clay-borg/specs/MetricsAndScenarios.md

# Metrics and Scenarios

Status: **v0.1 draft** — instruments for the [InnerLoop](InnerLoop.md).
Everything the loop calls "better" is measured through the three artifact
kinds defined here: **scenarios** (correctness), **benchmarks** (speed and
cost), and **evidence files** (the committed comparison record).

---

## 1. Metric selection is itself a loop pass

Metrics are not invented ad hoc. Every metric used in an acceptance table
carries **provenance** — a one-line answer to "what state-of-the-art
practice does this metric derive from, and how does ours improve on it?"

| Provenance tag | Meaning |
|---|---|
| `adopted:<source>` | taken as-is from a named practice (e.g. `adopted:criterion` regression thresholds) |
| `adapted:<source>` | derived from a named practice, with the delta stated |
| `novel` | no known precedent — requires a sentence justifying why nothing existing fits |

A metric with no provenance line is invalid. This keeps the
assimilate-and-surpass discipline applied to the measuring instruments,
not only to the measured components.

### Standing metric set (v0.1)

Selected for the four dimensions; capability specs pick from these first
and add capability-specific rows only when these don't cover the claim.

| ID | Dimension | Metric | Unit | Provenance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| M-D1-COV | D1 | numbered spec rules covered by ≥1 passing scenario | % | adapted:requirements-traceability (per-rule, not per-feature) |
| M-D1-LNK | D1 | claimed rules also **named in the aggregate source** | count | novel — closes the spec→code→scenario chain; instrument: `make coverage` (AM-1b) |
| M-D1-SPL | D1 | spec lines per numbered rule | lines | novel — proxies statement simplicity; gameable, so paired with M-D1-COV |
| M-D2-LOC | D2 | source LOC excluding tests (tokei) | lines | adopted:tokei |
| M-D2-DEP | D2 | transitive dependency count (cargo tree) | crates | adopted:cargo-deny practice |
| M-D2-BLD | D2 | clean build / incremental build time | s | adopted:cargo timing |
| M-D2-TOK | D2 | tokens consumed per completed workplan task | tokens | novel — **demoted 2026-07-31**: an input to the cost model, not comparable across models or cache states |
| M-D2-CST | D2 | **cost** per completed workplan task, attributed per CA-08 | USD | adapted:anthropic-pricing — instrument: `make cost`; normative spec [CostAccounting.md](CostAccounting.md) |
| M-D3-THR | D3 | events applied per second, headless replay | events/s | adapted:criterion (throughput mode) |
| M-D3-LAT | D3 | p99 command→state-applied latency | µs | adopted:criterion |
| M-D3-MEM | D3 | peak resident memory during benchmark scenario | MB | adopted:/usr/bin/time -v |
| M-D4-API | D4 | public API items (cargo doc item count) | items | adapted:cargo-public-api |
| M-D4-LEAK | D4 | foreign types in canonical interfaces | count | novel — must be 0; enforced by grep/deny rule, the Clay-Borg hard rule |
| M-D4-SWAP | D4 | capability has null + reference impls passing the same conformance suite | bool | adapted:hexagonal-architecture port testing |

### 1b. The coverage gate's numbers (M-D1-COV, M-D1-LNK)

> **Widened 2026-07-31 (CB-WP-0005 T01).** Until then the instrument
> matched `GR-` only, against `GroundRules.md` only, and linked against
> one source file, so all **18** K-rules were outside it. <!-- fact:k_rules -->
> `58/58 (100%)` read as "all rules".
>
> `make coverage` now reports a second, separate denominator:
> **18 of 18** K-rules are named across the source. <!-- fact:k_linked -->
> Unlinked: **(none)**. <!-- fact:k_unlinked -->
> K10 was unlinked until T06 implemented replay bundles; K14 and K18 until
> T07 amended one and implemented the other. The link is complete — which
> is a statement about **names**, not about assertions, and the gate says
> so on every run.
>
> **Kernel rules are link-only, by design.** They are kernel invariants,
> not game rules: there is no kernel aggregate, setup preset or command
> vocabulary, so a `scenarios/kernel/*.yaml` carrying `covers: [K11]`
> would be a tag in a directory the runner cannot dispatch. Claiming
> scenario coverage for them would be the inflation this gate exists to
> prevent.
>
> Per ADR-0005 §5 the kernel arm **reports without feeding the exit
> code until 2026-08-31**, then binds. A newly widened denominator is not
> a regression. The date lives in `tools/rule-coverage.py`, not here, and
> the tool prints the days remaining on every run.

