Solve distributionally robust markov policy

Solve a discounted Markov policy against simultaneous L1 transition-confidence sets derived from empirical state-action counts.

What it's for

Chooses recurring management or system actions that remain useful when learned transition probabilities are plausibly wrong.

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
actions array of objects (3 fields) Evidence Yes
ambiguity_scale number ≥ 0, ≤ 10 Your calibration Optional
confidence_level number ≥ 0.8, ≤ 0.999 Your calibration Optional
discount_factor number ≥ 0.5, ≤ 0.999 Your calibration Optional
max_iterations integer ≥ 10, ≤ 100000 Your calibration Optional
states array of objects (2 fields) ≥ 2 items Evidence Yes
tolerance number ≥ 1e-12, ≤ 0.01 Your calibration Optional

Each actions record

Field Type Required
cost number (≥ 0) Yes
id string (non-empty) Yes
transition_counts object Yes
Example input
{
  "actions": [
    {
      "cost": 0,
      "id": "observe",
      "transition_counts": {
        "degraded": {
          "degraded": 140,
          "healthy": 10,
          "stable": 50
        },
        "healthy": {
          "degraded": 20,
          "healthy": 140,
          "stable": 40
        },
        "stable": {
          "degraded": 40,
          "healthy": 40,
          "stable": 120
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "cost": 2,
      "id": "intervene",
      "transition_counts": {
        "degraded": {
          "degraded": 20,
          "healthy": 120,
          "stable": 60
        },
        "healthy": {
          "degraded": 10,
          "healthy": 170,
          "stable": 20
        },
        "stable": {
          "degraded": 10,
          "healthy": 140,
          "stable": 50
        }
      }
    }

Truncated for display — the full payload is 61 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
{
  "assumptions": [
    "States are Markov-sufficient, rewards and action costs are stationary and additive, and transition counts represent the deployment population.",
    "Each state-action transition distribution lies independently inside its simultaneous L1 confidence ball; this rectangular ambiguity is conservative and excludes correlated model error.",
    "The robust Bellman update protects against transition sampling error represented by the ambiguity set, not omitted states, invalid rewards, or structural regime change.",
    "Policies govern reversible team-, project-, or system-level interventions and must not automate individual employment or surveillance decisions."
  ],
  "convergence": {
    "bellman_residual": 9.62e-10,
    "nominal_iterations": 444,
    "robust_iterations": 440,
    "tolerance": 1e-9
  },
  "decision": "robust_markov_policy_available",
  "method": "rectangular_l1_distributionally_robust_mdp_v1",
  "policy": [
    {
      "ambiguity_cost": 29.508,
      "nominal_action": "intervene",
      "nominal_value": 137.8174,
      "policy_changed_by_robustness": false,
      "robust_action": "intervene",
      "robust_value": 108.3094,
      "state_id": "degraded"
    },
    {
      "ambiguity_cost": 29.508,
      "nominal_action": "intervene",
      "nominal_value": 143.7369,
      "policy_changed_by_robustness": false,
      "robust_action": "intervene",
      "robust_value": 114.2289,
      "state_id": "stable"
    },
    {
      "ambiguity_cost": 29.508,
      "nominal_action": "observe",
      "nominal_value": 150.4557,
      "policy_changed_by_robustness": false,
      "robust_action": "observe",
      "robust_value": 120.9477,
      "state_id": "healthy"
    }
  ],

Truncated for display — the full payload is 54 lines.

How it works

Markov & state-space control — Choose a policy over evolving states when today's action changes tomorrow's options.

  1. 1 Solve a discounted Markov policy against simultaneous L1 transition-confidence sets derived from empirical state-action counts.
  2. 2 Evaluate the method-specific diagnostics and gates returned by the function, then abstain unless the declared decision clears them under locally governed thresholds.

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

  • States are decision-sufficient at the chosen cadence and transition evidence is recent, identifiable, and not silently pooled across incompatible regimes.
  • A policy is conditional on the declared state abstraction and transition model; hidden omitted state can invalidate its ranking.

Minimum evidence

  • states: at least 2 rows/items
  • actions: required and organization-defined

How to validate it

Backtest the chosen action against simple feasible baselines on held-out scenarios, sweep costs/constraints/risk tolerance, and require constraint feasibility under adverse inputs.

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

  • state-action-next-state transition counts
  • Markov state discretization
  • state reward
  • action cost
  • discount factor
  • ambiguity scale

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": "solve a discounted markov policy against" }
  → finds "solve_distributionally_robust_markov_policy"

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

gitrevio_capability_run
  { "capability_id": "solve_distributionally_robust_markov_policy", "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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