core/docs/research/paradigm-deadcode-audit-2026-07-19.md

Paradigm dead-code audit — 2026-07-19

Companion to: ADR-0252 — Problem-Solving Paradigm Consolidation Branch: chore/paradigm-consolidation Scope: for each of the six retired paradigm formulations, trace every code module/function it introduced or proposed, prove liveness or deadness by command, and remove only what is provably dead.

Result summary

Zero modules were removed. Every code artifact traceable to the six retired paradigm documents is in one of three states: (a) never actually built beyond the proposal doc, (b) already removed in a prior pass, well before this consolidation, or (c) built and now live — imported by the serving reader or by a protected dependency chain, and/or covered by tests. No candidate satisfied the dead-code bar (§"Liveness method" below). This is a real finding, not a shortcut: the search was exhaustive across every module named in the six documents plus a general zero-importer sweep of generate/, core/, evals/. Because nothing was removed, the Step-0 baseline numbers are unchanged by construction — there is no "after" run to diverge from "before."

Liveness method

A candidate is dead only if all three hold, verified by command:

1. No live importer — git grep for every plausible import form (absolute dotted path, relative from . import X, relative from .X import), reachability from generate/math_candidate_graph.py's parse_and_solve / resolve_promotable_* dispatch, eval runners, and any registry/entry-point/config.
2. No test exercises it — confirmed by the same git grep sweep over tests/.
3. No current/Accepted ADR references it.

Anything not cleanly meeting all three → kept, listed as ambiguous if borderline.

Candidates traced from the six retired documents

1. Semantic-substrate problem-solving master plan (semantic-substrate-problem-solving-master-plan-2026-06-20.md)

Candidate	Verdict	Evidence
generate/problem_frame.py, problem_frame_builder.py, problem_frame_contracts.py, generate/kernel_facts.py, generate/process_frames.py	live — kept (explicitly protected per task scope)	git grep -n "problem_frame_contracts|assess_fraction_decrease|assess_percent_partition" generate/math_candidate_graph.py shows generate/math_candidate_graph.py:822-825 imports build_problem_frame and assess_geometric_proposals directly — the master plan's own §2.5/§9.1 non-goal (never wire ProblemFrame into the candidate graph) was later overridden by a subsequent, separate decision; the module is now load-bearing in the serving path itself.
generate/construction_proposals.py (PR4, proposal seam)	never built — nothing to remove	find . -iname construction_proposals.py → no match.
Construction catalog: packs/compile_frames.py, packs/schema.py	live — kept, out of scope anyway	Both are general pack-compiler infrastructure used far beyond math frames — packs/schema.py defines MorphologyEntry, LexicalEntry, AlignmentEdge, LanguageRole, OOVPolicy, imported by ingest/gate.py, vocab/manifold.py, sensorium/protocol.py, alignment/graph.py, workbench/logos.py and 10+ more. packs/compile_frames.py is imported by packs/compile_pack.py and directly tested (tests/test_frame_registry_load.py). Not paradigm-specific; predates and outlives this doc.
packs/data/en_core_math_v1/frames.jsonl	0-byte data artifact, not code — out of scope, left untouched	wc -c → 0 bytes. Only reference is a docstring in teaching/math_frame_ratification.py pointing at a directory path, not this file. This is the master plan's unshipped construction-catalog (PR3) — but it's a data file, not "code the paradigm left behind" per the task's own framing, and its presence/absence has zero behavioral effect (0 lines parsed either way). Flagged for a human call on cleanup, not removed here.

2. Semantic state-transition blueprint (SEMANTIC-STATE-TRANSITION-BLUEPRINT.md)

Candidate	Verdict	Evidence
generate/derivation/state/{model,bind,change,ledger,replay,provenance,source}.py	live — kept (this is exactly the "verify the ledger IF any live organ imports it" case named in the task)	git grep -n "derivation\.state|derivation/state" shows direct imports from generate/derivation/accumulate.py, pool.py, and from the protected sprint-organ modules affine_fraction_delta.py, giveaway_target_residual.py, goal_residual.py, question_bound_product.py, temporal_tariff.py, plus generate/derivation/__init__.py. Confirmed live dependency of the serving path, not paradigm-only scaffolding — despite its parent ADR (ADR-0184-scoped-semantic-state-transitions.md) never having been promoted past Status: Proposed.
generate/derivation/state/{frames,target,refusals,transfer,compare,rate,time,world,dag}.py (blueprint Phases S5-S9, plus frames.py/target.py/refusals.py)	never built — nothing to remove	ls generate/derivation/state/ shows only the 7 files above; none of these 9 additional proposed files exist.
Classes EntityMention, CueMention, SemanticWorld	never built — nothing to remove	git grep -n "class SemanticWorld|class EntityMention|class CueMention" → no matches anywhere in the repo.
docs/handoffs/CLEANUP-C2-run-lane-migration.md (referenced by ADR-0174, not this blueprint, but related)	out of scope — not one of the six named documents, left untouched	Not in the task's explicit archive list; flagged only as a documentation-staleness note (see ADR-0174 note below), no action taken.

