7f2f112e6a
First retrieval probe with non-synthetic query distribution. Pulls
N rows from /home/profit/lakehouse/data/datasets/fill_events.parquet
(real-shape demand data) and translates each to the natural language
a coordinator would type: "Need {count} {role}s in {city} {state}
starting at {at} for {client}".
Headline: 8/10 cold-pass top-1 = judge-best on real distribution.
Substrate works on queries it was never trained for. v2-moe + workers
corpus carry the load.
Surfaced finding (the real value of running this): same-client+city
queries cluster, and Shape A's distance boost bleeds across roles
within the cluster. Q#2 (Forklift @ Beacon Freight Detroit) records
e-6193 in the playbook corpus. Q#5 (Pickers same client+city) and
Q#10 (CNC Operator same client+city) inherit e-6193 at warm top-1
even though:
- Neither query has its own recorded playbook.
- Neither warm pass triggers a Shape B inject (boosted=0).
- The roles are different staffing categories.
Q#10 specifically demoted the cold-pass-correct w-3759 (judge rating
4 at rank 0) for a worker who was approved by the judge for a
different role on a different query.
Why the lift suite missed it: synthetic queries use 7 disjoint
scenario buckets (forklift+OSHA+WI / CDL+IL / etc.). Real demand
clusters on (client, city). The cluster doesn't exist in the
synthetic distribution.
Why the judge gate doesn't catch it: the gate (5a3364f) is
per-injection at record time. After approval the worker rides Shape A
distance boosts on all later same-cluster queries with no second
gate call.
Becomes new OPEN #1. Fix candidate: role-scoped playbook corpus
metadata + Shape A boost gate on role match. Cheap; doesn't need
new judge calls.
Files:
- scripts/cutover/gen_real_queries.go: parquet → coordinator NL
- tests/reality/real_coord_queries.txt: 10 generated queries
- reports/reality-tests/playbook_lift_real_001.md: harness output
- reports/reality-tests/real_001_findings.md: the reading
Repro:
go run scripts/cutover/gen_real_queries.go -limit 10 > tests/reality/real_coord_queries.txt
QUERIES_FILE=tests/reality/real_coord_queries.txt RUN_ID=real_001 \
WITH_PARAPHRASE=0 WITH_REJUDGE=0 ./scripts/playbook_lift.sh
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
reports/reality-tests — does the 5-loop substrate actually work?
Reality tests measure product outcomes, not substrate health. The 21 smokes prove the system runs; the proof harness proves the system makes the claims it claims; reality tests answer: does the small-model pipeline + matrix indexer + playbook give measurably better results than raw cosine?
This is the gate from project_small_model_pipeline_vision.md: "the playbook + matrix indexer must give the results we're looking for." Single load-bearing criterion. Throughput, scaling, code elegance are secondary.
What lives here
Each reality test is a numbered run that produces:
<test>_<NNN>.json— raw structured evidence (per-query data, summary metrics)<test>_<NNN>.md— human-readable report with headline metrics, per-query table, honesty caveats, next moves
Runs are append-only. Earlier runs stay in tree as historical baseline.
Test catalog
playbook_lift_<NNN> — does the playbook actually lift the right answer?
Driver: scripts/playbook_lift.sh → bin/playbook_lift
Queries: tests/reality/playbook_lift_queries.txt
Pipeline: cold pass → LLM judge → playbook record → warm pass → measure ranking shift.
The headline question: when the LLM judge finds a better answer than cosine top-1, can the playbook boost it to top-1 on the next run? If yes, the learning loop closes; if no, the matrix layer + playbook is infrastructure for a thesis that doesn't pay rent.
See the run reports for honesty caveats — chiefly that the LLM judge IS the ground-truth proxy.
Running a reality test
# Defaults: judge resolved from lakehouse.toml [models].local_judge,
# workers limit 5000, run id 001
./scripts/playbook_lift.sh
# Re-run with a different judge to check inter-judge agreement
# (env JUDGE_MODEL overrides the config tier)
JUDGE_MODEL=qwen3:latest RUN_ID=002 ./scripts/playbook_lift.sh
# Smaller scale for fast iteration
WORKERS_LIMIT=1000 K=5 RUN_ID=dev ./scripts/playbook_lift.sh
Judge resolution priority (Phase 3, 2026-04-29):
-judgeflag on the Go driver (explicit override)JUDGE_MODELenv var (operator override)lakehouse.toml [models].local_judge(default)- Hardcoded
qwen3.5:latest(last-resort fallback if config missing)
This means model bumps land in lakehouse.toml, not in this script or
the Go driver. Bumping local_judge to a stronger local model (e.g.
when qwen4 ships) takes one line.
Requires: Ollama on :11434 with nomic-embed-text + the resolved judge
model loaded. Skips cleanly (exit 0) if Ollama is absent.
Interpreting results
Three thresholds matter on the playbook_lift tests:
| Lift rate (lifts / discoveries) | Verdict |
|---|---|
| ≥ 50% | Loop closes — playbook is doing real work, move to paraphrase queries |
| 20-50% | Lift exists but inconsistent — investigate boost math (score × 0.5) or judge variance |
| < 20% | Loop is not pulling its weight — diagnose before adding more components |
A separate concern: discovery rate (cold judge-best ≠ cold top-1). If discovery is itself rare (< 30% of queries), cosine is already close to optimal on this query distribution and the matrix+playbook layer has little headroom. That's not necessarily a bug — but it means the value gate has to come from somewhere else (multi-corpus retrieval, domain-specific tags, drift signal).
What this is not
- Not a benchmark. No comparison against external systems; only internal cold-vs-warm.
- Not a regression gate. Each run is a snapshot. Scores will drift with corpus changes, judge updates, and playbook math tuning. Don't wire
just verifyto demand a minimum lift. - Not human-validated. The LLM judge is the ground truth proxy. Sample 5-10 verdicts manually per run to sanity-check the judge isn't pathological.