feat(phase-e-4-a): alpha_window_push circular-buffer kernel + GPU test

Phase E.4.A Task 6: tiny CUDA kernel that pushes a state[state_dim]
vector into slot `head_idx` of a circular window buffer
[K, state_dim]. Host tracks head_idx and zeros buffer on episode
reset. This is the GPU-side append primitive that the smoke
binary's per-step inference will call (T7) before Mamba2 over the
buffer (T8).

GPU smoke (alpha_window_push_circular_writes_to_indexed_slot):
writes state_a at slot 0, state_b at slot 2, verifies non-targeted
slots stay zero. PASS.

docs/isv-slots.md: documents kernel as slot-agnostic per
kernel-audit-doc hook requirement.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>

crates/ml/build.rs

@@ -1621,6 +1621,10 @@ fn main() {
         // atom support, single network, no per-branch / Adam machinery —
         // testing the calibration hypothesis from `pearl_action_pruning_falsified`.
         "alpha_c51.cu",
+        // Phase E.4.A.6 (2026-05-15): circular-buffer push kernel for the
+        // sliding-window state input to the Mamba2 temporal encoder
+        // (Mamba2Block from ml-alpha).
+        "alpha_window_push.cu",
     ];
 
     // ALL kernels get common header (BF16 types + wrappers)

crates/ml/src/cuda_pipeline/alpha_kernels.rs

@@ -443,6 +443,50 @@ pub static STACKER_THRESHOLD_CONTROLLER_CUBIN: &[u8] =
 pub static ALPHA_C51_CUBIN: &[u8] =
     include_bytes!(concat!(env!("OUT_DIR"), "/alpha_c51.cubin"));
 
+/// Precompiled circular-buffer push kernel for the sliding-window state
+/// input to Mamba2 temporal encoder. Phase E.4.A.6.
+pub static ALPHA_WINDOW_PUSH_CUBIN: &[u8] =
+    include_bytes!(concat!(env!("OUT_DIR"), "/alpha_window_push.cubin"));
+
+/// Launch `alpha_window_push_kernel`. Copies the current `state_in`
+/// (state_dim floats) into the circular buffer slot indexed by
+/// `head_idx`. The host tracks `head_idx = (head_idx + 1) % K`
+/// across episode steps and zeros the window on episode reset.
+///
+/// # Safety
+/// `state_in_dev` and `window_dev` MUST be valid device pointers.
+/// `window_dev` capacity ≥ `K * state_dim` floats.
+pub unsafe fn launch_alpha_window_push(
+    stream: &cudarc::driver::CudaStream,
+    kernel: &cudarc::driver::CudaFunction,
+    state_in_dev: u64,
+    window_dev: u64,
+    head_idx: i32,
+    state_dim: i32,
+) -> Result<(), MLError> {
+    use cudarc::driver::{LaunchConfig, PushKernelArg};
+
+    debug_assert!(state_dim > 0, "state_dim must be positive");
+    debug_assert!(head_idx >= 0, "head_idx must be non-negative");
+
+    const BLOCK: u32 = 32;
+    let grid_x = ((state_dim as u32) + BLOCK - 1) / BLOCK;
+    let cfg = LaunchConfig {
+        grid_dim: (grid_x.max(1), 1, 1),
+        block_dim: (BLOCK, 1, 1),
+        shared_mem_bytes: 0,
+    };
+    stream
+        .launch_builder(kernel)
+        .arg(&state_in_dev)
+        .arg(&window_dev)
+        .arg(&head_idx)
+        .arg(&state_dim)
+        .launch(cfg)
+        .map_err(|e| MLError::ModelError(format!("alpha_window_push launch: {e}")))?;
+    Ok(())
+}
+
 /// Launch `alpha_c51_forward_kernel`. One thread per (sample, action);
 /// each thread sequentially computes n_atoms logits + softmax. Per-thread
 /// scratch lives in local memory (MAX_N_ATOMS = 64 floats hardcoded in
@@ -725,6 +769,58 @@ mod tests {
         assert!(true);
     }
 
