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core/docs/evals/learning_loop_demo.md

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Learning-Loop Demo — Cold Turn to Grounded Surface, End-to-End

Date: 2026-05-18 Runner: evals/learning_loop/run_demo.py CLI: core demo learning-loop (--json for machine-readable output) Contract tests: tests/test_learning_loop_demo.py (7 passing) Reference ADRs: 0055, 0056, 0057

learning-loop demo

Headline claim

A single deterministic prompt, "Why does thought exist?", produces:

  • Before the loop runs: [none] I don't know — insufficient grounding for that yet.
  • After one operator accept: [teaching] thought — teaching-grounded (cognition_chains_v1): cognition.thought; logos.internal. thought reveals meaning (cognition.meaning). No session evidence yet.

The active corpus on disk is byte-identical pre/post. The change lives entirely in a transient corpus the demo writes to and then swaps the runtime's _CORPUS_PATH to — the same pattern the replay-equivalence gate uses.

What CORE has that other systems do not

Property Continuous pre-training / RLHF CORE learning loop
Per-fact provenance None (gradient updates are diffuse) Provenance(adr_id, source, review_date, raw) on every appended chain
Replay-equivalence guarantee Offline eval at checkpoint cadence Inline gate runs the full cognition lane on every admission
Audit trail Training logs ProposalLog events: created → replay → transition → accepted_corpus_append
Replayable across runs No (stochastic; weight checkpoints diverge) SHA-256 deterministic proposal_id; bit-identical artifacts (see teaching_loop_bench.md)
Operator gate Implicit (deployment cadence) Explicit core teaching review <id> --accept --review-date YYYY-MM-DD
Roll-back semantics Restore checkpoint core teaching supersede <chain_id> (append-only at disk; active view derived)

This is the architecture deployments that need to answer "why did the system say this today that it would not have said yesterday?" require.

Trust boundary

The demo writes only to a tempdir-scoped transient corpus. The active teaching corpus on disk is byte-identical pre/post. The swap pattern:

real_path = _tg._CORPUS_PATH
try:
    _tg._CORPUS_PATH = transient
    _tg._corpus_index.cache_clear()
    rt2 = ChatRuntime()
    response = rt2.chat("Why does thought exist?")
finally:
    _tg._CORPUS_PATH = real_path
    _tg._corpus_index.cache_clear()

This is the same mechanism teaching/replay.py:_swap_corpus_path uses during the replay-equivalence gate. No clock-time read anywhere in the loop.

Five scenes

Scene What runs Trust property
S1. Cold turn Real ChatRuntime.chat("Why does thought exist?") No (thought, cause) chain exists → universal disclosure; grounding_source=none.
S2. Discovery emission Discovery sink + contemplation enrich the candidate Active corpus untouched; emission is sink-only.
S3. Operator proposal propose_from_candidate() runs real run_replay_equivalence() Cognition lane runs twice; no regression → state=pending.
S4. Operator accept accept_proposal() against a transient corpus path Active corpus byte-identical; transient gains exactly 1 line; provenance adr-0057:discovery_promoted:2026-05-18.
S5. Replay _CORPUS_PATH swapped to transient; fresh ChatRuntime runs the same prompt Surface contains subject / humanised connective / object; grounding_source=teaching.

Sample run

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  S1.  Cold turn — runtime cannot ground the prompt
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  prompt                  : Why does thought exist?
  surface                 : I don't know — insufficient grounding for that yet.
  grounding_source        : none
  discovery candidates    : 1  (emitted post-turn)

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  S2.  Discovery candidate — structured evidence, not a mutation
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  candidate_id            : 17673a2f15c8da21…
  trigger                 : would_have_grounded
  proposed_chain          : {'connective': None, 'intent': 'cause',
                             'object': None, 'subject': 'thought'}
  polarity                : undetermined
  claim_domain            : factual
  pack_consistent         : True
  boundary_clean          : True
  evidence (pack-only)    : [{'epistemic_status': 'coherent',
                              'polarity': 'affirms', 'ref': 'thought',
                              'source': 'pack'}]

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  S3.  Operator-authored proposal — replay-equivalence gate runs
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  proposal_id             : 016252428267e4f339969524988c4794
  proposed_chain          : {'subject': 'thought', 'intent': 'cause',
                             'connective': 'reveals', 'object': 'meaning'}
  evidence (corpus ref)   : cause_creation_reveals_meaning
  replay baseline         : {'intent_accuracy': 1.0, 'surface_groundedness':
                             1.0, 'term_capture_rate': 0.9167,
                             'versor_closure_rate': 1.0}
  replay candidate        : {'intent_accuracy': 1.0, 'surface_groundedness':
                             1.0, 'term_capture_rate': 0.9167,
                             'versor_closure_rate': 1.0}
  regressed_metrics       : []
  replay_equivalent       : True
  state                   : pending

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  S4.  Operator accept — transient corpus, active corpus untouched
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  appended chain_id       : cause_thought_reveals_meaning
  transient corpus path   : /tmp/learning_loop_demo_xxxxxx/cognition_chains_v1.jsonl
  transient lines  before : 10
  transient lines  after  : 11
  active corpus byte-eq   : True

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  S5.  Same prompt — now deterministically teaching-grounded
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  prompt                  : Why does thought exist?
  surface                 : thought — teaching-grounded (cognition_chains_v1):
                            cognition.thought; logos.internal.
                            thought reveals meaning (cognition.meaning).
                            No session evidence yet.
  grounding_source        : teaching

════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
  BEFORE / AFTER  (single deterministic prompt, one accept between)
════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
  prompt   : Why does thought exist?
  before   : [none]     I don't know — insufficient grounding for that yet.
  after    : [teaching] thought — teaching-grounded (cognition_chains_v1):
                        cognition.thought; logos.internal.
                        thought reveals meaning (cognition.meaning).
                        No session evidence yet.

  learning_loop_closed         : True
  active corpus byte-identical : True

How to reproduce

core demo learning-loop                    # human output (preamble + scenes + before/after)
core demo learning-loop --json             # machine-readable DemoReport
python -m pytest tests/test_learning_loop_demo.py -q       # ~15s

Falsifiable claims

If any of these stops holding, the headline claim no longer holds:

  • report.learning_loop_closed is True.
  • report.active_corpus_byte_identical is True.
  • report.before.grounding_source == "none"; surface contains "insufficient grounding".
  • report.after.grounding_source == "teaching"; surface contains "thought" AND "reveal" AND "meaning" AND "teaching-grounded".
  • S3: replay_evidence.replay_equivalent is True, regressed_metrics == [], state == "pending".
  • S4: transient_lines_after == transient_lines_before + 1 AND active_corpus_byte_identical is True.
  • The same prompt drives both surfaces (report.prompt == "Why does thought exist?").

Why "thought" is the demo subject

The subject must satisfy three pre-conditions for the demo to fire deterministically:

  1. Pack-resident (otherwise the discovery candidate isn't emitted) — confirmed by 'thought' in _pack_index().
  2. No active (thought, cause) chain (otherwise the cold turn would already be teaching-grounded) — confirmed by the active corpus snapshot.
  3. Intent classifier picks CAUSE on a natural prompt — "Why does thought exist?" classifies as CAUSE / subject="thought" deterministically.

The operator-authored chain (thought reveals meaning) cites cause_creation_reveals_meaning as affirming evidence. Both endpoint lemmas (thought, meaning) are pack-resident; the connective reveals is in the canonical predicate set.

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