Under B-7 (clamp default-disabled), per-transition rewards in
bellman_target_projection / bellman_fused_select_project can exceed the
adaptive atom support [V_MIN_eff, V_MAX_eff]; each t_z overshoot is
silently clamped before being mapped onto the discrete support. B-9
publishes the per-step saturation rate + pre-clamp t_z extremes so we
can decide if the atom span has become a bottleneck — without
re-attempting the reverted Fix F atom-widening (pearl_c51_v_max_freeze
_required_for_surfer).
Changes:
- 4 new ISV slots (726-729): top/bot saturation rate + max/min pre-proj.
- bellman_target_projection.cu: both entry points (bellman_target_projection
AND bellman_fused_select_project per feedback_no_partial_refactor) gain
4 new [B] f32 pointer params; thread-0 sequential reduction over
Q_N_ATOMS=21 (odd count rules out symmetric tree-reduce — matches the
kernel's existing softmax max/sum pattern at lines 157/171).
- New cross-batch reducer cuda/rl_bellman_target_saturation_reduce.cu:
single block, grid-stride gather + power-of-2 tree reduce, no atomicAdd
per feedback_no_atomicadd.
- dqn.rs: load reducer cubin, add saturation_reduce_fn handle,
launch_saturation_reduce method, 4 scratch pointer params on both
bellman methods.
- integrated.rs: allocate 4 [B] f32 scratch buffers; pass through both
fused_select_and_project_bellman call sites + launch reducer after each.
4 new bootstrap entries (213 → 217 fixed-size array).
- build.rs: register new kernel.
- 4 new diag leaves under risk_stack.atom_calibration.target_*. Comment
distinguishes them from popart.max_abs_reward_ema (different signal:
Bellman target = r + γ·atom_value, can exceed reward by γ·V_MAX_eff).
- EXPECTED_LEAVES 653 → 657.
- tests/c51_atom_saturation_diagnostic.rs: GPU-oracle test asserts
4 invariants over 249 rows — rates in [0,1], max≥min, rate>0 ⇒
overshoot exists, top+bot ≤ 1.
Validation:
- 200+50 b=16 fold-1 smoke clean. Locally V_MAX_eff adapts to ~19.3
(atom support is ISV-driven via rl_atom_support_update), so saturation
is 0% in the smoke; both diag leaves emit + invariants hold.
- popart_disaggregation_invariants: still passes (249 rows, identity).
- eval_diag_emission: train = eval = 657 leaves.
- Determinism preserved: kernel adds shared-mem reduction over per-thread
t_z values that were already computed; target_dist output unchanged.
Spec: docs/superpowers/specs/2026-06-01-b9-c51-atom-saturation-diagnostic.md
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Under B-7 (clamp default-disabled), popart's Welford state now updates
against unclamped magnitudes; σ_effective = max(σ_welford, env.max) can
spike from either source but diag only emitted the combined value. This
blocks attribution of any future σ shocks.
Changes:
- RL_POPART_SIGMA_WELFORD_INDEX (slot 725): Welford-only σ, BEFORE the
F4 envelope floor at rl_popart_normalize.cu:156. Pure observability —
no computation change.
- rl_popart_normalize.cu: insert one ISV write between σ_welford
computation (line 141) and envelope-floor application (line 156).
Mirrors the existing #define-local-then-write pattern (POPART_SIGMA_INDEX).
- build_diag_value: new leaf popart.sigma_welford in the canonical
popart block. NOT duplicating max_abs_reward_ema (already emitted at
risk_stack.regime.popart_envelope.max_abs_reward_ema per
feedback_single_source_of_truth_no_duplicates).
- EXPECTED_LEAVES 652 → 653.
- Bootstrap array [(usize, f32); 212] → 213 with sentinel 0.0
(overwritten every step by popart kernel).
- tests/popart_disaggregation_invariants.rs: GPU-oracle test asserts
identity popart.sigma == max(σ_welford, env.max) across 249 rows
(200 train + 50 eval), skipping step 0 bootstrap.
- tests/eval_diag_emission.rs: migrate fold-idx 0/n_folds 2 → 1/3
(the n_folds=2 split picks the first 4 files which don't satisfy
loader's 1033-snapshot minimum after test_data grew from 2 → 9 files).
Validation:
- popart_disaggregation_invariants passes locally (249 rows OK).
- eval_diag_emission passes locally: train=653 eval=653 leaves.
- B-9 spec at docs/superpowers/specs/2026-06-01-b9-c51-atom-saturation-diagnostic.md
builds on slots 726-729 next (uncommitted, awaiting implementation).
Spec: docs/superpowers/specs/2026-06-01-b8-popart-calibration-observability-and-floor.md
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The addendum's rate-cap (B-1) only protected the Wiener-α path; the first-
observation bootstrap branch let cold-start fat-tail events seed pos_max_ema
unbounded. At alpha-rl-4xmxm step 5, a single $947 scaled reward bootstrapped
pos_max_ema=879 directly, cascading through clamp_win → unclamped subsequent
rewards → env.max=11375 by step 37 (1500× the eventual steady-state σ).
B-2 fix per docs/superpowers/specs/2026-05-31-pos-max-ema-cold-start-redesign.md:
1. Bootstrap RL_POS/NEG_SCALED_REWARD_MAX_EMA_INDEX to MIN_WIN=1.0 (was 0)
in `with_controllers_bootstrapped`. Conservative neutral value → clamp_win
starts at MARGIN × 1.0 = 1.5 → rewards heavily clipped until adaptation.
2. Remove the `if (ema_prev == 0.0f) ema_new = pos_max;` branch from
`rl_reward_clamp_controller.cu`. Single uniform update rule (Wiener-α +
rate-cap) applies from cold-start onward. Mirror change for neg_max_ema.
3. Replace `#define POS_MAX_EMA_MAX_GROWTH_PER_STEP 1.5f` with ISV-driven
reads (per feedback_isv_for_adaptive_bounds). Three new slots:
717 RL_POS_MAX_EMA_COLD_START_INDEX = 1.0
718 RL_POS_MAX_EMA_GROWTH_CAP_BASE_INDEX = 1.225 (√1.5 for
twice-per-step inv)
719 RL_POS_MAX_EMA_GROWTH_CAP_CV_GAIN_INDEX = 0.0 (adaptive layer
disabled by default)
4. Adaptive growth_cap from Welford CV of reward magnitude (slot 615-617)
when cv_gain > 0: stable regime → tight cap, volatile regime → loose.
Disabled by default; opt-in via ISV tuning.
Local smoke validation (800+200 fold-1 b=16):
- step 1: pos_ema=1.0 (initialized, NOT bootstrapped from observation)
- step 5: pos_ema=1.0 (no observation yet, sparse-skip working)
- step 25: pos_ema=63.8 (vs 1314 without B-2 — 21× reduction)
- step 37: pos_ema=32.5 (vs 7074 without B-2 — 218× reduction)
- env.max @ step 37: 126 (vs 11375 without B-2 — 90× reduction)
Generalizes the pattern: NORMALIZATION EMAs that gate signal magnitudes
should bootstrap to CONSERVATIVE neutral values, NEVER to first observation.
Cross-references pearl_first_observation_bootstrap which needs revision.
Phase 4 audit (other controllers with same anti-pattern) deferred to
follow-up — see spec §4 Phase 4 for the grep target list.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The parent eval-boundary fix (72684ed3e) preserved env.max/clamp EMAs but
left the σ explosion intact. Diagnosis from alpha-rl-jnct8 (10k+2500 eval,
fold-1, -$106M eval pnl, σ → 4451 by eval step 5) revealed two pre-existing
mechanisms compounding the eval shock:
ISSUE A — reward_scale snaps to 0.10 at boundary
================================================
rl_fused_controllers' reward_scale block had a bootstrap-fraction-floor
gate: `(cumulative_dones < min_trades) → boot_floor = 0.10`. The intent
was cold-start protection (prevent scale crash before any closed-trade
ground truth). But cumulative_dones (slot 660) is reset by
reset_session_state for Kelly's PREDICTIVE-warmup purpose. At fold
boundary the gate fires again, clamping the preserved scale (0.0046 in
jnct8) UP to 0.10 — a 22× upward jump. Eval rewards are then 22× larger,
overwhelming env.max preservation; σ explodes regardless.
