After A1 (commit 045850e8f) the controller fires every event. Without
smoothing, target lots would oscillate as alpha probabilities jitter
event-to-event, generating hyperactive spread-bleed from back-and-forth
trades.
Ships per spec §4.2 and §3.7: Wiener-α adaptive EMA on max-conviction-
across-horizons. Formula:
α_raw = diff_var / (diff_var + sample_var + ε)
α_active = max(α_raw, 0.4) per pearl_wiener_alpha_floor_for_nonstationary
ema = α_active × new + (1 − α_active) × prev
First-observation bootstrap: prev_ema == 0 → replace directly per
pearl_first_observation_bootstrap.
Three new device slots (per-backtest):
- conviction_ema_d: smoothed conviction (used for final-aggregate rescale)
- conviction_diff_var_ema_d: second-order EMA, drives adaptive α
- conviction_sample_var_ema_d: second-order EMA, drives adaptive α
Architectural choice: rescale at the final aggregate (final_size *= conv_ema /
raw_max_conv), not at per-horizon sig_mag. Per-horizon sizing keeps raw
|alpha-0.5|*2 so horizons with no signal (alpha=0.5) contribute zero —
the spec §4.2 "smoothed conviction" is a unified gain over the aggregate,
not a substitute for per-horizon signal strength. At bootstrap the scale
is exactly 1.0 (raw_max_conv == conv_ema) so the very first decision is
bit-identical to the pre-A2 kernel. Direction recovery (sign of
alpha-0.5) remains per-horizon — genuine reversals respond at event rate.
Threaded through both decision_policy_default and decision_policy_program
kernels' signatures and launches in sim/mod.rs.
Full multi-horizon conviction *aggregation* (spec §4.4) remains Phase B;
A2 ships ONLY the smoothing operator on the existing scalar conviction.
Pure on-device: no memcpy_htod / dtoh / dtov / synchronize in hot path.
Single test-only DtoH accessor (read_conviction_ema) for unit-test
inspection of the smoothed value.
Tests:
- conviction_ema_smooths_micro_oscillations — sentinel→bootstrap→bounded
EMA across 10 alternating high/low all-bullish alpha drives; direction
stable.
- conviction_ema_does_not_lag_reversals — sign flip in alpha → target
side flips next event.
- All 22 stop_controller + 5 decision_floor_coldstart + 3 threshold_and_cost
+ parallel_sim + ring3_replay + trainer_parity + 6 fuzz tests pass.
- 2 lob_sim_fixtures tests (fix_decision_alpha_buy_close, fix_decision_program_h4_only)
were already failing on baseline 045850e8f pre-A2; not a regression from
this commit.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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