golangLAKEHOUSE/reports/reality-tests/real_006_findings.md

# Reality test real_006 — distribution-shift findings

**Run:** 2026-05-05 04:41:46 → 04:50:08 CDT (8m22s driver wall, ~14 min including ingest)
**Judge:** `qwen2.5:latest` (Ollama, local) — anchor's recommended judge, ~9s/query
**Queries:** 50 from `tests/reality/real_coord_queries_v3.txt` (rows 10-59 of fill_events.parquet, single `need` style)
**Corpora:** `workers,ethereal_workers` (5K + 10K)
**Local-only:** zero cloud calls per PRD line 70.

Companion to `playbook_lift_real_006.{json,md}`. That's the harness output; this is the reading.

---

## Why this test exists

real_001-005 all sourced their queries from the **first 10 rows** of
`fill_events.parquet`. `gen_real_queries.go` had `-limit N` but no
`-offset N`, so every "real" reality test ran on the same memorized
slice. The published "8 / 10 cold-pass top-1 = judge-best" was a
property of those 10 rows, not measured generalization. real_006
closes the methodology gap: new `-offset` flag samples rows 10-59 (5×
the count, never seen by the substrate).

---

## Headline — substrate generalizes (mostly)

| Metric | real_001 (10 queries, rows 0-9) | real_006 (50 queries, rows 10-59) | Verdict |
|---|---:|---:|---|
| Cold-pass top-1 = judge-best (rank match) | 8 / 10 (80%) | **41 / 50 (82%)** | **HOLDS** |
| Cold-pass top-1 = judge-best AND rating ≥ 2 | 8 / 10 (80%) | 34 / 50 (68%) | -12 pts |
| Mean cold top-1 judge rating | ~3.3 | 3.08 | -7% |
| Discoveries (judge promoted non-top-1) | 2 / 10 | 9 / 50 (18%) | comparable |
| Verbatim lift (discovery → warm top-1) | 2 / 2 (100%) | 9 / 9 (100%) | **HOLDS** |
| Paraphrase recovery → top-1 | n/a (disabled) | 6 / 9 (67%) | new |
| Quality regressed on rejudge | 0 (test absent) | 3 / 50 (6%) | new |

**Reading:** the substrate's *rank* behavior generalizes cleanly — the
top-1 worker is judge-approved at the same rate on fresh data as on
memorized data. The *quality* of top-1 (rating ≥ 2) drops 12 points,
which means 7 of the 41 "no-discovery" queries had cold top-1 the
judge rated 1 (irrelevant) but the corpus had nothing better. Honest
signal: parts of the v3 slice are in territory the workers corpus
doesn't cover well.

The verbatim-lift property (discovery → warm top-1) is **clean at
9/9**, matching real_001's 2/2 perfectly. When the playbook records,
the recorded answer comes back next time. That's the load-bearing
learning property.

---

## Cluster analysis — the cross-pollination question

real_001 found that same-(client, city) clusters cause Shape A boost
to bleed across roles. Real_002's role-gate fix (`roleEqual`) was
supposed to close that. real_006 has *more* cluster opportunities than
real_001 did:

| Cluster | Count | Result |
|---|---:|---|
| Riverfront Steel + Columbus OH | 4 | mostly clean — see below |
| Heritage Foods + Gary IN | 3 | **clean** — distinct workers per role, no boost firing |
| Cornerstone Fabrication + Louisville KY | 3 | clean |
| Midway Distribution + Chicago IL | 3 | **bleed: Q43 regressed** |

### Heritage Foods + Gary IN (3 queries, all clean)

```
Q14 Assemblers       → e-1315
Q22 Material Handler → e-18
Q42 Machine Operator → e-1089
```

Three different roles → three different workers. Zero boosts fired,
zero playbooks recorded. **Role-disambiguation works at the cosine
level for this cluster.** Comparable to real_002's role-gate
demonstration.

### Riverfront Steel + Columbus OH (4 queries, partial)

```
Q9  Assemblers       → w-281    (cold = warm, no boost)
Q25 Quality Techs    → w-281    (cold = warm, no boost) ← same worker as Q9!
Q26 Machine Operator → w-4815   (clean)
Q32 Material Handler → e-8676 → w-2589  (judge promoted, playbook recorded)
```

Q9 and Q25 both surface `w-281` cold-pass for *different roles* —
that's a **cosine-level confusion** in the workers corpus, not a
playbook bleed. The substrate isn't breaking; the corpus contains a
worker whose resume embeds close to both "Assemblers" and "Quality
Techs" in this client+city. Judge-rating Q25 dropped 2 → 1 on
rejudge, which is the LLM's own consistency drift, not a substrate
fault. Worth noting but not a bug.