FIX A — decouple via monotonic warmed_flag (slot 716, never reset).
Set ONCE when cumulative_dones first crosses min_trades; persists across
all subsequent fold boundaries. boot_floor reads the flag instead of
re-evaluating trade_count. Math: at cold-start flag=0 → boot_floor=0.10
(original protection preserved). Post-warmup flag=1 → boot_floor=scale_min
(~1e-4) → preserved scale survives boundaries.
ISSUE B — pos_max_ema growth unbounded (train-phase fat-tail spike)
====================================================================
Pre-existing fat-tail behavior: at alpha-rl-jnct8 step 3895 a single
account had pre_clamp scaled reward 724. The clamp's Wiener-α EMA
(α=0.4 floor) admitted 40% of the observation, jumping pos_max_ema
112 → 834 in 5 steps. clamp_win = MARGIN × pos_max_ema followed
magnitude up rather than bounding it; env.max captured the unclamped
reward (121 → 1306). Recovery via slow-decay over 600 steps, but
during the spike PPO gradients were mis-scaled.
FIX B — asymmetric per-step growth cap on pos_max_ema (1.5× max).
Same Schulman-bounded-step pattern as reward_scale's 2% per-step
movement clamp. Decreases unbounded (allows fast recovery from spike).
Bootstrap path unchanged (ema_prev=0 → ema_new=pos_max, no cap).
Math: 5-step max growth = 1.5^5 ≈ 7.6× vs prior uncapped 7.4× in
practice — similar steady-state, bounded transient.
Local validation (b=16, 800+200 fold-1):
- σ preserved across boundary (51.9 → 51.4 at eval[1])
- σ stays bounded in 23-57 range across full eval phase (no 60× explosion)
- scale=0.10 stable across boundary
- warmed_flag stays 0 at b=16 (cumulative_dones never crosses min_trades
at this scale — flip behavior tested at cluster b=1024)
Spec: docs/superpowers/specs/2026-05-31-eval-boundary-addendum-reward-scale-and-train-spike.md
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Per the newly-saved memory pearl pearl_adaptive_carryover_discipline,
diagnoses Fix D's "intentionally preserve train Kelly + inventory EMAs
into eval" as the dominant cause of v8's eval-phase regression.
Design — 3 layers at the train→eval boundary:
Layer 1: Reset every adaptive EMA (Kelly wr/avg-win/avg-loss/
cumulative_dones, inventory β/variance, reward-clamp pos/neg/clip
EMAs) to neutral sentinels. Lets the controllers re-bootstrap from
eval-distribution observations rather than carrying poisoned train
state.
Layer 2: Defensive warmup window (500 steps) overrides risk-sizing
controllers — Kelly safety_frac 0.5→0.25, IQN τ_min 0.10→0.30,
entropy coef floor 0.01→0.05, PPO ε floor 0.05→0.10. Linear decay
back to normal over additional 200 steps.
Layer 3: 2× LR multiplier during warmup window. Network weights
adapt fast to new-regime statistics; this is the slowest-adapting
layer of the agent.
Adds 8 new ISV slots (686-693), bumps RL_SLOTS_END 686→694. New
small kernel rl_eval_warmup_decay applies overrides each step during
warmup. Pure additive design — no kernel logic changes outside the
new warmup-decay kernel.
Validation requires running ALL 3 folds (vs v8's single fold-1) per
pearl_single_window_oos_is_not_oos. Success criterion: mean eval pnl
across 3 folds > v8 mean.
No code change in this commit — design document only. Implementation
deferred until decision is made on whether to ship v9 or first
collect v8's fold-0 + fold-2 baseline for cleaner comparison.
Formal proof of why the current `atom_max = EWMA(WIN_bound)` design
trains successfully despite empirical violations of the "structural
minimum atom_max ≥ WIN/(1-γ)" claim made in 2026-05-30-c51-atom-
resolution-design-alternatives.md.
Key findings (proven by local smoke + cluster v8 trajectory):
1. The fixed-point bound `WIN/(1-γ)` is overstated as a structural
constraint. Empirical: smoke step 999 atom_max = 4.5× the bound,
system trains healthy (qpa=+0.969).
2. The actually-binding constraint is the dynamic bound:
`atom_max ≥ max V_target_observed ≤ WIN + γ × V_max_observed`
Self-consistent and satisfied with margin 23 at smoke step 999.
3. Both speculative alternatives (Fix F = mean_abs_pnl anchor,
Fix F-v2 = V_target_observed anchor) have closed-form instability
at γ(1+ε) ≥ 1 — for γ=0.99 only ε ≤ 0.01 stable, no resolution
benefit over current design.
4. Current design is *conservative* (atom_max ~5× larger than V_target
3σ requires) but *correct* — slow EWMA hysteresis absorbs WIN
transients and keeps Q-V Bellman self-consistent.
Includes empirical trajectory data:
- Local smoke (b=128, HEAD d57bee054, 1000 steps): atom_max 1798→1468,
qpa +0.65→+0.97, clip_rate 5-11%, dynamic bound satisfied with
margin 23 at convergence.
- Cluster v8 (b=1024, alpha-rl-vxbpq @ 6d4a962e5): popart_σ collapses
56→1.69 from step 100→16830, qpa stays >+0.93, pnl_cum $164M.
Saves pearl_atom_span_dynamic_vs_fixed_point for future sessions.
Diagnostic emit of V_target_max_observed proposed (§5) but deferred
— current signals (WIN + γ × atom_max) already provide the bound
indirectly via JSONL. Real-time V_target_max is a nice-to-have for
future calibration work, not required to validate the current design.
Documents why Fix F crashed at cluster scale (qpa: +0.898 → -0.976
between step 371 and step 500 in alpha-rl-qrgjr v7), the structural
Bellman self-consistency constraint atom_max >= WIN/(1-γ) that makes
the resolution trade-off fundamental, and the design alternatives
considered (non-uniform atoms, adaptive γ, two-headed Q). Recommends
shipping A+B+C+D+E only — the pre-Fix-F design implements the
structurally-correct atom span via WIN-tracking EWMA.
No code change in this commit — design document only. Empirical
result from v8 (alpha-rl-vxbpq, SHA 6d4a962e5) will determine whether
deeper atom-resolution work (Options 4.C or 4.E) is justified.
Spec: docs/superpowers/specs/2026-05-30-c51-atom-span-decouple-from-clamp.md
Diagnosed in cluster v5 (alpha-rl-rjsjq SHA 7064c9269) at step 371:
c51_v_max ratcheted up 1 → 24 → 53 → 859 → 1938 while WIN clamp swung
4910 → 568 → 7540 → 44 (volatile from MARGIN saturation). The slow
EWMA tracking win_bound time-averaged the early spikes, locking
atom span at extreme-value magnitude. Δz reached ~184 per atom — Q
could no longer discriminate +$500 from +$5000 wins.
Root cause: atom-span target was anchored on `MARGIN × pos_max_ema`,
where pos_max is the EXTREME-VALUE statistic across b=1024 batch
elements. The clamp bound (rightly fat-tail) and the atom span (should
be typical-magnitude) were treating two distinct concerns as one.
Fix F: anchor atom span on `atom_margin × mean_abs_pnl_ema` — true
central-tendency signal — while leaving the reward clamp on
pos_max_ema. The clamp can still admit fat-tail wins ($42k → +245)
and V regression (scalar head) retains the magnitude for PPO advantage,
but Q's CATEGORICAL distributional support now sizes itself for the
trades where most learning happens.
New ISV slot 685 (RL_C51_ATOM_MARGIN_INDEX, bootstrap 10.0).
RL_SLOTS_END 685 → 686.
Validation (local b=128 1k smoke):
metric | pre-Fix-F | with Fix F
v_max final | 1929 | 86.6 (22× tighter)
Δz per atom | 184 | 8.7 (resolution restored)
qpa final | +0.957 | +0.958 (Q-π alignment preserved)
mean_active | +$47k | +$34k (within smoke variance)
13/13 risk_stack_invariants + 20/20 trade_management_kernels +
integrated_trainer_smoke pass.
