Per project_ml_alpha_starting_capital greenfield posture: there is no V1
to differentiate from (the V1 trunk forward was dead code, no V1
checkpoint files exist in the wild). The 'v2' prefix on every identifier
was historical baggage from the migration period.
Renames:
- CheckpointV2 -> Checkpoint (also drops the version: u32 field —
bincode either deserialises a current envelope or errors; no migration
path needed)
- CheckpointVersionProbe removed (was only for V1 rejection)
- LAYER_NORM_CUBIN_V2 / VARIABLE_SELECTION_CUBIN_V2 / ATTENTION_POOL_CUBIN_V2
-> LAYER_NORM_CUBIN / VARIABLE_SELECTION_CUBIN / ATTENTION_POOL_CUBIN
- _ln_module_v2 / _vsn_module_v2 / _attn_module_v2 -> drop _v2 suffix
- smoke_load_v2_checkpoint test -> smoke_load_checkpoint
- config/ml/sweep_v2_*.yaml -> config/ml/sweep_*.yaml
- migration-era 'V2 weight skeleton' / 'V2 fields' / etc. comments
cleaned to remove the v2 prefix
Pre-existing 'v2' references in ml-backtesting CUDA files
(decision_policy.cu, pnl_track.cu) are NOT touched — those refer to
future planned 'v2' refinements (Portfolio mode, multi-fill averaging)
from the C1-C19 commits and reflect aspirational features unrelated to
this session's trunk-grows work.
Verification: ml-alpha + ml-backtesting + fxt-backtest all build clean.
perception_forward_golden bit-exact (max_diff = 0.000000).
X13: Adds PerceptionTrainer::save_checkpoint as a thin delegate to
self.trunk.save_checkpoint. Inference-only serialization — grads + AdamW
state aren't included.
X14: Inside the existing auc_h6000_improved block in alpha_train.rs,
calls trainer.save_checkpoint(out_dir / 'trunk_best_h6000.bin') so the
trained trunk lands alongside alpha_train_summary.json. Extends
AlphaTrainSummary with best_h6000_ckpt_path (Option<String>) so
downstream tooling (fxt-backtest --checkpoint) can locate the file
without re-deriving the path.
After this commit, every alpha-perception Argo workflow run produces
a CheckpointV2 file at every new-best-h6000 epoch, ready for backtest
consumption.
Verification:
- ml-alpha lib tests: 34 pass
- alpha_train example builds clean (release)
Per spec §1.1 (X13+X14).
Adds a single tracing::info!("step") emitted every 500 training steps:
if epoch_train_steps % 500 == 0 {
tracing::info!(epoch, step = epoch_train_steps, loss = loss, "step");
}
Consumed by /tmp/alpha_monitor.py (v2: per-epoch trajectories + ISV +
liveness) to render intra-epoch loss trajectory and detect stalls
faster than the once-per-epoch granularity allowed.
At 8000 steps/epoch and ~36s/epoch on L40S → ~16 step lines per epoch
per fold, well below the cluster log volume budget.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Add inference_only flag to MultiHorizonLoaderConfig that skips per-file
forward-label precomputation (~half the file-load cost), plus
peek_first() and next_inference_input() chronological-streaming methods
for the ml-backtesting LOB harness.
- min_size relaxed to cfg.seq_len when inference_only=true (training
still requires seq_len + max_horizon + 1 for label generation)
- New cursor fields (inference_file_idx, inference_snap_idx) walk every
loaded snapshot in chronological order; reset() zeros both
- peek_first() seeds CfcTrunk::capture_graph_a with cur==prev semantics
(prev_ts_ns==ts_ns, trade_signed_vol=0) — natural stream-start
- next_inference_input() errors if cfg.inference_only=false (guard
against accidental mixing of training/inference paths)
- All trainer call-sites (alpha_train example + multi_horizon_loader
tests) updated with inference_only: false (zero behaviour change)
- Inline test module exercises both modes; tests skip gracefully when
fixture data isn't populated rather than panicking
See docs/superpowers/specs/2026-05-18-real-lob-integration-design.md
§1 (trainer parity) + §7 (orchestrator).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Decision-stride S lets a length-K sequence span ((K-1)*S + 1) raw
snapshots instead of K consecutive ones — expands the effective
time-window covered by each sequence at the same K-positions compute
cost. With K=64 and S=4, the window covers 256 ticks (~5s on ES MBP-10
at 20ms-tick) instead of 64 ticks (~1.3s).
Loader (crates/ml-alpha/src/data/loader.rs):
- `MultiHorizonLoaderConfig.decision_stride: usize` (default 1, must
pre-existing call sites add the new field).
- `next_sequence` reads snapshot at `anchor + k * stride`; labels at the
same indices (labels stay in absolute-snapshot horizons regardless of
stride, e.g. h=6000 always means "predict 6000 raw snapshots forward").
- `prev` snapshot for microstructure features (prev_mid, prev_ts_ns)
now points to the prior K-position (`anchor + (k-1)*stride`), NOT the
consecutive-snapshot prior, so `Δt = ts_ns - prev_ts_ns` carries the
actual elapsed time between K-positions (consumed by Mamba2's dt_s and
the planned Phase 2C TGN Fourier features).
- New `#[ignore]` real-data test: `loader_stride_4_yields_correct_spacing`
asserts Δt monotonicity at stride=4.
Mamba2 dt_s (crates/ml-alpha/src/trainer/perception.rs):
- `PerceptionTrainerConfig.decision_stride: usize` plumbs the stride
through. dispatch_train_step + evaluate_batched now use
`dt_s = decision_stride as f32` so Mamba2's selective scan
`exp(-dt * sigmoid(a))` reflects the real elapsed time. With stride=1
the behaviour is identical to before.
CLI (crates/ml-alpha/examples/alpha_train.rs):
- `--decision-stride <S>` flag (default 1) wired into both train and val
loaders + PerceptionTrainerConfig.
