Infrastructure · Data Structures
Overlap
Accept-set intersection protocol with commit-reveal for interest-based negotiation
Definition
Mechanism
Before stating positions, each agent declares their ACCEPT-SET: all outcomes they can live with. Sets are hash-committed before reveal (commit-reveal protocol). Compute intersection. If non-empty, select from intersection. If empty, both agents EXPAND accept-sets by one step and recompute. Repeat until overlap found or expansion-limit hit. It employs MECE partitioning to cleanly identify the intersection of distinct accept-sets.
Preconditions
- Two parties, each able to declare an accept-set
Postconditions
- Intersection identified
Invariants
- Accept-sets are hash-committed before any is revealed.
- Selection is from the intersection only.
- Expansion is bounded; at the expansion limit the protocol ends without agreement.
Risks
Failure modes
Strategic minimal accept-sets (mitigated but not eliminated by commit-reveal).
Expansion limit hit with no overlap.
Accept-sets too abstract to intersect meaningfully.
Requires both agents to support commit-reveal protocol.
Relationships
Builds on
References
Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive partitioning
Used by
References
Society
Weighted negotiation concession with deferred debt ledger
Reference
Data schema
{
"type": "object",
"required": [
"set_a",
"set_b"
],
"properties": {
"set_a": {
"type": "array",
"description": "First accept-set (outcome IDs)"
},
"set_b": {
"type": "array",
"description": "Second accept-set (outcome IDs)"
},
"intersection": {
"type": "array",
"description": "Common elements between sets"
},
"expansion_count": {
"type": "integer",
"description": "How many times sets were expanded to find overlap"
}
}
}