Tradeoff documented in spec: Q loses fat-tail categorical magnitude
(rewards beyond ±87 project to top/bottom atom), but V regression
preserves it. Acceptable for the lottery-ticket strategy where typical-
magnitude resolution matters more than fat-tail magnitude precision.
Replaces hardcoded thresholds AND clamp bounds across 12 RL controllers
with observed-signal-driven ISV-slot bounds. Eliminates the architectural
failure mode that surfaced in walk-forward fold 0 (alpha-rl-m9cx5) and
fold 1 (alpha-rl-jgdh6): under Phase 4.5 advantage normalization, eight
controllers (PPO clip, target_tau, rollout_steps, entropy_coef, per_α,
gamma, reward_scale, q_distill_lambda) saturated at extrema within ~50
steps and stayed pinned for the rest of training — same pattern across
two different data slices, confirming the bug is structural rather than
data-size-dependent.
Mechanism: each controller's noise floor was hardcoded as a small
fraction of its target (`_NOISE_FLOOR_FRAC = 0.01f`), calibrated against
a pre-Phase-4.5 signal regime. Phase 4.5 normalization reduces operating
KL by ~50× — observed signal stays below the 1%-of-target floor, the
Schulman widen path fires continuously (asymmetric in the wrong
direction), and ε hits MAX 0.50 within ~50 training steps. ksll2's full-
data run (n_folds=1) happened to escape via a single above-band KL
observation that triggered tighten; both walk-forward folds (3 and 6
files) did not.
Per `feedback_adaptive_not_tuned`, `feedback_isv_for_adaptive_bounds`,
`pearl_controller_anchors_isv_driven`: every threshold now derives from
observed signal statistics (Welford online variance) rather than
constants calibrated against a prior signal regime. User explicitly
expanded scope mid-implementation: "if all clamps ISV bound should be
added to this spec and tasks" — applying the principle consistently
means hardcoded MIN/MAX clamp bounds count too, not just the saturating
noise floors. 12 controllers, single atomic commit per
`feedback_no_partial_refactor`.
Spec: docs/superpowers/specs/2026-05-30-adaptive-controller-floor-design.md
Plan: docs/superpowers/plans/2026-05-30-adaptive-controller-floor-plan.md
# New kernel
- rl_signal_variance_update.cu (80 LOC) — Welford online variance.
Single-thread single-block. Sentinel-zero skip per pearl. Per-controller
Welford triple (count, mean, M²) drives every adaptive noise floor.
# Per-controller refactors (12 .cu files)
- ppo_clip + target_tau + rollout_steps + entropy_coef + per_α —
adaptive noise floor = max(target × 0.5, sqrt(observed_var) × 2);
asymmetric Schulman (tighten on single observation, widen requires 3
consecutive below-band).
- gamma (Special G) — hardcoded GAMMA_MIN = 0.995 → adaptive via
Welford MEAN of trade duration. Per spec Q6 resolution: the Welford
mean's natural N-smoothing lag breaks the gamma↔trade_duration
feedback loop without explicit step-period gating. 100-observation
warmup falls back to EMA before Welford has enough samples.
- reward_scale (Special R) — asymmetric DECREASE rate cap (5% per
step) on both bootstrap-replace and Wiener-blend paths; bootstrap-
fraction floor (10% of bootstrap) until 100 trades close.
- q_distill_lambda (Special Q) — hardcoded MIN_LAMBDA = 0.05 → adaptive
via Welford on q_distill_kl_ema: max(0.001, std × 0.05).
- v_blend_alpha (Phase 4.4) — 5 hardcoded constants → 5 ISV slots
(DEAD_SIGNAL_FLOOR, TARGET_TRACK_RATIO, SCHULMAN_STEP, EMA_ALPHA,
BOOTSTRAP_ALPHA) + adaptive dead-signal floor from V_scalar magnitude
variance.
- ppo_ratio_clamp — adaptive MIN/MAX from observed log-ratio variance.
Architectural 2.0 absolute floor preserved (don't degenerate to
vanilla policy gradient).
- reward_clamp — V_BOUND_FLOOR, V_BOUND_EWMA_ALPHA, MIN_WIN, MIN_RATIO,
MAX_RATIO, MIN/MAX_MARGIN, MARGIN_TOLERANCE/ADJUST_RATE,
CLIP_RATE_EMA_ALPHA → 10 ISV slots.
- gate_threshold — hardcoded alpha = 0.01 → ISV slot 638.
- Clamp-bound expansion: EPS_MIN/MAX, TAU_MIN, ROLLOUT_MIN/MAX,
COEF_MIN/MAX, PER_ALPHA_MIN/MAX, GAMMA_MAX, MAX_LAMBDA, KL_TOLERANCE,
LAMBDA_RAMP_RATE, LAMBDA_DECAY_RATE → all ISV.
- WIENER_ALPHA_FLOOR shared across 9 controllers → single ISV slot 659.
# Trainer integration (integrated.rs)
- rl_signal_variance_update kernel loaded + helper method
`launch_rl_signal_variance_update`.
- Per-step Welford launches for 9 controller inputs, placed between
EMA producers and rl_fused_controllers in the per-step pipeline.
- Input-slot lookup array for rl_fused_controllers updated: rollout_steps
now consumes RL_ADV_VAR_PRE_NORM_INDEX (emitted by
rl_advantage_normalize before in-place normalize) instead of the
post-norm advantage_var_ratio (definitionally ~0 under Phase 4.5).
- ~30 new ISV bootstrap entries in with_controllers_bootstrapped.
# ISV slot allocation (isv_slots.rs)
- 72 new slots, RL_SLOTS_END 588 → 660. +288 bytes mapped-pinned.
- 9 Welford variance triples + 5 asymmetric Schulman counters +
3 new input signals (var_pre_norm, gamma_min_adaptive, reward_mag) +
v_blend (5 + 3 Welford) + ppo_ratio_clamp (1 + 3 Welford) +
reward_clamp (5) + gate_threshold (1) + q_distill (1) + 20 clamp bounds +
shared wiener floor.
# Bootstrap-clamp consistency fix (caught by Task 16 testing)
The original draft bootstrapped RL_EPS_BOOTSTRAP at 0.01 (= KL target),
but EPS_MIN was 0.05 — bootstrap value below clamp range. First post-
bootstrap step always snapped ε to MIN regardless of signal direction
("snap to MIN" behavior the unit tests surfaced). Fixed by bootstrapping
ε at MIN (0.05) so asymmetric Schulman operates from a valid state.
# Validation
- cargo build --release: clean
- cargo build --tests: clean
- 3 GPU Welford kernel tests (G1 constant→0var, G2 sequence→known var,
G3 sentinel skip): all pass
- 5 GPU adaptive-floor invariant tests (G3 PPO clip holds at bootstrap
when signal below floor, G4 tightens on single above-band, G5 widens
only after 3 consecutive below-band, G6 post-warmup uses Welford mean,
G6 pre-warmup uses EMA): all pass
- integrated_trainer_smoke (full GPU pipeline): passes
- 1k local smoke at b=128: 1000/1000 steps, completed_clean, no NaN,
controllers genuinely adapting (γ 0.90→0.974, per_α 0.40→0.52,
q_distill_λ 0.05→0.21, ε held at 0.05 = MIN per Phase 4.5 small-KL
regime — was previously stuck at MAX 0.50 throughout fold 0/1)
- compute-sanitizer memcheck b=128 5 steps: 0 errors
Cluster validation (G7-G9) submitted as follow-up runs.
🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code)
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Backward-looking HER: on trade close, compute peak unrealized PnL
during the trade's lifetime. If peak >> actual, inject synthetic
transition with peak_pnl and boosted priority. Teaches the agent
optimal wave-exit timing 10× faster than sparse reward alone.