Argo workflow:
- `decision-stride` parameter on the template (default "1") +
`--decision-stride` script flag + propagation into the train pod's
alpha_train invocation.
Synthetic smoke (tests/perception_overfit.rs):
- `stacked_trainer_loss_shrinks_with_stride_4` proves the trainer-level
dt_s=4.0 keeps the Mamba2+LN+CfC+GRN chain numerically stable.
Converges 0.32 → 0.0000 (matches stride=1 smoke trajectory — dt_s
scaling didn't break the SSM dynamics).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Three correlated fixes addressing the architectural inconsistency
surfaced by the 3-fold ISV CV: we built a horizon-aware gradient
controller (ISV) but suppressed its target horizon (h6000) to 0.36%
of the loss via auto-horizon-weights, then used a ratio formula
that never approached its own clamp ceiling. ISV's lambda was
operating on rounding error.
(1) Uniform BCE weights as auto-default
trainer/perception.rs: `auto_horizon_weights` now returns
[1.0; 5] regardless of seq_len. Prior schedule `min(1, K/h)`
gave h6000 weight 0.0053 at K=32 — combined with lambda ~1.04,
h6000's effective loss contribution was ~0.37%, indistinguishable
from zero. With uniform weights, each horizon contributes 20% and
ISV's lambda actually has something to scale.
(2) Z-score lambda derivation
cuda/horizon_lambda.cu: replace `ratio = ema_h / mean(ema)` with
`z_h = (ema_h - mean) / std(ema); lambda = clamp(1.0 + 0.5*z, 1.0, 2.0)`.
Per `pearl_zscore_normalization_for_magnitude_asymmetric_signals.md`
z-score makes lambda spread scale-invariant of the absolute EMA
level. The ratio formula gave lambdas ≤ 1.04 in our data because
per-horizon BCE clusters tightly (range ~0.04) while mean is
~0.65. Z-score fills the [1.0, 2.0] envelope: 1σ → 1.5, 2σ →
ceiling. Boost-only asymmetric clamp preserved.
Test verification on the existing smoke (after 5 steps):
ema = [0.526, 0.522, 0.608, 0.641, 0.553]
lambda = [1.00, 1.00, 1.40, 1.76, 1.00]
Previously with ratio formula, max lambda on the same data
would have been ~1.05. h1000 (1.5σ above mean BCE here) now
gets a 76% trunk-gradient boost vs uniform.
(3) Default --seq-len 32 → 64
examples/alpha_train.rs: K=32 gives the model 0.5% of the
h6000 prediction window as in-window context. K=64 doubles
that, giving Mamba2's SSM state more material to build
long-horizon predictions. Within the kernel's MAMBA2_KERNEL_SEQ_MAX
cap of 96. Per-epoch wall scales ~K (more K-loop launches in
the captured graph, ~2× wall at K=64 vs K=32 for the K-loop
portion of dispatch).
Cache-bust v5 in build.rs to force nvcc recompile against the new
horizon_lambda.cu formula on the cluster's /cargo-target PVC. Old
cubins compute a numerically different lambda; running them against
the new Rust loop would silently apply the wrong gradient scaler.
Validation: 7 perception_overfit tests + 26 lib + 23 integration
ml-alpha tests pass. Synthetic overfit still converges to 0.0006.
horizon_ema_and_lambda_track_after_training observes the new
lambda spread (1.0-1.76) and asserts the asymmetric clamp envelope.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Three correlated changes for the next CV round:
1. Mamba2 state_dim cap: 16 → 32
cuda/mamba2_alpha_kernel.cu: MAMBA2_ALPHA_MAX_STATE_D 16 → 32.
Per-thread state register `float x[32]` (128 B/thread) and
per-thread x_hist replay cache `float x_hist[K*32]` (up to
12 KiB/thread of local memory at K=96). L40S/H100 register file
(256 KiB/SM) absorbs this without occupancy collapse for our
block dims (32-128 threads). Update Rust-side
MAMBA2_KERNEL_STATE_MAX + validation message + test name. Kernel
header doc updated.
2. New early-stop option: auc_h6000
examples/alpha_train.rs: add the long-horizon AUC as a third
early-stop metric. The ISV CV (3a196382f, 5d42ab0e9, 0171c8c0e)
showed mean_auc-best-epoch and h6000-best-epoch can differ by
1-2 epochs and the h6000 gap can be 5-6pt within a single run
(fblb2 fold-1: saved E10 h6000=0.681, but E11 h6000=0.739 — we
threw away the deployment-better checkpoint). For multi-minute
trading deployment we want the h6000-best checkpoint directly.
3. Summary JSON: best_auc_h6000_epoch / best_auc_h6000 /
best_auc_h6000_per_horizon
So the analysis tooling can see the h6000-best checkpoint
independently of mean_auc / val_loss bests.
Test rename: test_mamba2_config_rejects_state_over_16 →
test_mamba2_config_rejects_state_over_32 (tests now reject state_dim=33).
build.rs cache-bust v4 forces cluster nodes to recompile the kernel
against the new MAMBA2_ALPHA_MAX_STATE_D — old cubins from previous
SHAs were sized for state_d=16 and would silently truncate state_d=32
state arrays.
Validation: 26 lib + 23 integration ml-alpha tests pass. Mamba2 block
tests use state_dim=8 or 16 (well below the new cap), exercise both
the forward + backward + AdamW paths.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Fold-2 of the asymmetric-ISV 3-fold CV regressed -2.0pt mean_auc
vs no-ISV (0.696 vs 0.716) while folds 0 and 1 gained +1.3pt and
+2.5pt respectively. To understand why the controller hurts that
specific regime, log the per-horizon BCE EMA and lambda multiplier
each epoch via the trainer's `loss_ema_snapshot()` /
`lambda_snapshot()` accessors (mapped-pinned reads; per-epoch
budget, not hot-path).
