Graceful Degradation
Non-binary evaluation: preserving partial results through dependency and coverage gating logic.
The Resilient Chain
Most benchmark frameworks treat evaluation as binary: either a test executes fully, or it fails entirely. LegalChain takes a different path. When a step cannot execute, the system records why and continues, ensuring that partial reasoning is never discarded.
Dependency Gate
Did prerequisite steps complete?
Coverage Gate
Is required data present?
Adaptive Status Registry
Every step in a LegalChain run is assigned one of three primary terminal statuses. These statuses are preserved in the final jsonl output for meta-analysis.
Step executed successfully and produced valid output schema.
Step was bypassed because a prerequisite step failed or was skipped.
Step was bypassed due to missing text or metadata in the instance.
Dependency Cascades
The chain architecture creates natural cascades. If **S1 (Authority Identification)** fails to produce a result, it is impossible for **S5 (Point-to-Point Analysis)** to execute. Instead of crashing, S5 receives the SKIPPED_DEPENDENCY status, preserving the audit trail.