Two kernels: rl_hindsight_track (per-step mid accumulation) and
rl_hindsight_inject (synthetic push on done with coordination).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Move all step_synthetic/dqn_replay_step alloc_zeros to persistent
trainer fields (ss_* prefix). Enables CUDA Graph capture of the replay
training step — all device pointers are now stable across steps.
Introduces reduce_axis0_free() to resolve borrow-checker E0502 when
both source (per-batch scratch) and destination (reduced grad) are
self fields passed to the same function.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Captures 50+ kernel launches as 3 CUDA Graphs (pre-fill, post-fill,
replay-step) for single-launch replay. Eliminates ~300μs/step of
CPU launch overhead at b=16.
Key challenges: device-resident step counter (no scalar arg changes
in graph), lobsim fill breaks the graph (split into pre/post),
ISV write ordering. Estimated 1.5-3× throughput improvement.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Enumerates all project rules that apply to the Q-learning
improvements: CPU read-only, no atomicAdd, mapped-pinned only,
ISV-driven params, first-observation bootstrap, bilateral clamp,
raw reward in replay, no stubs/TODO/feature flags, GPU oracle
tests, local smoke before cluster, surfer philosophy constraints.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Three-phase plan to push Q convergence past profitability:
1. N-step returns (n=10): 10× more direct reward signal
2. IQN complementary head alongside C51: ensemble action selection
3. Noisy linear layers: state-dependent exploration
C51 stays for the confidence gate's distributional LCB. IQN adds
flexible quantile estimation. Ensemble combines both for action
selection. All ISV-driven.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Adds SP20 — full production trader-management system in one
greenfield commit (3-4 weeks of implementation work to follow):
* Tier 0: multi-resolution time-scaled market features (3 horizons)
* Tier 1: trade-arc awareness (4 features per batch)
* Tier 2: per-unit trail-stop (entry + trail + stop per unit)
* Tier 3: pyramiding + partial profit-taking (HalfFlat actions,
N_ACTIONS=9→11)
* Tier 4: Forward-Return-Distribution head + confidence gate +
per-batch anti-martingale sizing + position heat cap +
vol-adjusted defaults
Spec went through critical-review pass (v1→v2→v3):
* v1: 3 tiers, side-channel features, single-gate acceptance
* v2: 5 tiers added partial-flat + anti-mart + multi-res + checklist
* v3: foundational fixes for 4 CRIT + 6 SIG + 6 MIN findings
(per-unit pyramid state, encoder-input injection vs side-channel,
FRD head replaces survivor-biased checklist, override stack
ordering, per-batch anti-mart, real-time multi-res scales,
P-1 ceiling falsification gate, multi-tier acceptance)
§0 Foundational Principles (NEW, non-negotiable):
* §0.1 every numerical constant ISV-resident (no hardcoded #defines
in new kernels; structural-dim exception only)
* §0.2 every kernel/slot/head/action fully wired in same commit
* §0.3 diagnostics baked in at birth (every observable in JSONL)
* §0.4 per-phase ship-gate: all three audits must pass
Audit infrastructure shipped with the spec:
* scripts/audit-isv.sh — greps new .cu for hardcoded #defines
* scripts/audit-wiring.sh — verifies kernels/slots/heads/actions
have producer + consumer in code
* scripts/audit-diag.sh — runs local 100-step smoke, validates
manifest-listed jq paths present in JSONL
* scripts/audit-manifest/ — per-phase append manifests (kernels,
slots, heads, actions, diag-fields)
Naming discipline: audit scripts and manifest are SP-agnostic (no
`sp20-` prefix) per new pearl `feedback_no_sp_or_version_prefixes_in_file_names`
— they'll serve future SPs too. SP numbers belong only in
docs/superpowers/{specs,plans}/ filenames.
Audit scripts dogfooded — already caught two real violations on
existing code that the formal review missed:
* audit-isv: KL_EMA_ALPHA=0.05f hardcoded in rl_q_pi_distill_grad.cu
* audit-wiring: TrailTighten action (a7) has no handler in any
kernel (per pearl_dead_trail_stop_actions_a7_a8)
These violations are SP20 P5/P10 fix targets.
User decision recorded in spec §3 P-1: ceiling-falsification phase
intentionally skipped — SP20 is the architectural launchpad for
the broader trader system regardless of whether current arch could
be pushed further at 1M steps. P-1 may be revisited as standalone
work after SP20 ships.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Spec: docs/superpowers/specs/2026-05-21-per-horizon-cfc-inference-design.md
Plan: docs/superpowers/plans/2026-05-21-per-horizon-cfc-inference-plan.md
Spec went through 2 critical-review passes (32 total findings, all resolved).
Bucketing source: CfC.tau (per-channel, trained, log-uniform init at HIDDEN_DIM=128).
Atomic refactor reverts MTER scaffolding. 5 ISV-driven controllers. All-on-device
transition (no bulk DtoH). Single fused per-branch kernel. Compact ragged heads_w_skip.
Validated via 3 Argo smokes (training stability, CRT.diag inference differentiation,
fxt-backtest end-to-end).
Also committing historical record: superseded MTER spec/plan, intervention A
plan, ISV λ controller spec/plan, GPU log ring spec/plan. Per spec §5.3 these
stay as audit trail; not in build path.
Plan has 18 tasks, full TDD with bite-sized steps, ready for
subagent-driven-development execution.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Per project_crt_diag_findings.md — CRT.diag + diag.2 empirically
falsified all three hypotheses about why the model's per-event output
doesn't track horizon-specific dynamics. Labels ARE differentiated per
horizon, AUC=0.66 IS per-event measured, but per-event predictions
behave identically across all 5 horizons (2.5-event mean run length
raw, 3.3-event after aggressive Wiener-α EMA smoothing). h6000
predictions should change every thousands of events, not every 3.3.
Diagnosis: training dynamics issue. The BCE loss provides no signal
pushing toward horizon-coherent predictions. Adjacent-event labels at
horizon K share K-1/K of the forward window so SHOULD produce similar
predictions, but the loss doesn't require this.
Intervention A (this spec, minimum-scope): output smoothness
regularizer
L_smooth[h] = λ[h] × mean_t (p[h](t) - p[h](t-1))²
With horizon-weighted λ (stronger for h6000 than h30): forces h6000
predictions to change slowly while leaving h30 responsive.
Implementation surface:
- multi_horizon_heads.cu backward: extend grad_probs with smoothness
gradient
- perception.rs trainer step: prev_probs_d buffer, per-horizon (p[t]
- p[t-1])² accumulation
- heads.rs: SMOOTHNESS_LAMBDA constant per horizon
- alpha_train.rs: --smoothness-base-lambda CLI flag
Validation gate (CRT.train Gate):
MUST: per-horizon AUC ≥ baseline - 0.02 (no signal destruction)
WIN: h6000 mean_run_len ≥ 100 events; h6000/h30 ratio ≥ 10× (horizons
actually differentiated post-training)
STRETCH: CRT.1 controller smoke shows mean PnL CORRELATED with
conviction (vs anti-correlated in lnfwd)
Future work if intervention A doesn't pass WIN:
B: horizon-conditional output structure (architecture change)
C: curriculum on horizon (multi-day training)
D: different label generation (majority-vote vs single-point)
Status: Design — awaiting user review before plan.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Empirical trigger: Phase A as designed in v2 failed Gate 1 catastrophically
on both smoke vjmwc (commit 3d8f12deb) and lkrdf (commit fe2498769 with
amplification clamp). Both produced ~155k trades (62× baseline), 9100%
max-drawdown (175× baseline), and Sharpe -15.7. The clamp had effectively
zero impact on the outcome, confirming the bug is structural not formulaic.
Architectural finding: the v2 phase split (A: continuous control / B:
signal-driven position management) is artificial. They are the same
mechanism. A scalar EMA on max(|p-0.5|) cannot smooth direction jitter
between horizons; only the multi-horizon ISV-weighted conviction formula
(v2 §4.4, deferred to Phase B in v2) is structurally coherent.