Single fold-2 re-run on `--cv-fold 2 --cv-n-folds 3
--cv-train-window 4` will surface:
- which horizon's BCE the controller flagged as hardest each epoch
- whether lambda saturated at the [1.0, 2.0] ceiling for one horizon
- whether the lambda trajectory has more variance vs the
stable-fold runs (suggests the regime drifts during training)
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
mhzs7 reported val mean_auc=0.726 on 3a196382f — but the trainer
constructed both train and val MultiHorizonLoader with the SAME
`mbp10_root: cli.mbp10_data_dir`. The two loaders only differed by
seed. So val sequences were held-out-by-anchor from the same files
train sampled from; not temporally OOS. Per
`pearl_single_window_oos_is_not_oos.md` a single-window result that
doesn't enforce time-ordered separation can collapse across true
walk-forward folds.
Refactor: drop `mbp10_root` from `MultiHorizonLoaderConfig` (which
forced caller to share the dir between train and val). New API takes
an explicit `files: Vec<PathBuf>` — the loader preserves the order
given and does no internal shuffle, so callers control temporal
ordering. Added `discover_mbp10_files_sorted(root)` helper that
enumerates a dir and sorts by filename (chronological under the
`ES.FUT_<YEAR>-Q<n>.dbn.zst` convention).
alpha_train.rs splits the discovered files by 3 new CLI flags:
--cv-fold <k> (default 0)
--cv-n-folds <N> (default 1 — single fold)
--cv-train-window <W> (default 0 — auto)
Single-fold default (cv_n_folds=1): train on all files except the
last, val on the last file. This replaces the old "same files for
both" bug; even runs that don't think about CV now get a temporal
split by default.
Sliding-window CV (cv_n_folds > 1): fold k trains on files
[k..k+W] and validates on file [k+W]. With 9 quarterly files
(2024-Q1..2026-Q1) and `--cv-n-folds 3`, the natural layout is:
fold 0: train 2024-Q1..2024-Q4 (W=4) → val 2025-Q1
fold 1: train 2024-Q2..2025-Q1 → val 2025-Q2
fold 2: train 2024-Q3..2025-Q2 → val 2025-Q3
blind holdout: 2025-Q4, 2026-Q1
Threaded the flags through scripts/argo-alpha-perception.sh and
infra/k8s/argo/alpha-perception-template.yaml so each fold submits
as an independent workflow.
Updated tests/multi_horizon_loader.rs to the new API:
loader_yields_seq_with_valid_labels — exercises discover + load.
loader_errors_on_empty_files — replaces missing-root test.
discover_errors_on_missing_root — pinpoints the discover step.
Honors:
- feedback_no_partial_refactor.md — every consumer migrated atomically.
- feedback_no_legacy_aliases.md — no `mbp10_root` shim left behind.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
cnjfl wall-time analysis: 80% of training time was disk IO. The
MultiHorizonLoader was constructed fresh per epoch in the CLI loop,
forcing 9 file deserializations from bincode (~50s/file × 9 = 7-8
min) per epoch. For a 6-epoch run that was ~45 min of pure IO out
of ~50 min total.
Now loaders preload ALL files into RAM at construction (one-time
~7 min startup) and expose a `reset(seed: u64)` method that
re-seeds anchor sampling per epoch — no disk IO between epochs.
Memory cost: ~13-15 GB for the 9-quarter ES.FUT dataset (45M
snapshots × ~280 bytes). Well under the training pod's 64 GB
limit; current 16 GB request remains sufficient since the resident
set fits.
Expected wall-time impact at K=96, B=8, 16K seqs:
6 epochs: ~50 min → ~13 min (~3.7×)
15 epochs: ~120 min → ~23 min (~5×)
The internal LoadedFile-cache-with-cycling logic is gone — the
loader now holds Vec<LoadedFile> with all files resident. Per-call
`next_sequence` picks a uniformly random file + uniformly random
anchor inside it (instead of cycling files with a per-file budget).
Distribution is equivalent: each file contributes ~n_max_sequences /
n_files samples per epoch in expectation.
77 ml-alpha tests pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
cnjfl evidence: val_loss and mean_auc disagree.
val_loss best at e3 (0.5592)
mean_auc best at e4 (0.7670 — new h300 + h6000 peaks)
For downstream trading, ranking quality (AUC) matters more than
probability calibration (BCE loss). New default is mean_auc-based
early stopping, but val_loss/none remain selectable.
AUC is noisier than loss epoch-to-epoch (1-2pt bounces are common
even when long-horizon AUCs are still drifting up under
auto-horizon-weights), so patience defaults bump from 3 → 5.
CLI: --early-stop-metric {val_loss|mean_auc|none} default mean_auc
--early-stop-patience N default 5
Argo template parameters added with matching defaults.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
cnjfl run showed val_loss and mean-AUC peak at different epochs:
epoch 3: val_loss=0.5592 (best) mean_auc=0.7608
epoch 4: val_loss=0.5609 (worse) mean_auc=0.7670 (best — new h300 + h6000 peaks)
val_loss tracks probability calibration; AUC tracks ranking quality.
For downstream trading the ranking profile matters more — so we now
publish both bests in alpha_train_summary.json and log a "new best
mean_auc" line whenever a new mean-AUC peak lands.
Early stopping still gates on val_loss (the two policies stay
decoupled — mean-AUC is reported-only).
New summary fields:
best_mean_auc_epoch
best_mean_auc
best_mean_auc_per_horizon
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Plumbs the batched cfc + heads kernels added in 829ddfa62 through
PerceptionTrainer, evaluator, and the alpha_train CLI:
PerceptionTrainerConfig.n_batch — batch size, default 1
PerceptionTrainer::step_batched — process B sequences per
optimizer step using
cfc_step_batched / heads_batched
PerceptionTrainer::evaluate_batched — forward-only batched eval
PerceptionTrainer::step / evaluate — thin B=1 wrappers preserving
existing single-sequence
test/inference APIs (assert
cfg.n_batch == 1)
alpha_train CLI: --batch-size N — accumulates B sequences per
optimizer step in train loop;
val loop also batches and uses
evaluate_batched
Per-K scratch buffers all grow to [K, B, dim] layout (K-major, slot-k
contiguous). Mamba2's [B, K, H] output is transposed once after
forward via the new transpose_3d_swap_01 kernel, and grad_h_enriched_seq_t
is transposed back to [B, K, H] before Mamba2 backward. Two transposes
per training step; negligible (1.5MB at B=32).
