Recipe 38: Abstention and review queues #38

Recipe 38 of 60 · Level 3 (Intermediate) · Evaluation & optimization · Choice

Use case

Route uncertain ticket classifications to review using thresholds selected from validation examples and measure accuracy versus coverage on a held-out set.

What to build

The folder recipes/38-abstention-and-review-queues/ with notebook.ipynb, README.md, and fixtures/, meeting the recipe contract. Start from python tools/new_recipe.py 38 and the template in recipes/_template/.

Build notes

• Thresholds on confidence are selected from validation examples, then frozen.
• Measure accuracy against coverage on a held-out set and plot the curve.
• Uncertain classifications go to a simulated review queue.

Decision design

• Choice. Options are a fixed set supplied by Python, including the fallback outcome this use case names. Show the choice, the per-option probabilities, and the confidence for individual examples before aggregating.

Level 3 scope

Multiple judgments or stages, structured evidence, deterministic composition, and task-level evaluation.

Acceptance criteria

• recipes/38-abstention-and-review-queues/notebook.ipynb runs top to bottom offline, with no key and no network, and its outputs are committed
• Live mode is opt-in (JEV_COOKBOOK_LIVE=1 with TYPESAFE_API_KEY) and uses the same question definitions as the offline run
• Fixtures are synthetic, include the hard cases named in the build notes, carry gold labels, and pass the fixture validator
• Every response fixture records its provenance, and the notebook states which mode it ran in
• Evaluation: Risk and coverage on the held-out set at the frozen threshold, and the full curve.
• The deterministic composition lives in a Python function with tests in tests/
• Evaluation is at task level, not only per question
• No statement about Jev's quality, latency, or cost appears without recorded live inference; in a synthetic run, metrics are labelled as pipeline checks
• recipes/38-abstention-and-review-queues/README.md says what the recipe teaches, how to run it, and what was and was not measured live
• The pull request changes only recipes/38-abstention-and-review-queues/ and CI is green

Dependencies

• Blocked by Foundation: CI executes every notebook offline and validates fixtures #69 (CI executes every notebook offline and validates fixtures)
• Builds on Recipe 04: Support ticket routing #4 (Support ticket routing). Merge those first and reuse their patterns; do not copy their fixtures.
• Tracked in Epic: Level 3 · Intermediate recipes #77

Sources

Read these before writing the questions.

• S02 · TypeSafe AI: Primitives (Questions): Choice, Noul, Score, independent questions, and dependent follow-up calls.
• S03 · TypeSafe AI: Confidence: Distribution-derived confidence and task-specific thresholds informed by observed outcomes.

Out of scope

• Changes to shared code, the catalog, or the root README. If the shared package is missing something, open a foundation issue and link it here.
• Real side effects of any kind. Actions are simulated.