# Playbook-Lift Reality Test — Run real_005

**Generated:** 2026-05-01T04:04:14.242729367Z
**Judge:** `qwen2.5:latest` (Ollama, resolved from config [models].local_judge)
**Corpora:** `workers,ethereal_workers`
**Workers limit:** 5000
**Queries:** `tests/reality/negation_queries.txt` (5 executed)
**K per pass:** 10
**Paraphrase pass:** disabled
**Re-judge pass:** disabled
**Evidence:** `reports/reality-tests/playbook_lift_real_005.json`

---

## Headline

| Metric | Value |
|---|---:|
| Total queries run | 5 |
| Cold-pass discoveries (judge-best ≠ top-1) | 0 |
| Warm-pass lifts (recorded playbook → top-1) | 0 |
| No change (judge-best already top-1, no playbook needed) | 5 |
| Playbook boosts triggered (warm pass) | 0 |
| Mean Δ top-1 distance (warm − cold) | 0 |



**Verbatim lift rate:** 0 of 0 discoveries became top-1 after warm pass.

---

## Per-query results

| # | Query | Cold top-1 | Cold judge-best (rank/rating) | Recorded? | Warm top-1 | Judge-best warm rank | Lift |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Need 5 Forklift Operators in Aurora IL, NOT in Detroit (Detr | e-1723 | 4/2 | — | e-1723 | 4 | no |
| 2 | Need 3 Warehouse Associates, but NOT anyone from Beacon Frei | w-2937 | 0/4 | — | w-2937 | 0 | no |
| 3 | Looking for Pickers in Indianapolis, excluding the Cornersto | e-5033 | 0/1 | — | e-5033 | 0 | no |
| 4 | 1 CNC Operator needed in Flint MI - we cannot use any Detroi | w-1360 | 0/2 | — | w-1360 | 0 | no |
| 5 | Need 2 Loaders in Joliet IL but exclude all currently-placed | w-2998 | 0/4 | — | w-2998 | 0 | no |

---

## Honesty caveats

1. **Judge IS the ground truth proxy.** Without human-labeled relevance, the LLM
   judge's verdict is what defines "best." If `` rates badly,
   the lift number is meaningless. To validate the judge itself, sample 5–10
   verdicts manually and check agreement.
2. **Score-1.0 boost = distance halved.** Playbook math is
   `distance' = distance × (1 - 0.5 × score)`. Lift requires the judge-best
   result's pre-boost distance to be ≤ 2× the cold top-1's distance, otherwise
   even halving doesn't promote it. Tight clusters → little visible lift.
3. **Verbatim vs paraphrase.** The verbatim lift rate (above) is the cheap
   case — same query, recorded playbook, expected boost. The paraphrase
   pass (when enabled) is the actual learning property: similar-but-different
   queries hitting a recorded playbook. Compare verbatim and paraphrase
   lift rates — paraphrase should be lower (semantic-distance gates some
   playbook hits) but non-zero is the meaningful signal.
4. **Multi-corpus skew.** Default corpora=`workers,ethereal_workers` — if all judge-best
   results land in one corpus, the matrix layer's purpose isn't being tested.
   Check per-corpus distribution in the JSON.
5. **Judge resolution.** This run used `qwen2.5:latest` from
   config [models].local_judge.
   Bumping the judge for run #N+1 means editing one line in lakehouse.toml.
6. **Paraphrase generation also uses the judge.** The same model that rates
   relevance also rephrases queries. A judge that's bad at rating staffing
   queries is probably also bad at rephrasing them. Worth sanity-checking
   a sample of `paraphrase_query` values in the JSON before trusting the
   paraphrase lift number.

## Next moves

- If lift rate ≥ 50% of discoveries: matrix layer + playbook is doing real
  work. Move to paraphrase queries + tag-based boost (currently ignored).
- If lift rate < 20%: investigate why — judge variance, distance gap too
  wide, or playbook math too gentle. The score=1.0 / 0.5× formula may need
  retuning.
- If discovery rate (cold judge-best ≠ top-1) is itself low: cosine is
  already close to optimal on this query distribution. Either the corpus
  is too narrow or the queries are too easy.