Dead unbatched kernel handles removed from the trainer (step_fn,
step_bwd_fn, heads_fn, heads_bwd_fn, grad_x_d) — all training and
inference now go through the batched variants for B ≥ 1. The
single-sample kernels remain in CUDA for the standalone test helpers
in cfc/step.rs and heads.rs.
Local 2Q smoke (seq_len=32, B=4, --auto-horizon-weights, 800 train
seqs × 2 epochs):
epoch 0: val_loss=0.7138 AUC h30/h100/h300/h1000/h6000 = .55/.55/.57/.61/.51
epoch 1: val_loss=0.6558 AUC h30/h100/h300/h1000/h6000 = .72/.68/.75/.68/.65
vs the in-flight qf5mj baseline (B=1, K=96, no horizon weighting) which
had val_loss=0.6933 best and AUCs oscillating at ~0.50 — this batched
run hits AUC 0.75 (h300) and 0.72 (h30) in just 2 epochs of 200
optimizer updates. Batching + horizon-weighting unblocks the model.
77 ml-alpha tests pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
For seq_len K and horizon h with h ≫ K, the K position-supervised
labels in a single sequence are near-identical (sequential positions'
forward windows overlap by ~(h-1)/h). Per-position BCE therefore
treats ~K highly-correlated labels as independent samples, inflating
gradient pressure on long horizons by a factor of K.
Concretely at K=96:
h=30 → ~3 effective samples per seq (forward windows overlap ~97%)
h=100 → ~1 (~99%)
h=6000 → ~1 (~99.98%)
Per-position supervision was paying 96× the natural signal density on
h=6000, pulling the model toward fitting noise at long horizons.
Fix: the fused BCE kernel now accepts an optional
`loss_weights[N_HORIZONS]` (nullptr → uniform = no-op). Each (k, h)
loss + grad contribution is multiplied by w_h; the normaliser is the
sum of weighted valid entries instead of the raw valid count.
`auto_horizon_weights(K, horizons)` computes `w_h = min(1.0, K/h)` so
short horizons stay at full weight and long horizons collapse to
their independent-sample density. Exposed via CLI:
--auto-horizon-weights # K/h auto-derived
--horizon-weights "1,1,0.5,0.1,0.02" # explicit floats
Default behaviour is uniform (1.0) — apples-to-apples with the
in-flight qf5mj baseline. Synthetic overfit still 0.6268 → 0.1144 in
250 steps (82% drop). 77 tests pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Comprehensive fix for the issues identified after the BPTT-unroll cluster
run plateaued at val_loss ~0.692 with oscillating AUCs:
ARCHITECTURE
- CfC h_old is now RECURRENT across positions. Previously reset to
zero every step → CfC degenerated to a per-cell tanh-FC layer.
New: h_old at step k IS h_new at step k-1. Heads still operate
on h_new_k, but now the CfC actually carries state. Reverse-order
backward through the K positions accumulates grad_h_old → grad_h_new
via the new optional `grad_h_carry` arg on multi_horizon_heads_backward.
- tau is TRAINED. cfc_step_backward now writes grad_tau (per-cell decay
constant derivative), trainer gets a 7th AdamW group at 0.1× cfc lr.
- 6 NEW regime features (EMA cascade computed loader-side per file)
fill slots out[20..26] of snap_features. Gives the model multi-minute
trend / volatility / liquidity context that is structurally unreachable
inside the K-snapshot BPTT window. Slots: mid-z (med/slow), trend
signal, log-vol slow, log-spread med, log-trade-rate med. All bounded
via log1p / signed-log so no tuned constants leak in.
PERFORMANCE (NVIDIA-style)
- GPU-fused multi-horizon BCE for the entire [K, N_HORIZONS] grid in
ONE launch (was K host roundtrips). Native NaN-label masking.
- K-loop is fully GPU-resident: pre-allocated per-K scratch
(h_new_per_k, probs_per_k, labels_per_k, grad_probs_per_k), zero
device allocs inside step(). Only TWO syncs per sequence (after
forward, after backward) vs previously 2K+1.
- Stream-ordered kernel launches with pointer-offset addressing into
per-K buffers — host doesn't wait between K iterations.
- cfc_step_backward / multi_horizon_heads_backward both use += grad
semantics; trainer pre-zeroes accumulators once per step().
- MAMBA2_ALPHA_MAX_K capped at 96 (was temporarily at 256). 96 covers
h=30/100/300 with room; regime features handle h=1000/h=6000.
TRAINING DISCIPLINE
- LR schedule: linear warmup (default 200 steps) + cosine decay to
lr * lr_min_factor (default 0.1). Applied per training step to both
CfC and Mamba2 AdamW groups via new set_lr_cfc/set_lr_mamba2.
- Best-checkpoint tracking by val_loss; recorded in summary
(best_epoch, best_val_loss, best_val_auc).
- Early stopping on val_loss plateau (default patience = 3).
- CRITICAL BUG FIX: validation now uses new `evaluate()` method
(forward-only) instead of `step()`. Previous CLI called step()
on val data, which ran the full backward + AdamW update on the
validation set. With per-step BPTT that's ~K× more pressure than
the old comment ("statistically negligible") assumed.
Synthetic overfit: 0.6442 → 0.1233 in 250 steps (81% drop, sharper
than the previous 70%). 77 ml-alpha tests pass.
Local 2Q smoke (seq_len=64, 600 train seqs/epoch, 4 epochs):
val_loss 0.7011 → 0.6990, best epoch=1, h300 AUC 0.565 in epoch 0.