3. Semantic/symbolic binding-graph proposal (semantic-symbolic-binding-graph-proposal.md)

Candidate	Verdict	Evidence
SemanticSymbolicBindingGraph, SymbolBinding, BoundFact, BoundEquation, BoundUnknown, BoundConstraint, SourceSpanLink	live — kept; this is the same binding graph, not a separate one	These exact classes are defined in generate/binding_graph/model.py (predates/parallels this doc, built under ADR-0132/0133/0134/0135). git grep confirms the package is imported by generate/quantitative_comprehension.py, generate/constraint_comprehension/expr.py, generate/realize/quantitative.py, generate/proof_chain/builder.py, core/comprehension_attempt/model.py, evals/setup_oracle/signature.py, evals/dimensional/runner.py — 7 live non-test importers.
generate/binding_graph/question_target.py, allocation.py (initially flagged as zero-importer by a naive absolute-dotted-path grep)	live — kept; grep false negative corrected	Both are imported via relative import in generate/binding_graph/__init__.py (from .allocation import allocate_symbols; from .question_target import (...)), which itself is imported package-wide. Confirmed by direct git grep on from .allocation import / from .question_target import.

4. Problem-solving capability roadmap v2 (core-problem-solving-capability-roadmap-v2-2026-06-17.md)

No new Python files introduced by this document — it's a meta/status roadmap that references scripts/gsm8k_post_gate_a1_frontier_microscope.py (exists, live, referenced by the sprint lookbacks below) and sets up the "Gate A1/A2" framing the sprint lookbacks implement. No removable candidates.

5. GSM8K capability-paradigm sprint 5-12 lookbacks (8 files)

All 15 organ modules these retrospectives describe are live, currently dispatched, wrong=0-gated serving code — confirmed by direct import trace from generate/math_candidate_graph.py.

git grep -n "from generate\.derivation\." generate/math_candidate_graph.py shows direct imports of: goal_residual, question_bound_product, duration_segment_total, survey_rate_earnings, round_trip_trip_duration, giveaway_target_residual, fraction_decrease, percent_partition, temporal_tariff, affine_fraction_delta, affine_comparative_inversion_total, sequential_comparative_scale, piecewise_daily_hours_total, nested_fraction_remainder_total, loose_crayon_box_capacity, bounded_rate_projection, closed_reference_affine_aggregate — 17 of the 18 direct dispatch imports (r1_reconstruction is the 18th, imported at module top-level). All exist on disk, all match the "Implemented organs" tables in the corresponding sprint lookback.

The remaining generate/derivation/*.py helper modules (extract.py, clauses.py, compose.py, search.py, multistep.py, verify.py, model.py, target.py, pool.py, accumulate.py, comparatives.py, calendar_grounding.py, product_bridge.py) were cross-checked individually — each has 2+ live importers among the protected organ modules above (full git grep output retained in the session transcript). None is an orphan.

The lookbacks themselves explicitly record rejected candidates (e.g., "broad product_bridge [wholesale promotion] stays disabled," "wholesale multiplicative_aggregate — Rejected," DCS/currency/ sealed_elimination families "blocked") — none of those rejected/never-promoted paths were ever built (find . -iname "multiplicative_aggregate.py" → no match), so there is nothing to remove for them either.

