Glossary · subtotal-row
GLOSSARY
Subtotal row
A row inside the data that summarizes other rows in the same file, emitted by accounting and report writers between groups. It looks like a record and behaves like a total. Summing a file without removing its subtotal rows counts the same money twice, and the inflated sum still looks entirely ordinary.
Principle 1 · An AI never authors a number
Where does Subtotal row come from?
Principle 1 of the Kymira doctrine, An AI never authors a number. Subtotal row is the name the doctrine gives to what that principle requires in practice.
What failure is Subtotal row named after?
The Total row that is also data. A file ships its own summary row; the pipeline sums it along with the rows it summarizes and doubles the answer.
What does it look like on a real file?
A profit and loss export interleaves a Total Operating Expenses row between line items, so the naive sum counts those expenses twice.
Not for
Not for detecting a summary row that carries no label. A total indistinguishable from data is raised as ambiguous, never guessed at.
Nearest terms
Last updated 2026-09-02 · Dylan, founder · one of 40 terms in the Kymira glossary, each one named after something we watched go wrong in a real build or in our own audits.