Phase E.3 callers (ml/examples/alpha_baseline.rs,
alpha_dqn_h600_smoke.rs) use the LEGACY Mamba2 forward_train +
backward_from_h_enriched path — unaffected by these changes (their
kernels are pre-zeroed via alloc_zeros, so the += grad semantics
remain correct in single-call mode).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The final-step-only trainer (one BCE prediction per 32-snapshot
window) trained flat at chance on real ES data despite working on
synthetic overfit: train_loss=0.6953, val_loss=0.6943 across 40k
gradient steps. Gradient density was the bottleneck — one supervised
position per sequence × ~8K seqs/epoch isn't enough signal for the
SSM to find the alpha.
This commit supervises the model at EVERY position in the sequence:
mamba2_alpha_scan_fwd_seq — emits h_enriched at every t step
([N, K, sh2] instead of [N, sh2])
mamba2_alpha_scan_bwd_seq — accepts d_h_enriched_seq, injects
gradient at each t before propagating
d_state through the gate chain.
d_w_c and d_h_s2 accumulate across t.
PerceptionTrainer.step() — loop k=0..K; cfc + heads + BCE at
each valid label; cfc/heads grads
accumulate via += in kernel writes.
One Mamba2 backward call consumes the
full grad_h_enriched_seq.
cfc_step_backward — grad_w_in/w_rec/b writes changed
to += (callers MUST pre-zero).
multi_horizon_heads_backward — grad_w/grad_b writes changed to +=.
alpha_train.rs — passes per-position label rows to
step(); AUC still scored from
last-position predictions.
Phase E.3 callers (alpha_baseline.rs, alpha_dqn_h600_smoke.rs) use
the LEGACY Mamba2 forward_train + backward path with `alloc_zeros`
grad buffers — unaffected.
Synthetic overfit still converges 0.6664 → 0.1976 in 250 steps.
Local 2-quarter ES.FUT smoke shows the val AUC at h300 climbing
0.513 → 0.566 over 3 epochs (was flat-at-chance before). First
gradient signal we've gotten through the new architecture.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Per user direction "no gating, this is the new default": the stacked
Mamba2 -> CfC -> heads design is THE production architecture. There's
no competing-baseline comparison to run. Validation reduces to normal
training metrics (per-horizon val AUC, train loss curve, sanity floor
of >0.5 AUC).
Deletions:
- crates/ml-alpha/src/gate/cfc_vs_mamba2.rs (gate verdict logic)
- crates/ml-alpha/src/gate/mod.rs
- crates/ml-alpha/examples/alpha_gate.rs (gate runner binary)
Renames:
- crates/ml-alpha/src/gate/auc.rs -> crates/ml-alpha/src/eval/auc.rs
- lib.rs: pub mod gate -> pub mod eval (gate implied comparison;
eval doesn't)
Spec amendments:
- Drop the "Gate baseline strategy" amendment (committed earlier
this session)
- Reframe the stacked-architecture amendment as a "decision" not a
"gate"; production path is unambiguous
- Reframe Section 4 "Validation gate: CfC must meet Mamba2" -> just
"Validation: per-horizon val AUC" with the >0.5 sanity floor
Doc cleanups: stale "Mamba2 gate baseline" mentions in build.rs and
pinned_mem.rs replaced with neutral wording. The Argo template
comment about "downstream gate consumption" becomes "for monitoring".
Test status: all 26+ ml-alpha tests pass. AUC tests (6/6) still pass
under the eval:: namespace.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The merged Mamba2 -> CfC -> heads design from the 2026-05-16 spec
amendment supersedes the CfC-alone path. Removing the old CfC-only
PerceptionTrainer and renaming the stacked Mamba2CfcTrainer to
PerceptionTrainer (one trainer, clean naming).
Deletions:
- src/trainer/perception.rs (the OLD CfC-only trainer)
- tests/perception_overfit.rs (CfC-only smoke)
- tests/perception_debug_dump.rs (CfC-only trajectory print)
- tests/stacked_overfit.rs (replaced by perception_overfit pointing
at the renamed module)
Renames:
- src/trainer/stacked.rs -> src/trainer/perception.rs
- Mamba2CfcTrainer -> PerceptionTrainer
- Mamba2CfcTrainerConfig -> PerceptionTrainerConfig
- tests/stacked_overfit.rs content -> tests/perception_overfit.rs
CLI rewrite:
examples/alpha_train.rs now drives the stacked PerceptionTrainer.
Per-step inputs are sequences (Vec<Mbp10RawInput>) of length
seq_len; labels come from the LAST position of the window
(per-horizon). Flags: --seq-len, --mamba2-state-dim, --lr-cfc,
--lr-mamba2 (no more --n-hid since hidden_dim is fixed at 128 to
match Mamba2 and CfC by design).
Test status:
- 64 GPU tests pass on local sm_86 (31 lib unit + 33 integration)
- synthetic-overfit (rebranded perception_overfit): 250 steps,
initial=0.5951 -> final=0.1917 (68% drop, well above 40% gate)
- All bit-equiv / finite-diff / invariant tests still PASS
- One ignored test: the gate_artifact integration (waiting for
cluster-trained summary inputs)
The cluster gate (Task 18) now compares stacked-trained AUC vs a
Mamba2-baseline AUC (TBD: stacked vs a simpler "Mamba2 only" config
or an external reference baseline).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
GateReport + GateVerdict + load_summary in src/gate/cfc_vs_mamba2.rs.
Verdict criterion per spec Section 4 (with 2026-05-16 stacked
amendment): CfC AUC >= Mamba2 AUC - tolerance at every horizon.
Default tolerance 0.01.
alpha_gate binary takes two AlphaTrainSummary JSON paths (one per
backbone, generated by alpha_train), runs the verdict, emits
phase_a_gate.json with the full report + verdict, exits 0/1.
