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foxhunt/docs
jgrusewski f5632649ca spec(ml-alpha): per-horizon attention pool design (C20)
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>
2026-05-18 10:20:38 +02:00
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