core/docs/decisions/ADR-0020-phase5-rust-parity-sequencing.md

ADR-0020 — Phase 5 / Rust Parity Sequencing

Status: Proposed (decision pending user confirmation) Date: 2026-05-16 Authors: Joshua Shay Depends on: ADR-0016 (Capability Roadmap), ADR-0019 (Exact Vault Recall Acceleration), docs/PROGRESS.md Phase 4 exit memo.

Context

Phase 4 exited 2026-05-16 with three lanes shipped (sample_efficiency, long_context_cost, multi_agent_composition) and ADR-0019 Stage 1 vectorising vault recall. Two non-trivial axes are now unblocked:

• Phase 5 — Curriculum Era. Open-ended domain acquisition (English fluency v5 OOD, Hebrew, Koine Greek, elementary mathematics, foundational physics/biology, classical literature). Stresses the runtime as it stands today on semantic breadth and pack scale.
• Rust backend parity port. CLAUDE.md sequencing rule 5: "Add Rust backend parity only after Python semantics are locked by tests." Phase 4 just locked vault recall semantics with bit-identity tests; the prior Phase 1–3 work locked algebra closure, intent classification, articulation, teaching, and trace hashing. The blocker is dissolved.

The question is what order to take these on. Three positions are credible:

Option A — Phase 5 first, Rust parity later

Open Phase 5 now. Drive curriculum work on the Python runtime. Defer Rust until Phase 5 surfaces a concrete bottleneck that indexing/vectorisation cannot dissolve.

• Pro: Maximum focus on capability expansion. Phase 5 is where CORE proves its end-goal claim (listen → comprehend → recall → think → articulate → learn → replay) on real domains. Every additional language / domain pack is a load-bearing capability bet.
• Pro: Python is currently fast enough. Stage 1 vault recall is ~20 ms at N=10⁵. No measured Python bottleneck blocks Phase 5 work today.
• Con: Phase 5 will balloon the test surface. Re-running Phase 1–4 lanes on every release (per the roadmap) will get slow. CI feedback latency directly governs willingness to refactor — a slow loop encourages unsafe shortcuts that CLAUDE.md explicitly warns against.
• Con: Each new pack ships with Python-only semantics. When Rust parity lands later, every pack's behaviour will need re-verification against the Rust path — more locked surface to re-lock.

Option B — Rust parity first, then Phase 5

Port the Python backend surfaces to Rust before opening Phase 5. Lock parity with bit-identity tests at every ported surface.

• Pro: Phase 5 then starts on a faster substrate. Every curriculum eval re-run is cheaper. Faster feedback supports the eval-driven discipline the project rests on.
• Pro: Locks parity at the smallest possible surface area. Today the locked Python surface is finite and bounded; after Phase 5 it will have grown by every pack, every curriculum, every new operator. Porting later means porting more.
• Con: Rust port is itself a non-trivial project. Done poorly it introduces a parallel backend whose drift from Python is a constant source of incident. CLAUDE.md already treats Rust as opt-in for a reason — CORE_BACKEND=rust must remain explicit and the Python path must remain the deterministic default.
• Con: Delays the capability story. No new curricula ship until parity is done.

Option C — Parallel: Phase 5 curriculum + Rust parity in independent tracks

Open Phase 5 on the Python runtime. In parallel, port one backend surface at a time to Rust, gated by bit-identity tests, without making Rust the default. Phase 5 curricula run on Python until Rust parity is proven per-surface.

• Pro: Both axes progress. Phase 5 capability bets land on schedule. Rust parity grows incrementally, surface by surface.
• Pro: Bit-identity gating means a Rust regression cannot silently corrupt Python-validated runtime behaviour. The Rust path is purely an acceleration; the Python path remains the source of truth.
• Con: Two contexts to hold. Demands discipline about which surface is being touched at any given time.
• Con: Mid-Phase-5 backend swap (per-surface enablement of Rust path) is a real operational complexity that needs careful tooling to keep replay determinism intact.

Recommendation

Option C — parallel, with explicit ordering.

Concretely:

1. Open Phase 5.1 (English fluency v5 OOD) immediately. This is the natural successor to Phase 3 v2 grammatical- coverage and to ADR-0018's articulation operators. It does not depend on Rust.
2. In parallel, open a Rust-parity track. First port: vault_recall — the surface ADR-0019 Stage 1 just locked with bit-identity tests. Port is gated on byte-equal scores and identical top-k ordering against the Python path on a wide fixture vault. No Rust enablement on main until the bit-identity test passes under CORE_BACKEND=rust.
3. Second port: geometric_product and versor_apply. These are the hottest algebra paths; bit-identity is testable against the existing Python closure. Locked by Phase 1–3 algebra suite.
4. Third port: cga_inner (drop-in replacement now that the diagonal-metric kernel is the source of truth).
5. Defer: propagation, teaching, trace hashing — these are Python-shaped semantics with relatively low computational weight; port only if Phase 5 evidence demands it.

Phase 5 may also unlock the deferred scope decisions in PROGRESS.md ("Code generation" before Phase 5, "Embodiment" during Phase 5). Those are separate ADRs; this one only governs sequencing.

Decision

Pending user confirmation. Three options laid out above; recommendation is Option C. This ADR moves to Accepted once the sequencing is confirmed.

Consequences (if Option C is accepted)

• docs/PROGRESS.md opens Phase 5 with "Status: IN PROGRESS" on the same date this ADR is accepted.
• A new ADR (numbered after this one) opens to document the Rust parity contract per-surface (test discipline, parity gate, default-off enablement, replay determinism preservation).
• The Rust track produces no new runtime behaviour — only faster execution of behaviour that the Python path already validates. Any divergence is a test failure, not a feature request.

What this ADR does NOT decide

• Which Phase 5 curriculum to open second (Hebrew vs. mathematics vs. physics). Separate scope call once 5.1 ships.
• The Rust crate layout / dependency choice. That belongs in the per-surface Rust parity ADR, not here.
• Whether to invest in a third backend (e.g., GPU / JAX). Out of scope until both Python and Rust paths are mature.