Tests (5/5 lib unit):
- PASS when CfC >= Mamba2 everywhere
- PASS within tolerance (CfC 0.005 below)
- FAIL at long horizon (h=1000, 6000)
- FAIL at short horizon (h=30)
- delta signs correctly track relative performance
For the cluster gate run (Task 18), the Mamba2 baseline summary is
generated by an existing/separate Mamba2 trainer pass on the same
data window. Apples-to-apples comparison requires identical train +
val seeds and quarters.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
CLI wraps PerceptionTrainer + MultiHorizonLoader for end-to-end
training. Per-epoch loop:
- train: stream sequences from MultiHorizonLoader, step per
position with reset_hidden_state (K=1 BPTT), accumulate train
loss
- val: separate loader on disjoint seed, accumulate (probs,
labels) per horizon, compute Mann-Whitney U AUC
Emits alpha_train_summary.json with final train loss + per-horizon
val AUC for downstream gate consumption.
Adds PerceptionTrainer::last_probs() — slow-path readback of the
most recent forward's probs. Used by the eval loop to capture
per-position predictions for AUC.
Args: --mbp10-data-dir --predecoded-dir --out --epochs --n-hid
--seq-len --lr --n-train-seqs --n-val-seqs --seed (all with sane
defaults from spec Section 4 Phase A).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Holds perception outputs (slots 0..13) on-device; slow-path write/snapshot
go through MappedF32Buffer DtoD per the htod/htoh discipline. Slot
semantics documented in design spec Section 7.
Also deletes examples/alpha_mamba_baseline.rs which Task 1 left orphaned
(used the deleted eval + training modules). Task 17 will rebuild the
Mamba2 baseline trainer path inside gate/cfc_vs_mamba2.rs against the
new Phase A loader.
Tests pass on local sm_86 (3/3): round-trip one slot, 32-slot capacity,
multi-slot independent writes.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Removes mlp/training/eval/backtest/metrics_detail/calibration and the
old example trainers. Preserves multi_horizon_labels, purged_split,
fxcache_reader (Phase A data path), mamba2_block (gate reference).
Subsequent commits populate cfc/heads/isv/pinned/trainer/data/gate.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Two complementary additions to validate the minute-horizon alpha
hypothesis at IBKR-realistic costs:
1. `alpha_baseline --decision-stride N`: emits a new action every N
steps; between decisions force action=0 (wait) so an open position
is held rather than re-decided per bar. Cuts per-bar trade counts
~stride× and removes the coin-flip overtrading. Local 2Q sweep
showed stride=200 + scaled training (8K episodes × 25 envs × H=1200)
flipped Sharpe at ¼-tick from -4.29 (per-bar, 3-fold mean) to +1.78,
with std collapsing from ±8.8 to ±1.15. Break-even cost moved from
<¼-tick to ~1-tick — for the first time positive at IBKR-realistic
passive-execution frictions.
2. `alpha_train_stacker --max-rows N`: optional cap on bars consumed
from the fxcache. Used during local 2Q smoke (--max-rows 4M against
the 17.8M-row 9Q fxcache) to fit Mamba2 training on a 4 GB consumer
GPU; on the cluster (--no-cap) it sees all 9Q.
3. New Argo workflow `alpha-cv`: standalone template that compiles
alpha_train_stacker + alpha_baseline + alpha_fill_coeffs.json,
trains the stacker on the 9Q fxcache, then runs 9 sequential
walk-forward folds of alpha_baseline on disjoint 1.9M-bar windows
(one per quarter). Launcher script `scripts/argo-alpha-cv.sh`
mirrors argo-train.sh conventions.
The local 2Q test that motivated this commit is summarised inline in
the alpha-cv template comments; the verdict was "framing was the bug —
once decision cadence matches the multi-minute alpha horizon, the
strategy is positive at IBKR commission".
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
System-scoped naming for the alpha trading system's training binaries —
same rationale as the earlier phase_e_* → alpha_* rename. These binaries
produce / validate the durable alpha-system components (Mamba2 + stacker
+ calibration); they're tooling, not milestone artifacts.
phase1a.rs → alpha_bar_baseline.rs
phase1a_detailed.rs → alpha_bar_detailed.rs
phase1d_calibrate.rs → alpha_calibrate.rs
phase1d_mamba.rs → alpha_mamba_baseline.rs
phase1d_long_horizon.rs → alpha_train_stacker.rs
clap `name = "..."` strings updated to match new filenames; cross-refs
in docstrings (alpha_calibrate.rs, gbm_baseline.rs) fixed.
Plus: NEW `--alpha-cache-out <PATH>` flag on alpha_train_stacker.rs
(Phase E.1 Task 12b). After the existing Mamba2 + stacker training
completes, runs stacker inference on ALL bars (not just val/test) and
dumps the resulting alpha_logits as a little-endian binary file:
[u32 n_bars] [f32 logits[n_bars]]
Bars `< seq_len − 1` are written as 0.0 (Pearl A sentinel — no history).
Inference uses the same Block-S column normalisation (col_mean/col_std)
computed during stacker training, applied to all bars consistently.
This cache is consumed by alpha_dqn_h600_smoke.rs (next commit) which
loads it and populates SnapshotRow.alpha_logit — replacing the current
hardcoded 0.0 placeholder with the real Phase 1d.3 stacker output.
Build verified: `cargo build -p ml-alpha --release --example alpha_train_stacker`
completes clean in 40s.
Initial single-cost backtest at τ=0.25 cost=0.25 revealed the binding
constraint: mean_ret = -0.176, pre-cost EV ≈ +0.074, so the model has
a real directional edge but K=6000 price moves are too small to clear
1-tick round-trip cost. The cost-vs-edge balance is the real Phase 1d.4
verdict question, not whether the model has signal.