6. ADR-0174's deprecated per-category dispatch (ADR-0174 header Deprecates: line)

Candidate	Verdict	Evidence
Per-category injector dispatch table, generate/recognizer_anchor_inject.py:233 (as it existed when ADR-0174 was written)	already removed, prior to this session — nothing to do	Line 233 of the file today is def inject_discrete_count_statement(...), an unrelated live injector — not a dispatch table.
generate/comprehension/lifecycle_runtime_adapter.py, tests/test_reader_coexistence.py	already removed, prior to this session — nothing to do	find . -iname lifecycle_runtime_adapter.py and find . -iname test_reader_coexistence.py → no matches.
generate/math_parser.py (ADR-0174's other named deprecation target — "legacy regex parser... survives only as the offline measurement-comparison baseline")	live — kept	Still imported by evals/gsm8k_math/runner.py, evals/gsm8k_math/verify.py, verify_all.py, core/capability/perturbation_b3.py, generate/perturbation_suite.py, and the OOD/bounded-grammar lanes.
--legacy-parser CLI flag (ADR-0174 says this gates the offline-baseline use of math_parser.py)	flag for documentation correction only — not a code-removal candidate	The flag does not exist (git grep -n "legacy.parser" evals/ finds no argparse flag); docs/handoffs/CLEANUP-C2-run-lane-migration.md only ever proposed it. ADR-0174's header description of this flag is stale relative to current code. Noted here for a human to correct if ADR-0174 is ever touched again; out of scope to edit an Accepted ADR's body as part of this consolidation.

General orphan sweep — generate/, core/, evals/

Ran a zero-importer sweep (absolute dotted-path + relative-import forms, excluding runner.py/ __main__.py/if __name__ == "__main__" entry-point scripts, which are legitimately invoked via python -m and have no Python-level importer by design) across 531 non-entry-point modules under the three roots. 22 files came back as zero-importer:

• 20 are __init__.py package markers for unrelated, pre-existing eval domains (classical_literature_ood, koine_greek_fluency, hebrew_fluency, foundational_biology_ood, foundational_physics_ood, english_fluency_ood, elementary_mathematics_ood, adversarial_identity, multi_step_reasoning, discourse_paragraph, inference_closure, calibration, monotonic_learning, cross_domain_transfer, introspection, multi_agent_composition, provenance, symbolic_logic, sample_efficiency, compositionality) — these are implicitly loaded by Python's package machinery when their sibling runner.py is invoked via python -m evals.<domain>.runner; a package __init__.py never needs an explicit textual import to be live.
• evals/baseline_runner.py — documented and referenced in docs/PROGRESS.md and docs/frontier_baselines.md as an extension point (BaselineModel protocol); not code-imported because it's designed to be extended/invoked directly, not imported by other modules.
• evals/gsm8k_math/holdout_dev/v1/split.py — the one-time deterministic split-generation script for the holdout_dev lane (per that lane's own README); run once to produce cases.jsonl, not imported.

None of these 22 trace back to any of the six retired paradigm documents. They are pre-existing, unrelated repo infrastructure. Removing them would be outside this consolidation's stated scope ("remove only the provably-dead code those abandoned paradigms left behind") even where liveness is debatable on its own terms — flagged here for visibility, not acted on.

Protected list — verified untouched

Spot-checked per the task's explicit protect list: generate/math_solver.py, math_completeness.py, math_roundtrip.py, math_candidate_parser.py, math_candidate_graph.py, generate/problem_frame_contracts.py, generate/derivation/fraction_decrease.py, evals/turn_program.py, evals/multi_register_program.py, core/physics/quantity_kernel.py, cognitive_lifecycle.py, dynamic_manifold.py — none were modified; git status / git diff against the Step-0 baseline commit show no changes to any file outside docs/paradigm-archive/, docs/adr/, and docs/research/ for the entirety of this consolidation.

Baseline numbers (Step 0, and unchanged — no code was removed)

Captured on chore/paradigm-consolidation at the branch tip (origin/main = forgejo/main = 1de6dbc9), before any change:

$ uv run core test --suite smoke -q
176 passed in 132.32s (0:02:12)

$ uv run core test --suite full -q
13163 passed, 111 skipped, 1 xfailed, 173 warnings in 1854.77s (0:30:54)
# 173 warnings are benign engine_state/identity-checkpoint-revision RuntimeWarnings — the checkpoint
# on disk records the git SHA it was written under, and the Part-A docs-only commit changed the repo
# SHA. No test failed or was skipped because of them; 0 failures.

$ uv run python -m evals.gsm8k_math.holdout_dev.v1.runner
holdout_dev: correct=5 wrong=0 refused=495 (n=500)

Because zero code was removed, there is no separate "after" measurement to report — the baseline figures above are also the final figures. wrong=0 on both the train-lookback-gated serving path (smoke/full suites) and the held-out 500-case lane is unchanged.