+    /// GPU smoke for `alpha_window_push_kernel`: writes state vectors
+    /// into two non-adjacent slots of a 4-slot circular buffer and
+    /// verifies the rows land where expected; zero-initialised slots
+    /// stay zero. Phase E.4.A.6 verification.
+    #[test]
+    fn alpha_window_push_circular_writes_to_indexed_slot() -> Result<(), MLError> {
+        let ctx = CudaContext::new(0).map_err(|e| MLError::ModelError(format!("ctx: {e}")))?;
+        let stream = ctx.default_stream();
+        let module = ctx
+            .load_cubin(ALPHA_WINDOW_PUSH_CUBIN.to_vec())
+            .map_err(|e| MLError::ModelError(format!("cubin: {e}")))?;
+        let kernel = module
+            .load_function("alpha_window_push_kernel")
+            .map_err(|e| MLError::ModelError(format!("kfn: {e}")))?;
+
+        const K: usize = 4;
+        const D: usize = 3;
+        let mut window_dev = stream.alloc_zeros::<f32>(K * D)
+            .map_err(|e| MLError::ModelError(format!("alloc window: {e}")))?;
+        let state_a: Vec<f32> = vec![1.0, 2.0, 3.0];
+        let state_b: Vec<f32> = vec![10.0, 20.0, 30.0];
+        let state_a_dev = stream.clone_htod(&state_a)
+            .map_err(|e| MLError::ModelError(format!("htod a: {e}")))?;
+        let state_b_dev = stream.clone_htod(&state_b)
+            .map_err(|e| MLError::ModelError(format!("htod b: {e}")))?;
+
+        // Push state_a at head_idx=0
+        {
+            let (s_ptr, _g0) = state_a_dev.device_ptr(&stream);
+            let (w_ptr, _g1) = window_dev.device_ptr_mut(&stream);
+            unsafe {
+                launch_alpha_window_push(&stream, &kernel, s_ptr, w_ptr, 0, D as i32)?;
+            }
+        }
+        // Push state_b at head_idx=2
+        {
+            let (s_ptr, _g0) = state_b_dev.device_ptr(&stream);
+            let (w_ptr, _g1) = window_dev.device_ptr_mut(&stream);
+            unsafe {
+                launch_alpha_window_push(&stream, &kernel, s_ptr, w_ptr, 2, D as i32)?;
+            }
+        }
+        stream.synchronize().map_err(|e| MLError::ModelError(format!("sync: {e}")))?;
+        let window_host = stream.clone_dtoh(&window_dev)
+            .map_err(|e| MLError::ModelError(format!("dtoh: {e}")))?;
+        assert_eq!(&window_host[0..3], &[1.0, 2.0, 3.0], "slot 0 = state_a");
+        assert_eq!(&window_host[3..6], &[0.0, 0.0, 0.0], "slot 1 untouched");
+        assert_eq!(&window_host[6..9], &[10.0, 20.0, 30.0], "slot 2 = state_b");
+        assert_eq!(&window_host[9..12], &[0.0, 0.0, 0.0], "slot 3 untouched");
+        Ok(())
+    }
+
     /// End-to-end GPU smoke for the Munchausen target launcher.
     ///
     /// Loads the cubin, allocates synthetic inputs (batch=2, n_actions=3 with

crates/ml/src/cuda_pipeline/alpha_window_push.cu

@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+// crates/ml/src/cuda_pipeline/alpha_window_push.cu
+//
+// Phase E.4.A.6 (2026-05-15): circular-buffer push kernel for the
+// sliding-window state input to the Mamba2 temporal encoder.
+//
+// One thread per (state_dim) feature: writes `state_dim` floats from
+// `state_in[state_dim]` into `window[head_idx*state_dim .. (head_idx+1)*state_dim]`.
+// The host increments `head_idx = (head_idx + 1) % K` after each call.
+// On episode reset the host zeros the window buffer via `cudaMemsetAsync`.
+//
+// Grid: ceil(state_dim / BLOCK), Block: 32. For state_dim=10 a single
+// warp suffices — tiny launch overhead.
+
+#include <cuda_runtime.h>
+
+extern "C" __global__ void alpha_window_push_kernel(
+    const float* __restrict__ state_in,    // [state_dim] (mapped-pinned input)
+    float*       __restrict__ window,      // [K, state_dim] row-major
+    int          head_idx,                 // slot to write (host-tracked)
+    int          state_dim                 // typical 10
+) {
+    const int j = blockIdx.x * blockDim.x + threadIdx.x;
+    if (j >= state_dim) return;
+    window[head_idx * state_dim + j] = state_in[j];
+}

docs/isv-slots.md

@@ -776,3 +776,10 @@ inference; effective policy adapts via ISV slot 543 (threshold), 545
 (observed-rate EMA), 546 (Kelly attenuation). No new ISV slots
 allocated for the E.3 follow-up; E.4.B will add MoE-gate-entropy and
 Pearl-1 atom-headroom slots when those land.
+
+### Phase E.4.A.6 — alpha_window_push (2026-05-15)
+
+`crates/ml/src/cuda_pipeline/alpha_window_push.cu`: 1-kernel circular
+buffer push primitive. NO ISV slot interaction — it operates purely
+on the smoke binary's `window_dev` buffer. Documented here only for
+the kernel-audit-doc hook requirement; truly slot-agnostic.