User-validated mental model: signal vector at any moment IS a forward
prediction of the trade trajectory; optimal position = inventory implied
by current beliefs; trade actions are sparse because most events
produce only fractional adjustments to a stable optimum. Continuous
evaluation, discrete action.
v3 phase structure (replaces v2 A/B/C/D):
CRT.1 Unified Inventory Controller (was A+B merged)
CRT.2 Adaptive Risk Envelope (was Layer C, unchanged)
CRT.3 Online Weight Adaptation (was Layer D, unchanged)
CRT.1 components:
- forward_step every event (already shipped: A0.5)
- decision_stride deleted (already shipped: A1)
- Multi-horizon ISV-weighted conviction (§4.4 promoted from Phase B)
- Wiener-α EMA on multi-horizon conviction (§4.2 promoted)
- target_lots = direction × |conviction_ema| × envelope_max
- No-trade band in seed_inflight: skip if |delta| < delta_floor (NEW)
- open_trade_state 24→64 expansion (§7 promoted from Phase B)
- Conviction-degradation exit emergent from target→0; composite-signal
safety layer (§4.3) preserved as circuit-breaker
What survives from v2 commits on the branch:
a0e81fbdf forward_step incremental SSM (A0.5)
92f8b10ed forward_step_into eliminates GPU↔CPU round-trip
045850e8f delete decision_stride field (A1)
3d8f12deb buffer-level seed bit-identity test
What gets superseded in CRT.1 implementation:
1d889d2de A2 scalar conviction-EMA with aggregate rescale — replaced
by multi-horizon §4.4 formula
fe2498769 A2.1 clamp on broken rescale — same reason
The three conviction-EMA device slots (conviction_ema_d et al.) STAY
in LobSimCuda — the EMA mechanism is reused on the multi-horizon
conviction scalar. The `final_size *= scale` rescale step is deleted.
Gate restructure:
v2 Gate 1 (Layer A standalone) — REMOVED
v2 Gate 2 (Layer B) — PROMOTED as Gate CRT.1
v2 Gate 3/4 — unchanged as CRT.2/CRT.3
Status: Design v3 — awaiting plan rewrite before implementation.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Self-critical review of v1 (commit 0f3484325) found 12 issues. All
fixed inline. Spec marked Status: Design v2 with explicit changelog.
LOAD-BEARING FIXES
1. §4.4 conviction cold-start: removed backwards "uniform fallback"
branch that maintained trading authority when net_edge=0 across
all horizons (exactly when model has no edge). Replaced with ε
floor on net_edge_h. Single formula, smooth bootstrap, no regime
switch.
3. §4.3 exit logic: 5 OR conditions → 1 composite exit_signal scalar
(max of degradation, disagreement, pnl_decay terms). SL/trail and
8h circuit-breaker stay orthogonal as safety, not exit policy.
Attribution per term recorded in §7 state for observability.
6. §9 Gate 2: PF > 1.0 (2.5× improvement, unrealistic) → tiered
MUST (no-regression) + WIN (real lift, four candidate criteria) +
explicit STOP condition if MUST passes without WIN.
7. §9.1.1: alpha-realization metric defined explicitly as
realized_pnl / max(unrealized during signal-validity window).
Was hand-waved in v1; now formulated.
TRACTABLE INLINE FIXES
2. §7 open_trade_state: 128 → 64 bytes. Diagnostic-only fields
(scale_up/down counts, max/min target reached) moved to a
separate audit buffer (single source of truth keeps state lean).
4. §5.1 envelope: multiplicative formula → additive bounded
contributions. tanh(sharpe), min(dd/cap), clamp(vol). No single
factor can crash envelope to zero. Floor (envelope_floor lots)
and hard-cap (envelope_hard_cap) remain.
5. §5.2 threshold: hand-waved "self-tune toward PF" → explicit
3-arm bandit (lower, current, higher percentile) every K_eval
closed trades, Wiener-α EMA target with floor, bounded
[0.5, 0.95].
8. §3.4 + §3.6: Layer A wall-time ≤ 5× → ≤ 2× (controller is
light, 5× would indicate structural bug, not config tuning).
9. §4.2: explicit Wiener-α formula for conviction EMA with floor
at 0.4 per pearl_wiener_alpha_floor_for_nonstationary.
10. §6.2.1: shadow eval defined explicitly with backtest-mode (last
15% of fold) and live-mode (parallel-prediction-only) variants.
Promotion criteria spelled out (PF, Sharpe, tail loss).
11. §6.2: Layer D loss explicit (primary = value regression on
realized PnL conditional on state; secondary = EWC++ regularizer
toward base). Was three losses with no specified combination.
12. §10.5: adapter regime over-fit risk added with sample-count
down-weighting, cross-regime shadow eval, periodic adapter reset
as hard backstop.
GREENFIELDS (per user direction)
- §3.3: decision_stride field DELETED from YAML + Rust (not
deprecated). No backwards-compat shim. Per
feedback_no_legacy_aliases.
- §7.1: open_trade_state 24→64 byte migration is atomic, no old
layout shim.
- §8: boundary matrix decision_stride row marked REMOVED, not
DEPRECATED.
§13 pearl conformance: per-section pearl application (not bulk
citation). Added pearl_audit_unboundedness_for_implicit_asymmetry,
pearl_no_deferrals_for_complementary_fixes acknowledgement (layers
are sequenced amplifications, not parallel fixes), and the new
pearl_stop_checks_run_at_deadline_cadence from S2.
Status: Design v2 — awaiting user review before writing-plans.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Three follow-ups from cluster smoke gp74n (trade_vol pearl validation):
1. Max-hold force-close: max_hold_ns added as per-backtest config
(default 0 = disabled). Fires force-flat (3, 0) when current_ts -
entry_ts >= max_hold_ns, BEFORE SL/trail check. Tested via
max_hold_forces_close. Sweep YAML sets 60s cap to bound the long
tail observed in gp74n (263985s pathological hold).
2. exit_px defensive sanity check: 500/1024 gp74n trades reported
exit_px = ±i32::MAX/100 (float→int saturation sentinel from likely
NaN segment_realized). Defensive fix in pnl_track_step: if exit_px
is non-finite or diverges from entry_px by >10%, fall back to
entry_px with zero realised_pnl. Root cause to be traced separately.
3. Spec §9.2 criteria revision: mean_hold<30s replaced with p95<600s
+ max<=max_hold_ns. The 30s threshold reflected the pre-pearl
sub-cost churning bug, not a real feature criterion. p95 catches
long-tail pathology while letting alpha-driven exit timing breathe.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Replaces the Task 12 `2.0f * cost` floor (hardcoded multiplier) with
trade_vol = sqrt(realised_return_var) bootstrapped from cost². Per
pearl_trade_level_vol_for_stop_distance.md: microstructure ATR is the
wrong time scale for trade-level stop decisions; per-horizon
realised_return_var is the right one, with cost² as a structural cold-
start sentinel.
cost now appears exactly once — inside the sqrt as a bootstrap sentinel,
never as a distance multiplier. The 2.0f literal is eliminated;
controller is fully ISV-driven.
var_avg accumulates realised_return_var in the same single-pass horizon
loop as ema_loss/ema_win. Cold-start (var_avg=0): trade_vol = cost.
Post-bootstrap: sqrt(var_avg) dominates.
Test retargeted: cost_floor_prevents_sub_cost_stops →
trade_vol_floor_prevents_sub_cost_stops, with boundaries straddling
trade_vol=cost=0.125 instead of the prior 2*cost=0.25 (no-fire Δ=0.08,
fire Δ=0.20).
Spec §5, §10, §11, §12 amended.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Cluster smoke w7b4p showed 44864 closed trades in 1M events at 200ms
latency — physically impossible without sub-cost churning. Root cause:
sl_distance = max(pnl_ema_loss, atr) ≈ 0.05 at cold-start, but round-trip
cost = 2 × 0.125 = 0.25. Every stop-out guaranteed loss > 5× distance;
EMA converges sub-cost.
Amendment: triple-max sl_distance = max(pnl_ema_loss, atr, 2*cost);
trail_distance = max(pnl_ema_win, atr, 2*cost). cost is an ISV-discipline
strategy anchor (already per-backtest from P4 — no new state slot, no
tuned constants). Added cost_per_lot_per_side_per_b param to both decision
kernel signatures and threaded cost_per_lot_per_side_d through both launch
sites in step_decision_with_latency.
