clay-borg/workplans/CB-WP-0007-session-shape.md

---
id: CB-WP-0007
kind: meta
title: "Make session shape measurable in the window that matters, then enforce it"
status: done
state_hub_workstream_id: "bee19b76-fb60-4dcf-94d0-9242b43e0e42"
---

# Purpose

[CB-RES-0005](../research/CB-RES-0005-session-shape.md) (tier M, survey
and ADR merged; chaos d4=2, no override):

> **SH-1 and SH-2 are cumulative means over every response ever recorded.
> They cannot detect a worsening trend, because the history outvotes the
> present.**

| window | responses | SH-1 mean | SH-2 p90 | SH-3 batching |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| cumulative → `dfd0d6d` | 923 | **206,952** | **389,733** | 9.6% |
| **CB-WP-0006 alone** | 156 | **503,464** | **607,105** | **0.0%** |

Read cumulatively, session shape looks stable and improving. Read by
window, the last pass ran at **2.4× the mean** of all preceding history
and batched **nothing at all** — 146 tool calls in 146 responses.

This is the third shape of one disease. CB-WP-0005 found numbers that were
**unmeasured**; CB-WP-0006 found numbers that were measured but
**unasserted**; this pass has numbers that are measured *and* asserted and
still cannot fire, because they are **aggregated over a window in which
nothing can move them**.

Per InnerLoop §Step 4, no target moves in the commit that measures it —
and CB-RES-0005 D3 states that up front, because all three targets are
currently unmet by wide margins and the temptation is obvious.

## Scope cut, 2026-08-01 (maintainer decision)

A spend review before starting found the project **38% product / 62%
loop-meta**, with cost per response degraded 2.9× from its best window and
INTENT stage 0 still missing a CLI player and bots. CB-WP-0005 and
CB-WP-0006 cost **~$74 — 31% of all spend — for zero measured efficiency
gain** (their return was correctness of claims, which is real but is not
optimization).

So this workplan is **cut to T01 and T03**, the two tasks that attack the
2.9× regression directly. **T02 and T04 are cancelled**, not deferred —
SH-4 trend reporting and the batching trial are more instrument work, and
the instrument-failure taxonomy is not converging. T06 becomes the
project-level retrospective the maintainer asked for.

**A soft 25% meta budget is established here** (T03), because the review's
finding needs a standing number, not a memory.

## Phase A — measure the right window

## Task: window the session-shape metrics

```task
id: CB-WP-0007-T01
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "7e036db4-d97a-45bd-a70a-20fe68225402"
```

`cb-cost`'s session-shape block reports over every response in scope. With
`--since` it already windows correctly; without it, it reports a
cumulative mean that a bad pass cannot move.

Deliver: the session-shape block **states its window explicitly** and, when
run without `--since`, reports **both** — the window since the last commit
*and* the cumulative history, labelled so they cannot be confused. The
cumulative figure stays useful for the long view and stops being what a
target compares against.

**Predicted:** the windowed figure differs sharply from cumulative.
**Refuted if** it lands within 20% of the cumulative number, in which case
the aggregation was not the problem and this pass should re-plan.

## Task: SH-4 — a windowed trend the instrument can see (CANCELLED)

> **Cancelled unstarted 2026-08-01.** More instrument work, against a
> review finding that instrument work has stopped paying. The ceiling T03
> adds catches a bad pass; a trend line would catch a slow slide, which is
> a real gap — recorded as open, not built.

```task
id: CB-WP-0007-T02
status: cancel
priority: medium
state_hub_task_id: "1d5a32ef-4086-4021-b874-24ed2160c4dd"
```

A ceiling catches a bad pass. It does not catch a slow slide, which is how
SH-1 got from 232k to 503k without any single pass looking anomalous.

Deliver a reported (not gated) SH-4: **mean context of the current window
against the previous window**, so a rising trend is visible before it
breaches. Provenance `adapted:criterion` — the same shape as the >3%
merge-blocking regression rule against our own last evidence file, but
reported rather than blocking, because CB-RES-0005 §4 argues a build gate
is the wrong instrument for behaviour.

State the limit in the output, as every other gate here does: two windows
is not a trend, and the first run has nothing to compare against.

## Phase B — enforce it where enforcement belongs

## Task: `make shape-budget` — a live budget, not a build gate

```task
id: CB-WP-0007-T03
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "126a6313-b1f7-462c-8771-5100d38f9429"
```

Per CB-RES-0005 D2, modelled on CB-01/CB-02, which measures spend since
the last commit, warns at $10, stops at $22, and is surfaced by
`make status` — never by `make all`.

**Why not a build gate, restated so it is not quietly reversed later:**
failing `make all` on context size would **block committing**, and
committing is what closes the attribution window and is the natural point
to compact. A gate that blocks the remedy when the metric breaches is a
trap, not a gate. It also punishes the wrong artifact — a long session
does not break the tree.

