Audit aggregate metric reversal

Detect Simpson's-paradox-style sign reversals between an executive aggregate relationship and its weighted within-stratum fixed-effect relationship, with whole-stratum bootstrap uncertainty and practical-magnitude gates.

What it's for

Prevents companywide metric rollups from implying the opposite of what happens within comparable teams, repositories, projects, services, or time cohorts.

What you give it

Inputs split into evidence read from your connected systems, calibration your team owns, and numerical controls that affect precision but never the result's meaning.

Field Type Role Required
bootstrap_draws integer ≥ 200, ≤ 20000 Numerical control Optional
confidence_level number ≥ 0.8, ≤ 0.99 Your calibration Optional
max_detail_rows integer ≥ 1, ≤ 500 Numerical control Optional
minimum_absolute_standardized_slope number ≥ 0.01, ≤ 1 Your calibration Optional
minimum_reversal_probability number ≥ 0.5, ≤ 1 Your calibration Optional
minimum_stratum_rows integer ≥ 3, ≤ 1000 Your calibration Optional
observations array of objects (5 fields) ≥ 50 items Evidence Yes
seed integer Numerical control Optional

Each observations record

Field Type Required
exposure number Yes
id string (non-empty) Yes
outcome number Yes
stratum_id string (non-empty) Yes
weight number (> 0) Optional
Example input
{
  "bootstrap_draws": 200,
  "observations": [
    {
      "exposure": 0,
      "id": "aggregate-reversal-0-0",
      "outcome": 0,
      "stratum_id": "team-0",
      "weight": 1
    },
    {
      "exposure": 1,
      "id": "aggregate-reversal-0-1",
      "outcome": 1,
      "stratum_id": "team-0",
      "weight": 2
    },
    {
      "exposure": 2,
      "id": "aggregate-reversal-0-2",
      "outcome": 2,
      "stratum_id": "team-0",
      "weight": 3
    },
    {
      "exposure": 3,
      "id": "aggregate-reversal-0-3",
      "outcome": 3,
      "stratum_id": "team-0",
      "weight": 1
    },
    {
      "exposure": 4,
      "id": "aggregate-reversal-0-4",
      "outcome": 4,
      "stratum_id": "team-0",
      "weight": 2
    },
    {
      "exposure": 5,
      "id": "aggregate-reversal-0-5",
      "outcome": 5,
      "stratum_id": "team-0",
      "weight": 3

Truncated for display — the full payload is 566 lines.

What you get back

This is the actual output of running the example above — computed by the same function the platform calls, not an illustration.

Example output
{
  "aggregate_relationship": {
    "confidence_interval": [
      -0.9623,
      -0.8639
    ],
    "raw_slope": -1.842,
    "standardized_slope": -0.9398
  },
  "aggregation_use": "aggregate_relationship_not_decision_safe",
  "decision": "aggregate_within_stratum_reversal_detected",
  "interpretation": "A reversal means an executive rollup answers a different question from comparable within-stratum changes; it does not by itself identify a causal mechanism.",
  "method": "weighted_fixed_effect_simpsons_reversal_cluster_bootstrap_v1",
  "reversal": {
    "bootstrap_probability": 1,
    "minimum_absolute_standardized_slope": 0.1,
    "minimum_probability": 0.9,
    "observed": true
  },
  "sample": {
    "bootstrap_draws": 200,
    "rows": 80,
    "strata": 8,
    "total_weight": 152
  },
  "strata": [
    {
      "exposure_mean": 4.5789,
      "outcome_mean": 4.5789,
      "raw_slope": 1,
      "rows": 10,
      "standardized_slope": 1,
      "stratum_id": "team-0",
      "weight": 19
    },
    {
      "exposure_mean": 9.5789,
      "outcome_mean": -5.4211,
      "raw_slope": 1,
      "rows": 10,
      "standardized_slope": 1,
      "stratum_id": "team-1",
      "weight": 19
    },

Truncated for display — the full payload is 108 lines.

How it works

Statistical audit & measurement — Check whether a number is fit to decide on: coverage, timing, reconciliation, and the gaps a dashboard hides.

  1. 1 Fit the population-weighted aggregate exposure/outcome slope at the declared observation grain and standardize it for comparability.
  2. 2 Remove weighted stratum means from exposure and outcome, then fit the weighted fixed-effect slope using only within-stratum variation.
  3. 3 Resample entire strata and then rows within each sampled stratum so uncertainty preserves the clustered data-generating structure.
  4. 4 Flag a reversal only when the slopes have opposite signs, both clear the practical standardized-magnitude threshold, and the bootstrap reversal probability clears its governed threshold.

Before you trust it

Every tool in the catalog ships with the conditions under which its answer is meaningful — and the conditions under which it should abstain instead of guessing.

Assumptions & guardrails

  • Metric definitions, weights, aggregate grain, sampling, missingness, dependence, and comparison windows correspond to the management claim being audited.
  • The declared strata are comparable contexts, contain sufficient exposure variation, and are not created after inspecting the desired result.
  • Observation weights represent the intended executive population rather than convenience or duplicated activity volume.
  • Association, instability, or measurement quality is not a causal effect and must not be converted directly into an individual employment decision.
  • A reversal proves that aggregate and within-stratum summaries answer different questions; it does not establish causality or identify why the reversal exists.

Minimum evidence

  • observations: at least 50 rows/items

How to validate it

Validate on future periods or held-out aggregate units, compare with a simple baseline, and require stability across plausible metric definitions and decision thresholds.

Calibrating it to your org

Same for everyone

The mathematical kernel, validation rules, method version, and JSON output semantics are organization-independent; no tenant-trained coefficients or company benchmark is embedded in the function.

Specific to you

  • one comparable observation per declared stratum-period grain
  • complete strata with enough within-stratum variation
  • exposure/outcome definitions and directions
  • stratification variable and minimum rows per stratum
  • practical standardized relationship and reversal-probability thresholds

Calibration workflow

  1. 1 Define the management decision, target outcome, aggregate unit, privacy boundary, cadence, and prediction/intervention horizon for this organization.
  2. 2 Build a tenant-scoped historical cohort using only information available before each prediction or decision; preserve zero periods, censoring, assignment probabilities, and unresolved outcomes when the method requires them.
  3. 3 Estimate statistical parameters on training history, but obtain costs, utilities, risk tolerance, practical-effect thresholds, capacity, and policy constraints from accountable decision owners.
  4. 4 Validate on later time windows or held-out aggregate units at the deployment grain, against a simple baseline and the function-specific validation strategy.
  5. 5 Deploy only if the returned decision clears evidence, overlap, calibration, robustness, and guardrail checks; warning, unsupported, schema-gap, and fallback decisions are abstentions.
  6. 6 Monitor realized outcomes, data drift, coverage, and decision regret; recalibrate at a governed cadence or after a detected regime/definition change, never merely because a stakeholder dislikes the result.

Call it from your AI

You don't wire up 388 tools in your MCP client. The GitRevio MCP server exposes 18 tools, three of which let an agent search the catalog, read a tool's schema, and run it — so the assistant finds this one on its own.

gitrevio_capabilities_search
  { "q": "detect simpsonsparadoxstyle sign reversals between an" }
  → finds "audit_aggregate_metric_reversal"

gitrevio_capability_describe
  { "capability_id": "audit_aggregate_metric_reversal" }
  → returns the input schema and agent guidance shown on this page

gitrevio_capability_run
  { "capability_id": "audit_aggregate_metric_reversal", "arguments": { ... } }
  → returns the result shown above

Works in Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, Continue.dev, Goose and Aider. See the MCP server.

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