Test: cost_floor_prevents_sub_cost_stops validates unrealized in (ATR, 0.25)
does NOT fire SL; unrealized > 0.25 DOES fire. Spec amended (§10, §12).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
- StopRules struct + sl_tp_rules field + all literals deleted; the ISV
stop controller (Tasks 2-9) replaces this dead data path.
- use_cold_start_stopgap propagation deleted across harness,
batched_config, fxt-backtest, sweep_smoke.yaml, and 5 test files.
- Q1 stopgap branch in harness.rs deleted; replaced with the original
simple strategy-upload loop.
- decision_floor_coldstart test retargeted: cold_start_persistent_
bullish_with_default_stops_never_closes -> ..._now_closes, asserts
trades > 0 AND |pos| <= max_lots (99 trades, pos=1 on local GPU).
- CBSW spec + plan prefixed with SUPERSEDED headers.
Per feedback_single_source_of_truth_no_duplicates +
feedback_no_partial_refactor: contract change migrates every consumer
in one commit. No legacy wrappers; no version suffixes.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Issues caught in self-review and fixed:
1. Encoding ambiguity: stop-fire writing (2, 0) would have silently
collapsed weak-alpha no-op semantics with force-flat. Introduced
distinct side=3 = force-flat; preserved side=2 = no-op for entry
path. Updated §3 + §5 + §7 truth table.
2. trail_hwm reset on close was implied in §4 but missing from §8's
touched-files list. Added pnl_track.cu modification (§7.1) +
added to §8 Added list.
3. __device__ helper enforcement: §3 now mandates stop_check_isv()
as a shared __device__ function called from both decision kernels,
not duplicated code.
4. Kernel arg additions enumerated explicitly in new §4.1 table —
every kernel-launch site gets named, no "thread through every kernel"
hand-wave.
5. seed_inflight_limits_batched (resting_orders.cu:439–475) named
explicitly in §1 + §7 — the actual kernel that needs the position-
target-semantics fix.
6. In-flight order summation: naive delta = target_signed - pos was
strictly worse than the original additive bug under non-zero
latency (would produce pos = pre + K·delta after fills). Fixed
§7 algorithm to compute effective_position by scanning all
active∈{1, 2} slots and summing their signed sizes. Added
position_target_not_additive_with_latency test.
7. ATR α=0.4 honest justification in §10: not strictly derived from
pearl_wiener_alpha_floor_for_nonstationary (which is about co-
adapting control loops, not passive observation); chosen as a
pragmatic project-wide constant matching isv_kelly_update_on_close.
8. CUDA Graph host-branch-free affirmation added to §3 — explicit
compatibility with P5 graph capture.
9. Cold-start symmetry caveat (§5): at n_trades_seen=0 both EMAs are
0 so sl_distance == trail_distance == atr — asymmetry only
emerges post-bootstrap. Acknowledged honestly.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Replaces StopRules::default()-all-zeros (the actual cause of the cluster
smoke's n_trades=0, falsifying the CBSW dilution diagnosis) with an
ISV-driven SL + trail-stop controller folded into the existing decision
kernel(s). Per-backtest ATR EMA on mid-price + per-horizon pnl_ema_*
drive distances under max(real, floor) per
pearl_blend_formulas_must_have_permanent_floor. No new kernel; single
source of truth in step_decision*. Folds in the position-target
semantics fix (200-event local repro showed position_lots=199 from
additive-vs-target order semantics) — same commit.
Removes: StopRules, sl_tp_rules, Q1 stopgap field/branch,
use_cold_start_stopgap propagation. Marks CBSW spec + plan SUPERSEDED.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Critical review surfaced 11 actionable issues in the v1 spec; 10 fixed
inline (#11 — legacy-comparison test — dropped per user decision since
empirical legacy behavior is already known: n_trades=0).
Performance:
1. expf → piecewise-linear ramp (~5× cheaper on GPU, no transcendental
in the hot path). Operationally equivalent: monotonic, saturating,
midpoint at K. Side-benefit: pure max-confidence at cold-start
(sq=0 instead of sigmoid's 11.9% leakage).
2. Single fused per-horizon pass replaces the two-loop sketch.
3. Tier 2 scope narrowed to decision_policy_default ONLY. The bytecode
VM (decision_policy_program) stays unchanged — runs only for custom
strategy experiments, never in production policy. Halves Tier 2's
surface area + test cost.
4. __device__ helpers cbsw_signal_quality + cbsw_weight introduced for
single source of truth.
Correctness bugs (silently present in v1 sketch, would have shipped):
5. strong_h and sq_min_active initializers added (were referenced
before init in the per-horizon loop).
6. Attribution mask at cold-start was setting all 5 bits because every
w[h] >= floor > 1e-9; trades would pollute ALL horizons'
recent_sharpe. Fix: binary split — at sq_min_active < 0.5 attribute
only to strong_h; at mature, attribute per weights > floor + epsilon.
7. sq_min was "min over h", which permanently locked the aggregator
into cold-start mode if any horizon never gets attributed (e.g.,
h6000-only-trading regime). Fix: sq_min_active = min over h with
n_trades_seen > 0; cold horizons don't gate maturity.
8. Opposing-horizons case now correctly fires on the strongest single
horizon at cold-start (piecewise-linear sq=0 → pure max-conf), with
explicit design-choice note explaining why this conservatism trade-
off favors firing.
Spec hygiene:
9. Rate validation committed to a measurement gate (Q2 ev/s ≥ 95% of
Q1 ev/s) instead of back-of-envelope estimate.
10. Kernel ABI explicitly stated as unchanged → feedback_no_partial_
refactor compliance is trivial at the kernel boundary.
12. Tier 1's use_cold_start_stopgap field is DROPPED in Q2 atomically
(not orphaned), and DoD checklist includes a grep-zero gate for
feedback_no_legacy_aliases compliance.
Risks updated: removed the sigmoid-narrowing risk (irrelevant now);
added register-pressure risk with the rate-gate mitigation; added
explicit "cold-start may lose on noisy trades" risk with empirical
escalation path (bump kelly_floor 0.20 → 0.40 if Q2 smoke shows large
negative PnL).
Math walk-throughs rewritten for piecewise-linear (different numbers
at cold-start): cold = pure max-conf, mature = pure weighted-sharpe,
clean separation at sq_min_active threshold.
Awaiting review of the revised spec before writing-plans dispatch.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The post-trunk-grows threshold-tuning smoke (81decf40f) produced
n_trades=0 despite the model having a HEALTHY max-conviction
distribution (74.6% of decisions ≥ 0.30, 26.7% ≥ 0.70, full spread
across [0,1]). Diagnosis: the linear-weighted-mean aggregator in
decision_policy_default is structurally dilution-bound at cold-start
— single-horizon strong signals get washed out when uniform-floor
weights produce mean-over-horizons aggregation.
Solution: Conviction-Bootstrapped Sharpe Weighting (CBSW). Hybrid
max-confidence × weighted-sharpe with a per-horizon sigmoid transition
keyed on n_trades_seen vs MIN_TRADES_FOR_VAR_CAP. Cold-start: sig_mag
(decision-time conviction) drives weights AND max-confidence aggregator
fires single-horizon trades. Mature: recent_sharpe (historical) drives
weights AND linear-mean aggregator emphasizes strong-Sharpe horizons.
Permanent floor preserved per pearl_blend_formulas_must_have_permanent_floor.
Mirrors DQN bootstrap pattern (pearl_thompson_for_distributional_action_
selection): when historical estimates are uncertain, use available
signal as the bootstrap. Sig_mag is the ISV signal at decision time;
recent_sharpe is the ISV signal at trade-close time. Transition
self-terminates based on data accumulation, not time constants.
3-tier delivery (one spec, atomic commits):
Q1: Bytecode VM stopgap — upload max-confidence 7-instruction
program per backtest. Validates diagnosis; zero kernel work.
Q2: Kernel CBSW — replace weight + aggregator in both decision
kernels. 5 new regression tests covering cold/mature/transition.