**Both numbers count names.** Neither proves anything fails when a rule is
violated. That is **M-D1-MUT** (`make mutation-check`, CB-WP-0005 T02) —
four of the seven defects found by CB-RES-0004 were named in the source
and inert, and therefore invisible to everything on this page.


M-D1-COV counts tags. It proves no rule is unclaimed and no claimed rule
is invented; it does **not** prove a scenario exercises what it names, and
that limit is printed with the number every time (InnerLoop implementation
rule 4).

**M-D1-LNK** (CB-WP-0003 T09) closes one link of that chain mechanically:
a rule a scenario claims should also appear in the aggregate source, or
the claim rests on a tag and nothing else.

Measured 2026-08-04: **50 of 59** claimed rules are named in <!-- fact:gr_linked --><!-- fact:gr_rules -->
`games/ground/src/lib.rs`. **Unmet**, target 59. The nine unlinked:

```text
GR-D07 GR-F02 GR-L03 GR-O03 GR-P01 GR-P02 GR-P03 GR-P04 GR-T01
```

The gate **reports** this rather than failing, deliberately. Closing the
gap by adding rule IDs to comments would satisfy the check without
establishing that each rule is implemented — which is the overclaim
InnerLoop implementation rule 2 exists to prevent, and which CB-WP-0001
committed once already. Each of the nine needs its implementation
confirmed before it is tagged. Promoting M-D1-LNK to a failing gate is
correct **after** that, not before.

### 1a. Token cost accounting (M-D2-CST)

> **Superseded 2026-07-31 by [CostAccounting.md](CostAccounting.md)**, which
> is normative for the cost model, attribution, and acceptance metrics.
> This section is retained for the price-sheet location and the
> quality-gate rule; where the two disagree, CostAccounting.md wins.
>
> What changed and why: the definition below named no instrument and was
> never computed, so CB-WP-0001 recorded M-D2-CST as *uncomputable* while
> the data sat in the session transcripts. Three of its rules were also
> wrong in ways that cost real money to discover — see the corrections
> inline below.

Token counts are only comparable at a single pricepoint. Since work moves
between models (Fable for demanding passes, Sonnet/Opus for routine ones),
every task's token record carries the **model** it ran on, and cost is
computed against a committed price sheet:

```text
benchmarks/baselines/model-prices.toml   # the price sheet, updated when prices change
```

```toml
# The live sheet is benchmarks/baselines/model-prices.toml — read it,
# do not copy it. An inlined copy here went stale within hours: it still
# showed the sonnet intro rate as a `#` comment after CB-WP-0003 T11 made
# dated rates into data (promo_input / promo_output / promo_until), and
# added `recorded` + `max_age_days` for the staleness check (CA-16/CA-17).
```

Rules:

- ~~`cost = (in_tokens × input + out_tokens × output) / 1e6` … If cache
  split is unknown, count all input at full price and note it — cost is then
  an upper bound.~~ **Corrected:** the cache split is never unknown; it is
  in every transcript. Treating it as unknown would have priced 80.5M cache
  reads at 10× their rate. See CostAccounting.md §1.2 (CA-03, CA-04) — cache
  writes bill at two different TTL rates and must not be aggregated.
- ~~The state-hub task close (`update_task_status`) already records tokens
  and `model`.~~ **Corrected:** the hub schema has no cache fields and
  cannot represent 88% of spend, and the figures it recorded for CB-WP-0001
  were estimates in error by ~100%. The hub is a **sink** for numbers
  computed by `make cost`, never a source. See CostAccounting.md §6.
- **Cheaper is only better at equal quality**: M-D2-CST verdicts are valid
  only alongside passing scenarios/metrics from the same run — a cheap
  failed pass scores nothing.
- Prices are `adopted:anthropic-pricing` with a recorded date; a stale sheet
  (> 90 days or known price change) invalidates new `better` verdicts on
  M-D2-CST until refreshed. **Now enforced** — CA-17 aborts the run rather
  than leaving this as prose every verdict silently inherited.

