Then I pointed it at the hardest rules domain I knew, to prove the engine could hold real complexity and still decide.
By 2024 the interesting test for a reasoning engine was not whether it could chat, but whether it could hold a dense, rule-heavy domain, dozens of interacting variables, and produce a decision a human would trust. Domains with strict internal logic are the honest proving ground, because a wrong answer is obvious.
A reasoning engine is easy to demo on easy problems. The real test is a domain with dense, interacting rules where a wrong call is immediately visible.
So I pointed it at one of the most rule-heavy decision systems I know, computed everything from first principles, and made the engine hold all of it at once, weigh the factors, and produce a clear recommendation with its reasoning shown. Not a guess dressed as an answer. A decision you could inspect.
It worked, and it taught me the general shape: if the engine can hold a domain this dense and stay honest about how it got there, the same machinery works anywhere a business has to weigh many factors and decide. The domain was specific. The engine was not.