Q3: New memory pearl pearl_conviction_bootstrap_for_kelly_aggregation
capturing the lesson.
Q4: Cross-reference from parallelism spec (deployability sweep
depends on CBSW being live to produce meaningful verdict).
The parallelism work (P1-P6) is fully working — confirmed by the
threshold-tuning smoke completing end-to-end (Succeeded status, 500k
decisions, artifacts written, aggregator parquet emitted). What's
blocked is the deployability VERDICT, because the dilution bug means
all variants would show n_trades=0 regardless of cost/latency/threshold.
CBSW unblocks the verdict.
Awaiting review before transitioning to writing-plans for Q1-Q4
implementation plan.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Critical review surfaced 9 issues; all fixed inline:
1. §1 — Reframed "140× amortization" as "amortization on forward; sim
runs parallel". True win is on the ~2ms forward shared across 140
cells, not on sim work which scales linearly with n_backtests.
2. §2 — Made the 1h target vs firm bound explicit (≤1h target, ≤2h
firm). Acknowledges Graph capture realistic speedup is 1.2-1.5×,
not 2×.
3. §5 — Dropped atomicAdd. Plain `+=` under the single-writer-per-block
convention (existing pattern across sim kernels). No race.
4. §4 — Documented max-over-horizons threshold rationale (vs per-
horizon or aggregate-conviction). Flagged per-horizon as a follow-up
tweak if dilution pathway matters in the verdict.
5. §7 P5 + §10 risk — Captured-vs-uncaptured tolerance is 1e-5 relative,
NOT strict bit-identity. CUDA Graph capture can reorder reductions
harmlessly by 1 ULP; strict bit-identity would be a false-positive.
6. §8 — Made explicit that parallel_sim_equivalence + independence
tests are BOTH required. Equivalence alone is necessary but not
sufficient (a shadow-backtest[0] bug still passes equivalence).
7. §3.3 — Specified output schema: `cell_W{n}/sim_<variant_name>/`
with summary.json carrying a resolved `sim_config` block (verdict
emitter reads that, not the directory name).
8. §7 P4 — Enumerated apply_fill_to_pos call sites + added grep-verify
step before commit, so no fill path silently loses cost.
9. §9 — Tightened rate-validation gates with hard targets (P2 ≤90s,
P5 ≤60s) instead of generous minute envelopes. Added §9.1 stride=8
fallback as explicit Plan-B if Graph capture under-delivers.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Brainstormed live with claude-opus-4-7. Targets ≤1h wall-clock per
4-quarter sweep on 1-3 L40S pods (vs ~750 GPU-hours naive). Three
multiplicative levers: per-backtest sim parameter matrix (~140×),
CUDA Graph capture (~2×), pod-level parallelism (~3×). Verified by
code-read during scoping:
- forward_only has no graph capture (X11 plan said so, X11 commit
didn't ship it)
- two host-roundtrip loops in sim.rs need GPU-ization for batching
to pay off (dispatch_latent_market_orders + close-detection)
- cost system is a literal-zero placeholder in pnl_track.cu:92
7-commit atomic ladder (P1-P7), each gated by tests + a measured rate
target. bf16 explicitly deferred to follow-up.
Awaiting review before transitioning to writing-plans for the
implementation plan.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Supersedes the 2026-05-19 deployability spec (commit 07d5de504). The
prior spec assumed CfcTrunk::save_checkpoint was the producer-side
wiring point — discovered at execution time that alpha_train trains via
PerceptionTrainer (full v2: VSN + Mamba2 ×2 + LN ×2 + attn-pool + CfC +
heads), not the simpler CfcTrunk. The existing LOB backtester loads
CheckpointV1 envelopes that only know about CfC weights, so there is no
producer for a checkpoint containing the full v2 model.
New scope: one bigger spec covering refactor + deployability end-to-end.
Phase 1 (X0–X19, code commits): grow CfcTrunk to own the full v2
inference graph; restructure PerceptionTrainer to wrap a trunk + add
training-only state (grads, AdamW). Discipline: bit-equivalence golden
fixture (X0) gates every refactor commit (X1–X11). CheckpointV2
envelope (X12) replaces V1. Verdict emitter (X17) reuses the tiered
classification (Pass-robust / Pass-nominal / Fail-inconclusive / Fail /
Fail-degenerate) from the superseded spec.
Phase 2 (Argo runtime): production training → smoke gate → threshold
pre-registration → 560-cell deployability sweep → verdict + memory
update.
Hard gate before Phase 2: post-refactor fold-0 smoke must reproduce
recorded 3-fold A/B numbers (best_mean_auc 0.7529, best_h6000 0.7639,
both within ±0.010 absolute) from project_ml_alpha_v2_ab_verdict
memory. Prior spec marked SUPERSEDED in its header, kept in history as
audit trail.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
User revisions to design spec from this session:
1. §2.1 — split anchor into realistic (200 ms, 1 tick) and stress (400 ms,
1.5 tick). Realistic remains the hard verdict gate; stress grades the Pass
into Pass-robust vs Pass-nominal.
2. §2.2 — expand metrics from Sharpe-only to four: annualized daily Sharpe
and max-drawdown are hard gates (median across windows > 1.0 and < 20%
respectively); Sortino and profit factor are diagnostics. Per-window
summary.json schema extended.
3. §2.6 — verdict emitter rewrites to two-anchor logic, tiered output:
Pass-robust / Pass-nominal / Fail-inconclusive / Fail / Fail-degenerate.
4. §3.3 — added max-dd computation and zero-trade-window failure modes.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Closes the wiring gap between the existing real-LOB backtest system (C1–C19 on
this branch) and the v2 ml-alpha model. alpha_train.rs currently never calls
save_checkpoint, so the LOB harness/sweep/aggregate machinery has never been
pointed at a real trained model.
Design defines a single-pass falsifiable deployability gate: produce a
production checkpoint (cv-n-folds=1, cv-train-window=4 → train on 2024
quarters, val on 2025-Q1, hold out 2025-Q2..2026-Q1), pre-register one
threshold on the W0 val window, then evaluate median Sharpe across 4
held-out walk-forward quarters at the realistic Scaleway→IBKR anchor (200ms
RTT, 1-tick all-in cost). Pass iff median > 1.0; inconclusive in [0.8, 1.0]
counts as fail; smoke gate halts the full sweep on any wiring failure.
Approved through brainstorming. Awaiting user spec-review before plan
handoff.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The motivating "50% saturation hit-rate" observation came from gm67g
fold 0 (Option-2 config, commit 004b662c8 — itself a -0.003 mean_auc
regression vs ISV-σ at 410ab6b0e). Re-running the same diagnostic on
the actual production baseline (ISV-σ 3 folds: rxm5t/r57lx/x24d6,
logs retrieved from MinIO argo-logs bucket) on 215 horizon-epoch
observations:
saturated λ→AUC up: 8/13 = 61.5% median Δauc = +0.0025
non-saturated→AUC up: 96/202 = 47.5% median Δauc = -0.0012
difference: +14pp in favor of the controller working
The BCE-z-score controller is empirically correlated with the
optimization target. No evidence it's misaligned with AUC. Spec
premise falsified.
Spec retained in tree as historical record. The diagnostic
methodology itself (saturation→Δauc analysis on archived MinIO logs)
is the durable artifact and is documented in the supersede block.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The current λ controller boosts horizons by BCE-EMA z-score, which conflates
three distinct causes of high BCE — only one of which (under-trained
horizon) benefits from boosting. The other two (intrinsically harder
horizon, calibration drift) are unaffected by gradient-magnitude lifts.
Empirical motivation (gm67g fold-0, this branch's 3-fold run):
when λ_h6000 saturated at 2.0, h6000's next-epoch AUC went UP 2/4
times and DOWN 2/4 times. 50% hit rate ⇒ the BCE saturation signal
is misaligned with the optimization objective.
