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Equation 6 · How Verification Actually Works in a Claude Code Workflow

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(1−rA)(1-r_A)

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rAr_A

Symbol r_A

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subscript

subscript

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which is smaller than either (1-rAr_A) or (1-rBr_B) alone: real, additive protection. But if the two checks share a failure mode — most obviously, if the “second check” is the same model re-reading its own output inside the same context, primed by the same reasoning that produced the mistake — their misses stop being independent, and the joint miss probability climbs back toward max⁡(1−rA, 1−rB)\max(1-r_A,\ 1-r_B) : no better than the stronger of the two checks alone, and often worse in practice, because the second pass inherits the first pass’s blind spot along with its confidence.

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