### Midway Distribution + Chicago IL (3 queries) — the regression

```
Q18 Shipping Clerks   → cold w-4504 → warm w-1522  (boost=1, playbook recorded)
Q19 Machine Operators → cold = warm e-1251         (clean)
Q43 Packer            → cold e-7746 (rating 5) → warm w-279 (rating 2)  ← regressed
```

**Q43 regressed from rating 5 (perfect match) to rating 2 (weak)
even though `warm_boosted_count=0` and `playbook_recorded=false`.**
Same query, different warm top-1, no boost flag set. The playbook
recording from Q18 (Shipping Clerks at Midway/Chicago) reaches Q43
(Packer at Midway/Chicago) — same client+city, different role —
through the playbook corpus retrieval surface, even though the role
gate exists.

This is the **same pattern real_001 surfaced** (Q5/Q10 demoted by
Q2's playbook), and the role-gate fix from real_002 (`roleEqual`
on `Role` field) was supposed to close it. Possible explanations:

1. Role extractor failed on either Q18 ("Shipping Clerks") or Q43
   ("Packer") — leaving an empty role bypasses the gate (gate is
   "permissive on empty" by design)
2. Gate fires on boost path but not on Shape B inject path — and
   "boost=0" in the JSON is `warm_boosted_count` (count of
   re-ranked entries), not a flag for "no playbook influence at all"
3. Cosine-level drift: the playbook entry just happens to be close
   enough to Q43 in raw cosine space that warm-pass retrieval picks
   up `w-279` directly without going through boost or inject

The other regressions (Q4 Centennial Packaging Flint MI, Q25 above)
are smaller (3→2 and 2→1) and likely judge consistency drift on
borderline candidates. Q43 is the structural one.

---

## What this confirms vs falsifies

**Confirmed:**
- Substrate generalizes at the rank level (82% cold-top-1 = judge-best)
- Verbatim lift works (9/9 discoveries → warm top-1)
- Role-disambiguation works at cosine level for clean role-distinct
  query distributions (Heritage Foods cluster is the proof)
- Paraphrase recovery is real (6/9 → top-1, 9/9 any-rank)

**Falsified / weakened:**
- "8/10 cold-pass top-1 = judge-best" was 12 points optimistic on
  the strict (rating ≥ 2) interpretation. Real number on broader
  data is ~68%, not 80%. Headline rank-match number (82%) holds.
- Real_002's role-gate fix is **not structurally airtight**. Q43
  shows the cluster-bleed pattern can still fire under conditions
  the prior tests didn't reach. Open question: which path is
  leaking — extractor failure, gate scope, or cosine drift?

---

## Next moves (informed by this evidence)

1. **Diagnose Q43 specifically**: re-run the role extractor on its
   query text, check whether Q18's playbook entry has a role field
   recorded, look at the warm-pass top-K to see whether `w-279`
   reaches there via boost, inject, or cosine-only.
2. **Strengthen the corpus for the role-city combos that scored
   low rating** (the 7 queries where cold top-1 was rating=1). The
   workers corpus has gaps the v3 slice surfaced.
3. **Don't ship the "80% generalizes" framing as-is.** The number
   real_006 measured (82% rank, 68% rating ≥ 2) is the honest one
   to publish.

This is what reality tests are for. Numbers from the memorized slice
gave a clean story; numbers from the held-out slice show where it
needs work.

---

## Repro

```bash
cd /home/profit/golangLAKEHOUSE
PATH=/usr/local/go/bin:$PATH go build -o bin/gen_real_queries ./scripts/cutover/gen_real_queries.go
./bin/gen_real_queries -limit 50 -offset 10 -styles need > tests/reality/real_coord_queries_v3.txt

PATH=/usr/local/go/bin:$PATH \
  RUN_ID=real_006 \
  JUDGE_MODEL=qwen2.5:latest \
  QUERIES_FILE=tests/reality/real_coord_queries_v3.txt \
  WITH_PARAPHRASE=1 \
  WITH_REJUDGE=1 \
  bash scripts/playbook_lift.sh
```

Local-only. No cloud calls.