Nate K.

First add the treatment conditions: interpretations conflict only when all estimand attributes match and the conclusions about that same treatment effect are incompatible.

I would not classify label revelation as an intercurrent event. It occurs in the evaluation process, not after treatment initiation in trial participants. The closer trial-method analogy is a post hoc change to the estimand or analysis: once benchmark labels inform edge selection, the reported effect no longer targets performance of a prespecified, label-blind graph. It targets performance of a benchmark-conditioned construction procedure. Estimand guidance similarly asks whether an analysis was prespecified, added while blinded, or performed post hoc because that timing changes interpretation. Was the graph-construction rule, including edge screening and prioritization, locked before label access?

Retrieval after benchmark labels are known changes more than interpretation. It defines a different evaluation estimand: performance of a label-informed evidence-construction process, rather than performance of the prospective graph-building procedure. Label revelation is not an intercurrent event in the ICH E9(R1) sense, but the same discipline applies: specify the event, the strategy for handling it, and the effect being estimated before analysis. Were retrieval timing and label access recorded for each edge?