This spec replaces BCE-z-score with AUC-regret:
best_auc[h] = running max of per-horizon validation AUC
regret[h] = max(0, best_auc[h] - current_auc[h])
regret_max_ema = EMA of max_h regret[h]
λ[h] = clamp(1.0, 2.0, 1 + regret[h] / regret_max_ema)
Properties:
- Aligned with the objective (AUC, not BCE)
- Naturally bounded (regret ∈ [0, 1])
- "At personal best" → λ=1.0 (no wasted boost)
- Auto-saturation by design (max-regret horizon → ceiling)
- Cold-start clean (e0: best=current, regret=0, uniform λ)
- Zero hardcoded magic beyond bootstrap epsilons
Implementation surface ~250 LOC:
- Split horizon_lambda kernel: horizon_loss_ema (per-step) +
horizon_lambda (per-epoch, AUC-regret math)
- Trainer state: drop z_max_ema, add best_auc + regret_max_ema
- Per-epoch entry point: trainer.update_lambda_from_auc()
- Extend isv snapshot log line with best_auc_h* + regret_h*
Test plan:
- Local 9/9 perception_overfit
- New synthetic-AUC unit test (controller correctness)
- Cluster 5-epoch smoke + 3-fold A/B vs Option-2 baseline (004b662c8)
- Success: mean_auc lifts ≥ +0.005 AND median sat→next-AUC delta positive
Awaiting user review before plan handoff.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Integrated design spec for the post-A/B redesign: Kendall sigma BCE
(A), L2 anchor on horizon tokens + shared Q (B), horizon-token
K-prepend replacing per-horizon Q_h (C), regime-aware MoE gate (D),
and inverted-axis attention pass (E). Bundled per
pearl_no_deferrals_for_complementary_fixes — all five axes have
orthogonal architectural scope and independent kill criteria.
Spec drops the C21-C25 per-horizon Q_h path (falsified by sweep
2026-05-18: mean_auc -0.019 vs single-Q baseline) and migrates the
existing init buffers into the new horizon-tokens prefix.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Captures the brainstormed "alternative attention pool variants"
follow-on from the original real-LOB integration brainstorm (Axis 1,
deferred from the LOB workstream as a separate model-side spec).
Design:
Replace shared learned query Q[HIDDEN_DIM] with per-horizon queries
Q_h[N_HORIZONS, HIDDEN_DIM]. Per-horizon softmax + context vectors
feed multi-horizon heads directly (PATH A) — each horizon attends
to a different part of the K=6000 LN_b output sequence. CfC k=0
state is initialised by the MEAN of per-horizon contexts so the
K-loop recurrence + state amplification (per
pearl_state_amplifies_short_horizon_into_long_horizon) survives.
Heads consume per-horizon context concat CfC h_K (residual) with a
default 75/25 weight split.
Falsifiable claim (§0): A/B-tested win means h6000 mean_auc lifts by
≥ +0.01 absolute OR per-horizon distribution shifts toward short
horizons (h1000, h300) with no net h6000 loss. The 3-fold variance
band on the current architecture (mean_auc 0.7749 ± 0.024) means a
+0.01 lift is within noise — a meaningful effect needs ≥ +0.024 or
qualitative distributional shift.
Two new kernels (per_horizon_attention_pool_fwd + _bwd) + signature
extension on multi_horizon_heads_{fwd,bwd}. Variant-toggle config flag
(SharedQuery vs PerHorizonQuery) keeps the existing path fully
functional; new variant is opt-in. CheckpointV1 → V2 with explicit
discriminant + optional q_h field; V1 files load as SharedQuery, new
V2 training writes the discriminant.
Three validation rings:
1. Per-(b,h) numgrad parity at K=16
2. One-epoch smoke (no NaN, loss decreases)
3. 30-epoch × 3-fold A/B (#204) — decision gate per §0 falsifiable claim
Implementation explicitly deferred. The decision to invest depends on
(a) GPU time budget (~3-6 hrs on L40S × 5 GPUs for the A/B), (b)
whether per-horizon cost-frontier sweeps (#202 follow-ups) surface
viable horizons beyond h6000 that would benefit from per-horizon
specialisation, and (c) the 3-fold variance noise floor making the
expected effect size visible.
Next step when ready: invoke superpowers:writing-plans against this
spec for the ~6-8 commit implementation plan.
Closes the "good to have" question from the recent brainstorm with a
concrete decision framework rather than ad-hoc implementation.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Revises all 12 issues from the self-review pass:
1. (HIGH) Soften bit-equivalence claim — single-sample helper and
batched kernel at B=1 are different CUDA kernels; FP order may
differ. Acceptance is relative_eq ≤ 1e-6, not bit-exact.
2. (HIGH) Explicit asymmetry: only cfc_step has a single-sample GPU
oracle. GRN/VSN/attn bwd rely on smoke + chain-rule preservation.
feedback_no_cpu_test_fallbacks.md forbids a CPU reference oracle.
3. (HIGH) Realistic targets — 3× floor, 5× stretch. Drops 15× claim
which was Amdahl-bounded under any reasonable assumption.
4. (MED) AdamW-after-reducer invariant stated explicitly: final grad
buffer is OVERWRITE by reducer, meaningful only after reducer ran.
5. (MED) New B=32 smoke test (stacked_trainer_loss_shrinks_at_batch_32)
actually exercises the cross-batch reduction path; existing
perception_overfit suite is all B=1.
6. (MED) Rollout commit 1 bundles reduce_axis0 + first consumer
(cfc_step refactor) to avoid feedback_wire_everything_up.md
orphan-kernel anti-pattern.
7. (LOW) Drop "merge to ml-alpha-phase-a" — user already chose direct
commits to that branch; clarify in Rollout.
8. (LOW) Add explicit scratch-sizing formula:
scratch_bytes ≈ B × Σ(param tensor sizes per kernel).
9. (LOW) Remove resolved open question (memset_zeros ordering).
10. (STRUCT) Post-refactor bottleneck analysis section — names the
next L40S floor (Mamba2 scan, launch latency, cuBLAS).
11. (STRUCT) cudaFuncSetAttribute note — refactored cfc_bwd's per-
block shared mem drops to 1 KiB; no attribute change needed.
12. (STRUCT) Explicit Rollback section — atomic-commit-per-kernel +
revert strategy; rollback baseline is the spec commit
(54aa69c10) on ml-alpha-phase-a.
Plus locks the target pool to L40S — speedup must be attributable to
the refactor, not to a hardware bump. H100 / BF16 / larger batch
become candidates for a follow-up spec once the L40S floor is known.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Documents the design for fixing the single-SM bottleneck in five
backward/K-loop kernels: cfc_step (fwd+bwd), GRN bwd, VSN bwd, and
attention_pool bwd. All currently use grid=(1,1,1) with an internal
n_batch loop — on L40S (142 SMs) with B=32 this puts <1% of the GPU
to work in the K-loop critical path.
Architecture: block-per-batch (grid=(B,1,1)) for the kernel body, plus
per-batch grad scratch buffers reduced via a single parameterised
reduce_axis0 kernel (block tree-reduce, no atomicAdd per
feedback_no_atomicadd.md). Same pattern as the existing LayerNorm bwd
reducer — CUDA-Graph-safe, debuggable, and consistent with foxhunt's
no-cooperative-groups discipline.
Target: ≥3× epoch wall speedup (stretch 8-15×). Makes 3-fold CV
tractable (10.5h → 2-3h) and unblocks decision-stride / state-dim
sweeps that compound the gain.
Acceptance gates: (a) all 8 perception_overfit smokes still converge,
(b) new B=1 bit-equivalence test asserts the refactored batched bwd
kernel at B=1 matches the existing single-sample helper byte-for-byte,
(c) cluster A/B vs t6z89 baseline shows AUC trajectory within ±0.005
and epoch wall ≥3× faster.
Atomic refactor per kernel — one commit per kernel covering the
kernel rewrite, scratch buffer alloc, reducer launch wiring, and
smoke. No "_legacy" parallel kernels per feedback_no_legacy_aliases.md
+ feedback_no_partial_refactor.md.
Open implementation-plan decisions: exact memset_zeros ordering inside
the captured graph, batch-vs-per-tensor reducer launches, optimal
block_dim for reduce_axis0 itself.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
