C.4 timing bonus (experience_kernels.cu) and D.4b regime penalty
multiplied by the trade-cumulative |reward| / |final_pnl| as an
unbounded multiplicand. Across trades this compounds — bonus values
inflate as Q values inflate, then bonus rewards inflate Q values
further (Bellman bootstraps off shaped reward).
Per pearl_one_unbounded_signal_per_reward + feedback_isv_for_adaptive_bounds:
replace |reward|/|final_pnl| with ISV[Q_DIR_ABS_REF_INDEX]-bounded
variant. The unbounded multiplicand becomes the direction-branch
Q-scale EMA (already-tracked, gradient-decoupled), not the
trade-cumulative shaping output. Cap is adaptive (matches Q magnitude
as it evolves) and breaks the multi-trade compounding loop.
Discovered during Plan C Phase 2 smoke diagnosis (researcher report
2026-04-29 a25f669e9df953174). a52d99613 baseline also hits
bonus=235 — pre-existing structural pathology, not Plan-C-specific.
Other shaping sites (D.4a persist, B.2 novelty, D.4c stable) already
have all factors bounded — no fix needed.
Surgical change set:
- experience_env_step gains final `int q_dir_abs_ref_idx` param.
- C.4 (line 2521): pnl_unit = |final_pnl|/max(ISV[21], eps);
pnl_capped = min(pnl_unit, 1) * ISV[21].
- D.4b (line 2581): same pattern, reward_unit/reward_capped.
- gpu_experience_collector.rs:3800 wires Q_DIR_ABS_REF_INDEX as i32.
No new ISV slot, no new producer kernel, no layout-fingerprint shift —
ISV[21] already produced by q_stats_kernel.cu since Plan 1.
Predicted impact:
- bonus EMA drops O(100-256) -> O(0.05-2.0)
- rc[5] -> Bellman-target optimism loop broken
- Plan C smoke: Q-drift kill at F0 ep2 likely no longer fires
- a52d99613 baseline: same effect; validates pre-existing fix
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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