Deliver `make shape-budget` and a line in `make status`:

| threshold | value | action |
|---|---|---|
| SH-1 soft | 200,000 mean context in the window | warn |
| SH-1 hard | **300,000** | report loudly: compact before continuing |
| SH-2 soft | 300,000 p90 | warn |
| SH-3 floor | 20% batching | warn |

**The hard threshold is set here, before the next measurement**, per
§Step 4. It is 1.5× the soft target, matching CB-02's 2.2× ratio on spend
scaled down because context is bounded by the model and spend is not.

Carries `--self-test`. Its positive control is the one this project keeps
needing: a budget that reports `ok` because it measured nothing must
abort instead.

## Task: batch deliberately, and report what the rate reaches (CANCELLED)

> **Cancelled unstarted 2026-08-01.** `SessionShape.md` §4 already puts
> the ceiling at **$2–4 on a $93 pass** — the cheapest of the three
> metrics to move and the least valuable. Spending a task on it while
> stage 0 lacks a CLI player is the misallocation the review found.
> SH-3 remains measured, unmet at 0.0%, and unfalsified.

```task
id: CB-WP-0007-T04
status: cancel
priority: medium
state_hub_task_id: "c284db6f-2e16-40fb-be8b-83ae5391c058"
```

SH-3 is **0.0%** across two consecutive passes. The target is 20%. Nobody
has ever tried to hit it, so its reachability is unknown and the number is
currently unfalsified rather than wrong.

This task is the trial: batch independent tool calls deliberately through
the pass and report the rate the instrument measures.

**Three outcomes, all publishable, and the third is the interesting one:**

1. **≥20%** — the target is reachable; it stops being aspirational.
2. **5–20%** — partially reachable; report the ceiling and what blocked it.
3. **<5% despite trying** — then **20% is the number to challenge, with
   evidence**, and the challenge belongs in an ADR rather than a quiet
   edit. Per §Step 4 the target does not move in this pass regardless.

## Phase C — measure, and say what it cost

## Task: control loop — did windowing change what fires? (CANCELLED)

> **Cancelled 2026-08-02 (CB-WP-0010 T01), overtaken.** Both questions
> were answered with measurements two passes later:
> [CB-EV-0008](../evidence/CB-EV-0008-adaptive-gates.md) §1 compares the
> windowed metric against cumulative on real passes, and §4 records the
> shape budget firing. Writing CB-EV-0006 now would re-derive them from
> the same transcripts.

```task
id: CB-WP-0007-T05
status: cancel
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "2f78b272-e1f9-4530-bc8c-3a9d82833546"
```

Commit `evidence/CB-EV-0006-session-shape.md`. **Reduced with the scope
cut** — tests 1, 2 and 4 remain; test 3 (SH-3) is cancelled with T04.

Four tests, all reported:

1. **Does the windowed metric differ from cumulative?** Against T01's
   prediction; refuted if within 20%.
2. **Did the budget fire on this pass?** A budget that never reports a
   breach across a full pass is either miscalibrated or measuring nothing —
   both are findings.
3. **What did SH-3 reach?** T04's three outcomes.
4. **Did quality hold?** `make all` green, and the honest question this
   pass cannot dodge: **did compacting to satisfy a context budget cause
   work to be repeated or detail to be lost?** `SessionShape.md` §5 says
   the loop cannot detect this. Record the judgment explicitly rather than
   letting the cost number imply it.

## Task: retrospective (CANCELLED)

> **Cancelled 2026-08-02 (CB-WP-0010 T01), answered elsewhere.** The
> question was whether there is a *fourth* way a number can fail to bind.
> There is, and it is on record: CB-EV-0007 §3 found a number **aggregated
> over a window that cannot move it** — the meta budget, reintroducing the
> defect two tasks after the same one was fixed for session shape. The
> tier-taxonomy gap this task also carried was closed by ADR-0006 D5.

```task
id: CB-WP-0007-T06
status: cancel
priority: medium
state_hub_task_id: "93fbd2bb-403b-4be9-a5ff-d6142b916aba"
```

The question: **three passes have now found three different ways a number
can exist and not bind — unmeasured, unasserted, and aggregated so it
cannot fire. Is there a fourth, and is the loop discovering a pattern or
enumerating an infinite set?**

CB-WP-0003 concluded that class-by-class hardening does not converge.
Three passes later, the *instrument* failures have their own taxonomy and
it is also not converging. Say plainly whether that changes the design
goal, or confirms it.

Also due: **the tier-taxonomy gap** CB-RES-0005 §6 recorded but did not
fix. This pass is the first instance. Per the standing argument used for
K14 and InnerLoop v1.4, a second instance triggers the change — say
whether this counts as one or two.