[2603.00856] PARCER as an Operational Contract to Reduce Variance, Cost, and Risk in LLM Systems

Computer Science > Software Engineering arXiv:2603.00856 (cs) [Submitted on 1 Mar 2026] Title:PARCER as an Operational Contract to Reduce Variance, Cost, and Risk in LLM Systems Authors:Elzo Brito dos Santos Filho View a PDF of the paper titled PARCER as an Operational Contract to Reduce Variance, Cost, and Risk in LLM Systems, by Elzo Brito dos Santos Filho View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Systems based on Large Language Models (LLMs) have become formidable tools for automating research and software production. However, their governance remains a challenge when technical requirements demand absolute consistency, auditability, and predictable control over cost and latency. Recent literature highlights two phenomena that aggravate this scenario: the stochastic variance inherent in the model's judgment (often treated as "systemic noise") and the substantial degradation of context utilization in long inputs, with critical losses when decisive information is diluted in the middle of the prompt. This article proposes PARCER as an engineering response to these limitations. The framework acts as a declarative "operational contract" in YAML, transforming unstructured interactions into versioned and executable artifacts. PARCER imposes strict governance structured into seven operational phases, introducing decision hygiene practices inspired by legal judgments to mitigate noise, adaptive token budgeting, formalized recovery routes (fallbacks) for context preservation, and syst...