Two enhancements per the insight block in the previous run:
1. **Cost sweep**: GpuBacktest::run now takes `costs: &[f32]` and
produces (C × T) rows instead of T. The smoke runs at five costs:
- 0.0 frictionless upper bound (theoretical max Sharpe)
- 0.0625 quarter-tick (very aggressive execution)
- 0.125 half-tick (professional desk)
- 0.25 1 tick = $12.50/contract (retail / pessimistic)
- 0.50 2 ticks (very pessimistic)
Tells us the break-even cost where Sharpe crosses zero.
2. **Annualised Sharpe**: per-trade Sharpe × sqrt(trades_per_year).
trades_per_year = n_trades × (seconds_per_year / test_time_span_seconds).
test_time_span_seconds derived from first/last test sequence end-bar
timestamps via FxCacheReader::record_timestamp. Standard Sharpe-time-
scaling assumption (trades roughly i.i.d.); imperfect when signals
cluster in correlated regimes, but the right ballpark for comparison
with industry benchmarks.
Output adds per-cost-band "best operating point" tables plus a clear
"REALISTIC VERDICT" line at cost=0.125 (half-tick — what a professional
desk would actually pay) with three gates:
- Sharpe_ann > 2.0 → deployable
- 0.5 < Sharpe_ann ≤ 2.0 → marginal
- Sharpe_ann ≤ 0.5 → fail at realistic cost
The "FRICTIONLESS UPPER BOUND" line reports the intrinsic edge — what
the model could theoretically achieve at zero cost. Even if realistic
Sharpe fails, this number tells us whether the model has anything to
optimise toward at deployment.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Four new kernels in mamba2_alpha_kernel.cu:
- backtest_per_trade_pnl : [T, N] per-trade PnL with threshold filter
- backtest_sum_reduce_f32 : block tree-reduce returns per threshold (T scalars)
- backtest_sum_squared_reduce : block tree-reduce returns² per threshold (T scalars)
- backtest_sum_reduce_i32 : block tree-reduce trade counts per threshold
All atomicAdd-free via block tree-reduce in shared memory (per
feedback_no_atomicadd). Single kernel launch handles the full
threshold sweep across all sequences via grid_x=T, grid_y=ceil(N/256).
New module crates/ml-alpha/src/backtest.rs:
- GpuBacktest::from_block(&Mamba2Block) — reuses cubin already loaded
- GpuBacktest::run(probs, prices_t, prices_kt, thresholds, cost) → Vec<BacktestStats>
- Returns: n_trades, mean_ret, std_ret, Sharpe (per-trade unannualised),
hit_rate, total_pnl per threshold
Wired into phase1d_long_horizon.rs after the stacker eval:
- Convert stacker_logits → probs via sigmoid
- Upload probs + end-bar prices + (end-bar + horizon) prices to GPU
- Sweep thresholds [0.00, 0.02, 0.05, 0.10, 0.15, 0.20, 0.25]
- Print per-threshold table + best Sharpe operating point
- GATE: per-trade Sharpe > 1.5 = deployable, 0.5-1.5 = marginal, < 0.5 = fail
Cost model: 0.25 price units round-trip = 1 ES.FUT tick = $12.50/contract.
Tunable via --cost-per-trade. Realistic for retail flow; brokers can
trade at half-tick or better.
GPU-pure on the hot path: kernels do per-trade math + reductions;
host only receives T (= 7 here) scalars per metric for final Sharpe
arithmetic. No GPU↔CPU roundtrip per trade.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Bool flag with `default_value_t = true` doesn't accept `--stacker true`
on the command line in clap — it expects either the flag alone (which
inverts) or a custom action. Cleanest fix: drop the flag entirely;
the stacker block always runs when cal_frac is in (0, 1).
Phase 1d.3 stacker delivered the key result:
- Stacker test AUC: 0.7078 (raw Mamba: 0.6619, +4.6pts)
- Stacker test accuracy: 0.6683 (raw Mamba: 0.6187, +5.0pts)
- Stacker test Brier: 0.2088 (raw Mamba: 0.2299, well below chance 0.25)
- Stacker spread-Q4 accuracy: 0.8164 (raw Mamba spread-Q4: 0.7467, +7pts intra-regime)
See pearl_stacker_beats_threshold_gate_with_regime_info.md for full
write-up and design implications for Phase 1d.4 backtest.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Builds a second-stage MLP that takes [mamba_logit, 6 Block-S features]
as input (7 dims) and learns the joint alpha-and-regime score in one
calibrated output. Trains on the cal half of val (same 50/50 split as
Platt/isotonic so all comparisons are on the same held-out test bars).
Architecture: 7 → hidden_dim → 1 sigmoid, GELU activation, BCE-with-logits
loss, AdamW. Uses the existing GPU-native `MlpModel` from
crates/ml-alpha/src/mlp.rs — same primitives used for the Phase 1c MLP
baseline. No CPU compute on the hot path (per feedback_cpu_is_read_only);
all weights, activations, gradients, optimizer state on GPU; host writes
the input matrix to a pinned buffer once per batch via GpuTensor::from_host.
The Block-S columns are z-score normalised using cal-half statistics
(then applied to the full val matrix) before training; mamba_logit is
left raw since it's already close to standard-normal scale via the
Mamba's natural calibration (see pearl_mamba_sss_state_yields_native_calibration).
After training, reports stacker held-out accuracy + AUC + Brier +
log-loss, plus stratified accuracy by Block-S feature so we can see
whether the stacker absorbed the regime conditioning (uniform accuracy
across quintiles) or just sharpened the Q4-gate (still elevated in Q4).
Why this matters for production deployment per pearl_mamba_inherits_regime_structure:
- Single calibrated score for conformal coverage gating downstream
- Retrainable when market regimes drift
- Captures interactions between regime features that a static threshold
AND can't (e.g., spread-Q4 only when book is balanced)
- Replaces the planned Phase 1d.3 dual-head architecture with a smaller
stacked-generalisation approach (no separate regime classifier)
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
After calibration, also stratify val accuracy across the 6 Block-S
features (time_since_trade, time_since_snap, book_event_rate, spread_bps,
L1_imbalance, micro_mid_drift) by sampling each val sequence's END BAR
feature value, then running `metrics_detail::stratified_accuracy` per
column with 5 quintile bins.
