Phase E.1 Task 12b complete. The H=600 DQN smoke now consumes real
alpha_logit from the Phase 1d.3 stacker (Mamba2 + 7-input MLP stacker
trained for AUC=0.673 on test), and PASSES all four kill criteria:
Q_SPREAD_EMA = 10.92 ≥ 0.05 PASS
ACTION_ENTROPY_EMA = 1.97 ≥ 1.099 PASS
RETURN_VS_RANDOM_EMA = +1.043 ≥ 0.0 PASS ← jumped +3.62σ
EARLY_Q_MOVEMENT_EMA = 0.099 ≥ 0.01 PASS
Overall: PASS (H=6000 scale-up VIABLE)
Before/after comparison (same env, same DQN, only alpha_logit changed):
alpha_logit=0 alpha_logit=Phase1d.3
rollout_R_mean (final) -18,272 -18
RETURN_VS_RANDOM_EMA -2.58σ +1.04σ
Overall verdict FAIL PASS
The 1000× reduction in episode loss + the +3.62σ rvr swing definitively
proves the "first-best-action lock-in" hypothesis from the previous FAIL
analysis was a SYMPTOM, not the cause. The cause was alpha_logit=0
placeholder starving the policy of directional signal. With real Phase
1d.3 alpha, the linear Q-network learns to use it cleanly — no
NoisyNet, no MLP, no architectural change needed.
Integration pieces in this commit:
1. Cargo workspace registration: ml-alpha added as a workspace dep,
ml's manifest now depends on ml-alpha for FxCacheReader access.
(ml-alpha already depends only on ml-core, so no circular risk.)
2. alpha_dqn_h600_smoke.rs: two new CLI args
--fxcache-path <PATH> load snapshots from precomputed fxcache
(mid from raw_close, bid/ask synthesized
at fixed half-tick, 81-dim features extracted
for spread_bps / l1_imbalance / ofi / mid_drift)
--alpha-cache <PATH> load Phase 1d.3 stacker logit cache produced
by `alpha_train_stacker --alpha-cache-out`.
Each cache entry aligns to the corresponding
fxcache bar, populates SnapshotRow.alpha_logit
(and derives alpha_confidence = |sigmoid(z)-0.5|).
3. Snapshot source selection: in main(), --fxcache-path takes priority
when both paths are set; --alpha-cache requires --fxcache-path
(alignment guarantee). Original --mbp10-dir path unchanged for
non-cached runs.
4. Two new helper fns: load_alpha_cache (binary [u32 n] + [f32; n]
reader), load_snapshots_from_fxcache (FxCacheReader → Vec<SnapshotRow>
with synthesized bid/ask and alpha_logit/alpha_confidence from cache).
alpha_logits_cache.bin (7.6 MB, 1.97M f32 entries) is .gitignore'd —
regenerable from `cargo run -p ml-alpha --release --example
alpha_train_stacker -- --fxcache-path <FXC> --alpha-cache-out
config/ml/alpha_logits_cache.bin` (~2 min on RTX 3050 Ti).
Reproduction of this PASS verdict:
cargo run -p ml --release --example alpha_dqn_h600_smoke -- \
--fxcache-path /home/jgrusewski/Work/foxhunt/test_data/feature-cache/9297....fxcache \
--alpha-cache config/ml/alpha_logits_cache.bin \
--horizon 600 --n-episodes 1000
Total run time ~10s after fxcache load. Verdict + per-checkpoint KC
trajectory in config/ml/alpha_dqn_h600_smoke.json.
NEXT: Task 13 — scale to H=6000 (the production horizon). Per the plan,
PASS at H=600 unlocks H=6000.
cd5aa3402b