The old formula conf = clamp((μ - λσ) / σ_norm, 0, 1) produced
conf=0 for ANY distribution with σ > μ — including uniform Q at
training start (μ=0, σ=0.577 → LCB=-0.577 → conf=0). This caused
permanent 100% block rate regardless of threshold setting.
New formula: conf = clamp((μ - V_MIN - λσ) / (V_MAX - V_MIN), 0, 1)
Shifts by V_MIN so conf measures "how far above worst case":
Uniform: conf = 0.21 (passes threshold 0.01)
Peaked V_MAX: conf ≈ 1.0 (high confidence)
Peaked V_MIN: conf ≈ 0.0 (blocked — correct)
Also sets conf gate floor to 0.0 so the adaptive controller can
fully disable the gate when trades dry up.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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