core/docs/decisions/SESSION-2026-05-27-adr-0167-parallel-dispatch.md

SESSION-2026-05-27 — ADR-0167 parallel-dispatch (audit-as-teaching-evidence)

Date: 2026-05-27 Author: Shay Companion ADR: ADR-0167 Parent session: SESSION-2026-05-26 (Brief 11 comprehension reader) Anchor: thesis-decoding-not-generating

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What happened

Brief 11's closure pass landed across the day (11A→11B→11D merged; 11C absorbed into ADR-0167 W3-A). Mid-day, while reviewing the Brief 11B audit taxonomy, a question surfaced:

See, if it has this kind of information, can't it also be used to help it try and (re)solve problems?

That observation — that the refusal taxonomy is itself a queue of teachable moments, not just a diagnostic dump — became ADR-0167. By end of day, the ADR + the LexicalClaim-first implementation slice were mostly landed (W1-A + W2-A/B/C/D merged; W3-A in flight with Opus 4.7).

The architectural pivot

The temptation was a refusal-class dispatch table: missing_operator → specialised handler. Reader hits multi_quantity_composition? Route to a frame-splitter. Hits fraction_percentage_literal? Route to a fraction subroutine. That direction was rejected explicitly in the ADR (§"Why this is not a refusal-class dispatch table") because it is library-of-handlers — the same anti-pattern regex sentence templates represented, which adr-0164-comprehension-reader retired.

The right direction came from the thesis: the engine doesn't store another found thing; it surfaces what it failed to find in a shape the operator can teach against. The audit taxonomy is the queue; the existing contemplation/HITL teaching corridor is the resolution path. No new mechanism — wire the math reader's evidence into the same loop cognition already uses.

The dispatch experiment

ADR-0167's implementation was a clean target for the parallel-agent pattern: 6 PRs across 3 waves, 5 model operators matched to brief shape.

Wave	PR	Brief	Operator	Why this model
W1	#350	MathReaderRefusalEvidence schema	Opus 4.6/4.7	Foundation; must be right first time
W2	#352	Audit→evidence adapter	GPT-5.3-Codex	Mechanical type-A→type-B + tests
W2	#353	Lexical claim signature + dedup	Sonnet 4.6	Pure-Python tight-scope normalisation
W2	#351	Domain discriminator + audit	Gemini	Long-context survey of every call site
W2	#354	LexicalClaim ratification handler	GPT-5.5	Highest-stakes; GitHub-connector review coordination
W3	(open)	E2E determinism + cognition regression	Opus 4.7	Integration verification; deep reasoning

Briefs lived in tmp/wave2.md and tmp/wave3.md. Each operator pointed to their section header. Shared constraints (worktree isolation, wrong=0, ADR-0166, uv, explicit staging) at the top of each wave doc.

What worked

Brief-shape matching. Earlier sessions mixed agents poorly — feedback captured in feedback-shay-workstyle and the new feedback-parallel-dispatch-pattern memory entry. This time the mapping was deliberate: Opus to load-bearing schema, Codex to mechanical wiring, Gemini to long-context surveys, Sonnet to tight-scope normalisation, GPT-5.5 to high-stakes pack-mutation. Result: 5/5 briefs produced usable work, 4 needed no handler intervention, 1 (Codex) tapped out at rate limits but had finished implementation — handler finished the commit+push+PR mechanically.

Single monitor on terminal CI state. Earlier polling-loop monitors spammed every 60 seconds with pending. The fix: until loop in the Monitor command, emit only when state is no longer pending. One event per PR completion, no noise.

Wave-N dispatches AFTER wave-(N-1) merges to main. Briefly tested the alternative (Gemini accidentally merged W1-A's branch into its W2-C branch because W1-A wasn't yet on main); harmless this time but the discipline is to wait. Memory entry pins this.

What surfaced as load-bearing

Case gsm8k-train-sample-v1-0050 is the canary. During Brief 11B I tried the naive pre_frame_filler_sentence fix (drain statement_terminator at pre-frame). It lifted 2 cases to admitted, but case 0050 silently produced a partial graph that would project to the wrong answer. The fix was rejected per Brief 11 §"correct-count greed," and the hazard is now pinned across the test suite — see feedback-wrong-zero-hazard-case-0050. W2-D's SAFE_CATEGORIES = {"drain_token"} allowlist extends the same defence: frame-opener categories cannot be ratified through LexicalClaim because reclassifying a verb like does to accumulation_verb would re-introduce the hazard.

The thesis answer to "can it use the taxonomy to resolve?" The right wire is into the teaching corridor, not into the runtime. The engine learns from its own refusal data through reviewed correction — the loop the thesis demands. ADR-0167 is what makes that loop concrete for the math domain.

What's deferred

• Four non-lexical sub-types (FrameClaim / CompositionClaim / ReferenceClaim / SlotClaim) — separate ADRs, follow-up scope.
• Workbench v1 rendering of math candidates — ADR-0167 §Q4.
• Two partition risks Gemini flagged in the W2-C audit: contemplation pack indexing (teaching/contemplation.py uses hardcoded cognition pack/corpus indexes), and replay gate default in teaching/proposals.py. Both need follow-up but don't block the LexicalClaim slice.

What closes the day

When W3-A merges:

• The LexicalClaim slice is operational end-to-end (refusal → evidence → signature → ratification → row movement, with cognition regression holding green and case 0050 hazard pinned)
• 11C (the capability snapshot) closes as a side effect of W3-A's Deliverable 2
• The thesis claim — the engine teaches itself in the math domain through reviewed correction — becomes a green test (tests/ test_math_evidence_e2e.py::test_lexical_ratification_advances_unknown_word_row)

Brief 11 closes alongside W3-A. The next session can pick up either a non-lexical sub-type ADR, the workbench wiring, the cognition pack indexing partition, or continued GSM8K operator closure — Brief 11D already named those candidates.

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Cross-references

• ADR-0167 — the scoping ADR
• docs/handoff/ADR-0167-PARALLEL-WORK-PLAN.md — the 3-wave / 6-PR dispatch plan
• docs/handoff/BRIEF-11-phase-2-reader-closure-and-capability-snapshot.md — Brief 11 with EOD status footer
• docs/handoff/ADR-0167-W2C-cross-domain-audit.md — Gemini's audit (5 construction / 8 consumption sites)
• evals/gsm8k_math/train_sample/v1/audit_brief_11.md — the bottleneck table the wire is built around
• tmp/wave2.md / tmp/wave3.md — the dispatch briefs (kept in-repo as the parallel-agent playbook for future waves)