Proposed ADR + session derivation doc capturing the 2026-05-28 design
discussion that took GSM8K Phase 5b from 'build another matcher' to a
self-calibrating problem solver.
Session doc (docs/sessions/SESSION-2026-05-28-...): the full journey —
problem (per-shape matchers can't compound; 79% need mul, 0% single-step),
dead-ends (brute-force spurious matches; 0021 is the only single-sentence
case and it's idiosyncratic), and the four pivots that converged on the
solution.
ADR-0175 (Proposed): the decision —
- two regimes: serving (wrong=0, unchanged) vs sealed practice
(attempt-and-eliminate; wrong is the learning signal)
- proof-carrying seal: practice never writes serving; ratification only
- deterministic attempt/refuse gate: reliability(C) / theta_required >= 1
(NOT RL; regimes collapse the reward side so only reliability is quantified)
- per-class calibration ledger of replayable COUNTS + conservative lower
bound; human-set theta ceilings raised only on evidence
- checkability ladder (gold > convergent self-verification > consistency-only),
privilege proportional to reversibility; provenance + gold tether against
correlated self-delusion
- diagnostic refusal routes skill vs knowledge vs ambiguity; three
compounding stores (vault/packs/pruning); self-proving acquisition narrows
human input without bypassing the gate
- five proof-obligation invariants (wrong=0 on serving, no spurious banking,
determinism, no self-authorization, retractability)
Supersedes the matcher-oriented ADR-0174 5b sub-phases; repoints the
0174 eliminate/reevaluate/contemplate substrate from reading to solving.
Open question: shape of conservative_floor + N_min.
Captures today's end-to-end closure of the math architecture corridor
(ADR-0163 Phase A → B → C → D + operator ratification, 15 PRs, first
non-zero GSM8K correct count: 0 → 3 with wrong = 0 preserved) and the
workbench surface (W-026 API + ADR-0162 design system + W-027 shell +
W-028 chat surface) becoming operational end-to-end.
Added:
- docs/sessions/SESSION-2026-05-26-corridor-closure.md — full session
ledger, per-fork accomplishments, three lifted GSM8K cases,
unexpected-positive observation about skip-only wiring, deferred
work, architectural state at close.
Updated:
- docs/master-plan-post-substrate-audit.md — 2026-05-26 amendment
banner pointing to the session recap; historical 2026-05-24 plan
preserved below.
- docs/PROGRESS.md — appended a new section capturing the day's 15
PRs by fork (math, workbench, HITL), the first-lift counts, and
what stays open.
- docs/decisions/ADR-0163-gsm8k-path-to-mastery.md — Round 1
amendment with the actual lift evidence, the three lifted cases,
the capability-axis preservation, and the unexpected-positive note
about skip-only wiring doing more than projected.
Scope: docs-only. No runtime, no tests, no code changes.
Operator-supplied review of 'Beyond Traditional Pedagogy' triggered
a literature confirmation pass and a structural cross-walk against
CORE's teaching loop. Three artifacts:
1. ADR-0129 (DEFERRED) — Spaced reviewed-correction replay.
Maps onto retrieval-with-spacing literature (most robust finding
in cognitive psychology). Deterministic re-run of past
corrections at fixed cadence to verify they still produce
intended outcomes; failures emit operator-visible events
(no auto-correction). Deferred pending GSM8K-math Path-A/B
resolution + observed incident triggering un-deferral criteria.
2. ADR-0130 (DEFERRED) — Pre-articulation calibration logging.
Maps onto metacognitive prediction-outcome literature. Logs
CORE's pre-correction prediction; emits gap event on
correction acceptance. Provides empirical signal for 'is CORE
actually getting better' across pack-version cohorts. Deferred
pending same conditions as ADR-0129; the two compose if
un-deferred.
3. SESSION-2026-05-23 session note. Documents the review process:
literature confirmation pass (productive failure overstated,
retrieval transfer weaker than claimed, embodied cognition
replication crisis), missed frameworks (worked-example effect,
expertise reversal, CLT, deliberate practice, Bloom's 2-sigma),
structural cross-walk to CORE architecture (12 mappings), and
the rationale for ADRs 0129 + 0130 over alternative ports
(productive failure rejected as inverse of wrong==0; pre-testing
same; embodied learning N/A).
No code changes. Docs-only PR; lands independently of in-flight
ADR-0126 / 0127 / 0128 substrate chain.
Closes the documentation audit. All four lower-priority surfaces from
the earlier scan now reflect the post-ADR-0110 reality.
New:
- docs/sessions/SESSION-2026-05-22-contract-layer-arc.md: full
narrative of the ADR-0103 -> ADR-0110 arc, including the
refused/amended/succeeded narrative, infrastructure bridges, and
ledger state at session close. Pairs with the 2026-05-21
articulation-arc session log.
Extended (additive, no rewrites):
- docs/runtime_contracts.md: new 'Expert-Demo Promotion Contract
(ADR-0106 + ADR-0109)' section. Surfaces ledger_report() shape,
reviewer-yaml schema, lane-shape registry, replay invariant,
fail-closed registry behavior, and trust boundary.
- docs/eval_methodology.md: new 'Lane-shape registry (ADR-0109)'
section. Documents what to do when adding a new eval lane:
pick a shape or amend ADR-0109. Notes the holdout-runner gating
(cases_plaintext.jsonl vs sealed). Header bumped to 2026-05-22.
- docs/Whitepaper.md: new section XIII 'Evidence-Governed Domain
Layer' between XII (Forward Semantic Control) and the
Extensions/closing. Narrates the contract chain at the
philosophical / external-reader level. The original §XIII
becomes §XIV.
