Experts recommend moving beyond the passive-versus-active dichotomy toward an intervention continuum framework of ecological restoration. Restoration science should guide this transition by elucidating the performance of restoration strategies and underlying mechanisms along gradients of intervention intensity, but is constrained by a paucity of relevant comparisons, conflation of restoration goals, and incomplete documentation of interventions in the present literature. Moving beyond the passive-active dichotomy in restoration science requires emphasis on (1) designing studies that compare multiple restoration treatments to identify whether and how benefits accrue with increasing intervention intensity; (2) distinguishing ecological from other ecosystem restoration goals, as goals could modify outcomes at any given intervention intensity level; and (3) documenting restoration goals, methods, and costs consistently and in sufficient detail in publications, for reproducibility in science and practice, and relevance to comparative and synthetic research, in restoration frameworks based on the intervention continuum.