smoke-test-6wd2c on commit 61b2fa962 (B1b + 4 bug fix-ups) revealed a 5th
pathology not covered by the previous fix-ups: the mag-ratio canary's
linear-magnitude-ratio formula amplifies whichever component is
intrinsically largest, regardless of whether that's a useful signal.
Popart (trade P&L on segment_complete) is O(100) per fire while the
other 5 components (cf/trail/micro/opp_cost/bonus) are O(0.1-2). Even
with the slot 360 fix preventing total-reward contamination, popart's
intrinsic magnitude makes popart_mag / Σ ≈ 0.93. The controller blend
'winner_weight = ratio' then amplifies popart further. Smoke trajectory:
w_pop=2.0 → 2.44 → 2.57, curiosity_b=30 → 120 → 199, sharpe_ema=10.7 →
2.4 → 0.75 (cascading collapse).
Resolution: z-score normalization. Each component's magnitude divided
by its own running standard deviation before computing the ratio:
popart_z = popart_mag_ema / max(sqrt(popart_var_ema), EPS_DIV) ≈ O(1)
cf_z = cf_mag_ema / max(sqrt(cf_var_ema), EPS_DIV) ≈ O(1)
...
ratio[c] = component_z / Σ component_z ≈ ~1/6 each when stable
Allocates 6 new ISV slots [361..367) for per-component variance EMAs.
Producers: extend popart_component_ema_kernel + reward_component_ema_kernel
to also emit variance via Welford's online algorithm (single-pass).
SP5_SLOT_END = 367, ISV_TOTAL_DIM = 367.
Carries forward main's slot 360 amendment (commit 52c0b7521 on main)
which the sp11 branch was missing, plus this z-score amendment.
Per-component gradient ratios (the original spec intent) don't fix this
either — in DQN there's no per-component gradient pathway; grad norm
scales with current_weight × magnitude, so it's the same bias. Z-score
normalization is the standard scale-invariant measure of significance
and matches what the SP11 controller is trying to express.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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