- docs/Yellowpaper.md: new section XII 'Ratification Contract
(ADR-0091 + ADR-0106 + ADR-0109)'. Formal specification of the
nine predicates, the promotion predicate (with explicit logical
form), the digest function, and the lane-shape registry table.
The original §XII becomes §XIII.
No code, no tests, no contract changes.
Phase 5 landed in commit 327047c (articulation-quality miner +
runtime sink wiring + full end-to-end loop tests). Extending the
session note in-place per its own append-only convention so the
single document covers the complete arc Phases 1–5.
Sections updated
----------------
* §0 executive summary
- commit count: 9 → 11
- phases shipped: 4 → 5 (new Phase 5 row in the deliverables
table)
- observation surfaces table grows two rows for
``attach_articulation_sink`` and
``mine_articulation_observations``
- test artifacts: 6 → 8 files, 64 → 82 cases
* §3.5 NEW — full architectural walkthrough of Phase 5
- Why the loop closes (links the user's
"memory confidence scoring" intuition to ADR-0080's
doctrine-aligned realisation: reviewable evidence, not
autonomous mutation)
- File-by-file delta (chat/articulation_telemetry.py + miner
+ runtime wiring)
- Three v1 mining rules (recurring_predicate_monotony /
recurring_planner_gap / low_average_predicate_diversity)
- Loop diagram showing live + offline halves
- Recorded demo output from the commit message
- Doctrine pin table mapping each constraint to its test
* §4 pipeline diagram extended to show Phase 5 sink + offline
miner branches
* §5 verification table gains four new rows for Phase 5 claims
(full-loop emission, byte-equal finding IDs across two e2e
runs, JSONL round-trip identity, opt-in gating)
* §5.6 suite totals updated:
- Contemplation subsuite: 35/35 → 53/53 (Phase 3+4+5)
- New row for Phase 5 articulation-quality e2e (7/7)
* §6 case study — added the "After Phase 5" trace and the
closing one-line story across all five phases for one prompt
("What is truth, and why does it matter?")
* §7 architecture surfaces table grows a row for
chat/articulation_telemetry.py and adds the miner to the
contemplation subsystem row
* §9 inverted from "what would close the loop" (future work) to
"SHIPPED — here's what it now unlocks":
- production sink + retention policy
- additional aggregation rules
- CLI hook
- review-loop wiring back into PackMutationProposal
* §10 reference index grows new lines for
chat/articulation_telemetry.py,
core/contemplation/miners/articulation_quality.py,
tests/test_articulation_quality_miner.py, and
tests/test_articulation_quality_e2e.py
* Footer updated: notes the arc is complete; future arcs should
start a new session-notes file and cross-link rather than
rewriting this one.
The session-notes file is now 1100+ lines — the complete frozen
reference for the articulation arc that took CORE from one-sentence
pack-grounded surfaces to a full live-reasoning + offline-mining
+ reviewable-proposals feedback loop, all doctrine-aligned, all in
one session.
Thorough why/when/where/how reference for the four-phase articulation
arc shipped this session plus the pre-arc classifier/Rust cleanup
that made it possible. Designed as the load-bearing entry point for
future contributors, case studies, capability audits, and
architectural reviews.
Sections
--------
0. Executive summary — what was achieved (9 commits, 64 new tests,
user-visible before/after, doctrine evidence)
1. Why this work happened (visible gap, doctrine constraint, what
was already wired vs. missing)
2. Pre-arc cleanup — RECALL trigger / CORRECTION x2 / Rust FFI
3. Phase 1 — discourse planner default ON + fast-path
Phase 2 — reflective rendering (subject pronominalization)
Phase 3 — live plan contemplation pre-flight
Phase 4 — per-plan articulation telemetry metrics
4. The pipeline today (diagram + before/after table)
5. Verification — every claim and the test that holds it.
Five sub-tables: doctrine claims, quality claims, back-compat /
null-lift claims, ADR-0072 structural invariants,
`core bench --suite all` performance, suite-level totals.
6. Case study — the compound prompt as a story across all four
phases
7. Architecture surfaces touched (which file got what change in
which phase)
8. What was deliberately NOT built (and why — connective rotation,
generalised pronoun selection, plan revision, Phase 2.5,
Rust algorithmic optimisation)
9. Phase 5 — what would close the user-intuited "live reasoning
→ memory confidence" loop, doctrine-aligned
10. Reference index — modules, flags, tests, ADR cross-refs
Per the user's request: captures the why/when/where/how thoroughly
so this work is recoverable for future reference, case studies, and
building on top. Append-only convention: future sessions extending
this arc should add new sections below rather than rewriting — the
history is itself evidence of the doctrine working in practice.
Implement the eval infrastructure defined in ADR-0016 before building new
eval lanes. This establishes the discipline that governs the entire
capability roadmap.
- Generic eval framework (evals/framework.py): lane discovery, versioned
scoring, result persistence
- Cognition lane retrofitted into new convention: 45 cases split into
stratified dev (13) / public v1 (13) / holdout (19) sets with contract,
runner, and recorded results
- Generalized `core eval <lane>` CLI: dynamic lane discovery, --list,
--version, --split, --save, --json flags
- Holdout runner scaffold: plaintext fallback, encryption interface ready
- Baseline runner scaffold: pluggable frontier model interface
- Fix: CognitiveTurnPipeline.run() crashed on turn_log[-1] when the
unknown-domain gate returned a stub without appending to turn_log
- ADR-0016, eval_methodology.md, PROGRESS.md, capability gates session log
Phase 0 exit audit found two methodology issues:
1. Pipeline turn_log crash (fixed here)
2. Versor drift in multi-turn sessions (pre-existing, under investigation)
