals, execution outcomes, and metadata to diagnose anomalies and propose likely root causes.

RCAS engines support investigation and remediation but do not modify data directly.

2. Design Principles

  1. Diagnostic Focus
    RCAS engines explain why something may have occurred.

  2. Hypothesis-Driven
    Outputs represent plausible causes, not guaranteed truth.

  3. Cross-Signal Reasoning
    Analysis may span multiple signals, engines, and layers.

3. Scope of Responsibility

3.1. What RCAS Engines Do

  • Analyze anomalies or unexpected results
  • Correlate issues across signals and pipelines
  • Propose likely root causes or contributing factors
  • Suggest corrective actions or follow-up checks

Typical use cases:

  • Investigating data quality issues
  • Explaining sudden metric changes
  • Supporting assurance and audit workflows

4. What RCAS Engines Do Not Do

  • ❌ Modify or recompute data
  • ❌ Enforce corrective actions
  • ❌ Emit authoritative signals
  • ❌ Replace human judgment

5. Inputs

RCAS engines consume:

  • Signal values and metadata
  • Execution logs and provenance
  • Historical baselines and thresholds

6. Outputs

RCAS engines produce:

  • Root cause hypotheses
  • Supporting evidence references
  • Confidence scores and explanations

Outputs are surfaced via:

  • ZARA explainability views
  • Verifier or operator workflows

7. Governance & Trust

RCAS outputs are:

  • explicitly marked as diagnostic,
  • confidence-scored,
  • intended for human review.

They must never silently alter authoritative results.

8. Canonical Identification

  • Engine Type: RCAS
  • USO Code: RCAS
  • Category: Assistive Calculation Engine
  • Layer: Computation Hub
  • AGGR — Aggregation Engines
  • CFIL — Confidence Filter Engines
  • ZARA — Orchestration & Explainability

Status: Stable
Owner: Intelligence Governance / ZARA

GitHub RepoRequest for Change (RFC)