Determinism is not a metric but an **invariant**: N replays of the same
seed and command log must produce bit-identical state hashes. Invariant
violations fail the run regardless of metric values.

---

## 2. Scenario format

Scenarios are the correctness currency: executable, declarative, diffable.
One file = one scenario. Location: `scenarios/<game-or-capability>/<slug>.yaml`.

```yaml
scenario: ground/darvo-interrupted-by-ground   # id = path without extension
description: GROUND practice interrupts a DARVO sequence at the Attack step.
covers: [R-041, R-052, R-053]    # numbered rules from the capability spec
seed: 42
setup:
  players: 3
  preset: standard-3p             # named setup preset from the game spec
  patch:                          # optional explicit state overrides
    relationships:
      - {from: P1, to: P2, kind: rivalry, strength: 2}
commands:                         # ordered; actor-tagged
  - {actor: P1, cmd: trigger_darvo, target: P2}
  - {actor: P2, cmd: play_ground, target: P1}
expect:
  events:                         # ordered subsequence that must occur
    - {type: DarvoInterrupted, step: attack}
  state:                          # end-state assertions, dot-path = value
    darvo_sequences: []
    relationships[P1->P2].strength: 1
  rejects: []                     # commands above that must be rejected, by index
```

Rules:

- `covers` is what feeds M-D1-COV; a scenario without `covers` counts for
  nothing.
- Assertions are **partial**: only listed paths are checked. Full-state
  golden comparison is opt-in via `expect.state_hash`.
- Every scenario must be deterministic given `seed`; the runner executes
  each scenario twice and fails on hash divergence (cheap standing
  determinism check).
- A failing run writes `replays/<scenario-id>.cbreplay` (see §4).

---

## 3. Benchmarks and baselines

Benchmarks live in `benchmarks/` as Criterion benches driving scenario
files (a benchmark is a scenario run at scale — no separate workload
format).

Baselines are **committed numbers**, recorded once per approved survey and
updated only by an explicit ADR:

```text
benchmarks/baselines/<capability>.toml
```

```toml
[M-D3-THR]
value = 120000
unit = "events/s"
source = "boardgame.io v0.50, measured locally, 3-player synthetic log"
recorded = 2026-07-31
machine = "bnt-lap001"

[M-D2-LOC]
value = 8400
unit = "lines"
source = "boardgame.io core, cloc, cited from CB-RES-0001"
```

- Comparisons are same-machine where `machine` is set; cross-machine
  numbers are marked `provenance = cited` and treated as directional.
  Per the runnable-baseline option in [InnerLoop.md](InnerLoop.md) §Step 1,
  evidence rows compared only against cited numbers cap their verdict at
  `parity`; a `better` verdict requires a locally measured baseline from a
  fidelity-noted harness.
- Regression rule (adopted:criterion): a merge-blocking regression is
  >3% on any D3 metric against **our own** last evidence file, independent
  of the SOTA baseline.

---

## 4. Replay bundle

`*.cbreplay` is a directory (or tar) with exactly:

```text
manifest.yaml     # scenario id, seed, git commit, schema versions
commands.log      # the full ordered command stream (serialized events optional)
initial.snapshot  # starting state
expected.yaml     # the assertions that failed, with expected vs actual
```

Contract: `cb replay <bundle>` (until the CLI exists: the scenario runner's
`--replay` flag) re-executes the bundle headless and must reproduce the
failure bit-identically. A bug report without a replay bundle is
information; with one, it is work an agent can start.

---

## 5. Evidence file

`evidence/CB-EV-NNNN-<slug>.md` — the committed close-out of a loop pass:

```markdown
# CB-EV-NNNN: <capability>
research: CB-RES-NNNN     adr: ADR-NNNN     spec: specs/<Capability>.md
commit: <sha of measured tree>

| Metric | Baseline | Ours | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| M-D3-THR | 120000 events/s (boardgame.io) | 410000 events/s | better |
| ...every acceptance row, no `unmeasured`... |

## Task cost log
| Task | Model | Tokens in/out | Cost (USD, per price sheet) | Iterations |

## Retrospective
<what the loop itself should change — one paragraph minimum>
```

Verdicts: `better / parity / worse`. A `worse` row does not necessarily
fail the pass — the ADR's declared trade governs — but an undeclared
`worse` does.