Tells us whether the K=6000 Mamba alpha concentrates in specific book
regimes (justifying an explicit regime head per Phase 1d.3) or is
uniform across regimes (allowing direct backtest in Phase 1d.4). The
Phase 1c stateless MLP showed strong stratification (spread-Q4 hit
0.752 acc on 76K samples while middle quintiles fell below 0.50);
this run tests whether the Mamba inherits or transcends that pattern.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Extends phase1d_long_horizon with a 50/50 val split (cal/test halves):
fit Platt and Isotonic on cal, evaluate on held-out test. Reports both
uncalibrated AND calibrated metrics (accuracy, AUC, Brier, log-loss).
Hypothesis: the K=6000 Mamba result (AUC=0.66 / acc=0.62 from the
uncalibrated 4cf9499b5 smoke) has a 4-point AUC-accuracy gap which
mirrors the Phase 1c pattern; Platt should compress that gap and lift
accuracy further without retraining.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The DECISIVE gate for FoxhuntQ-Δ's two-head architecture. The K-sweep
(commit db874b184) showed stateless single-snapshot alpha decays from
K=50 peak to gone by K=500. The two-head design exists to amplify
short-horizon evidence into long-horizon prediction via SSM state
accumulation; this smoke is the actual test of that hypothesis.
Gate per the implementation plan:
- AUC > 0.55 at K=6000 → multi-minute alpha confirmed, design validated
- AUC < 0.52 → decisive FAIL, design dead in current form
- 0.52 ≤ AUC ≤ 0.55 → marginal, tune or extend seq_len
New module `multi_horizon_labels.rs` generates labels at arbitrary K
with tie-drops + NaN guards (mirror of `purged_split::binary_direction_label`
semantics but bypassing Phase1aConfig's hardcoded K=100). 5 unit tests
covering: strict-ramp all-ones, constant-series all-tied, K-too-large
edge case, index alignment with mixed up/down/tied, non-finite drops.
New example `phase1d_long_horizon.rs` loads snapshot fxcache, generates
K=6000 labels, splits 80/20 with horizon-sized embargo (so train sequences
ending near boundary don't share forward-window prices with val), trains
Mamba2 (seq_len=32, hidden=64, state=16), reports val AUC.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Trains the from-scratch GPU-pure Mamba2 block against the snapshot fxcache,
gathers sequence batches via end-bar lookup into train/val labels, runs
AdamW for N epochs, computes val AUC.
First-shot result (epochs=3, stride=8, lr=1e-3, hidden=64, state=16, seq_len=32):
- Train BCE: 2.338 → 1.164 → 0.957 (monotone, still dropping)
- Val accuracy: 0.5645 (beats MLP 0.5241)
- Val AUC: 0.5684 (below MLP 0.6849)
Interpretation: undertrained (loss curve still descending steeply; stride=8
sees only 1/8 of data; lr=1e-3 conservative given the training-loop unit
test converged at lr=1e-2). Not yet a clean GATE FAIL — needs a retry with
stride=2, lr=3e-3, epochs=10-20 before declaring the model class has a
ceiling below the stateless MLP baseline.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Platt scaling drops held-out Brier from 0.346 → 0.221 (chance=0.250);
log-loss 1.096 → 0.632. Both Platt and isotonic land below chance baseline.
AUC-accuracy gap was pure miscalibration, not fundamental misexpression.
Learned: Platt a=0.32 (raw logits too extreme), b=0.89 (positive offset
needed). Trained MLP underconfidence on positives compounds with negative
prior. Proceed to 1d.1.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Three things landing atomically because they're load-bearing for each other:
1. **Trend-scanning leakage fix** — trend_scanning.rs was emitting OLS slope+t-stat
over a *forward* window [t, t+L]. With the Phase 1a label = sign(price[t+60]
− price[t]), the forward feature window overlaps the label window, contaminating
it. Purged walk-forward only sterilizes forward-looking *labels* that cross
the train/val split, not forward-looking *features* that peek inside the same
horizon the label measures. The leak inflated MLP accuracy from 0.49
(legacy 74-dim baseline) to 0.75 — vanished to 0.50 after switching to a
trailing window. Bounded the perfect-fit t-stat sentinel from ±1e6 → ±20
(p<1e-30 is already meaningless); eliminated the 16k corruption-cap drops.
2. **Variable-dim alpha column** — fxcache schema now carries the alpha-feature
width via metadata (`alpha_feature_dim`), not a compile-time constant. Same
on-disk format hosts the 134-dim bar-level stack OR the 81-dim snapshot stack.
Reader + auto-detect honor the metadata-declared dim; downstream MLP auto-sizes
`in_dim`. Single schema, no forks.
3. **Snapshot pipeline (Phase 1c falsification)** — `snapshot_pipeline.rs`: 81-dim
per-MBP10-snapshot extractor reusing 10 snapshot-native alpha blocks + 6 new
snapshot-specific features (time-since-trade, time-since-snap, event-rate,
spread-bps, L1-imbalance, microprice-mid drift). `precompute_features` gets
`--row-unit snapshot` flag; emits one fxcache row per LOB update (1.97M rows
from MBP-10 data vs 206K for bar mode).
**Smoke verdict on real data** (ES.FUT, 1.97M snapshots, 384K val):
- Bar-level honest alpha: accuracy=0.5005, AUC=0.5043 (no signal)
- **Snapshot-level alpha**: accuracy=0.5241, AUC=0.6849 (real signal, 384K val)
- GBM corroboration: accuracy=0.5401 (non-linear partitioning sees more)
- Horizon decay: alpha peaks at K=20-50 snapshots (~5-25ms), gone by K=500
- Regime-conditional: spread-Q4 quintile hits 0.752 accuracy on 76k samples
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>