[Ayushxsingh100]

P8a — the experiment harness

Branch feature/p8a, created from origin/main at 63ac3d2.

• The external review decides: no gate, mini-gate or milestone is claimed here (C-28).
• The only gate wording in this PR is the dictated P7a, P7b and P7/M4 status lines (C-199).
• Do not merge before the verdict.

Decisions

• Decided (authors, 12 Nov 2026): C-196 open targets, C-197 N-05 amended, C-198 the four conditions, C-199 the P7 status lines.
• Proposed (P8a): C-200 to C-204 (P8a-1 to P8a-5), and C-207 (my readings).
• Decided (user, 12 Nov 2026): C-205, A's lineage tracks only A's required set; C-206, an opt-in empty baseline; C-208, the identity-strategy injection point, with one P3b test amended so that it keeps its intent.
• Open: C-209. Under C and C′, the open-target rule as decided rejects every F8 trajectory at step 1. Nothing was tuned.

What exists

experiments/:

• a loader that verifies the hash pins, refuses the test split and passes execution fields only;
• the conditions A, B, C and C′;
• trials, records and write-once artifacts;
• resume after an interrupted run;
• the command python -m experiments run|summary.

Promotion:

• decide(open_targets=...), with the open target's FAIL carried as VERIFIED evidence through the proofs, the binding record and the commit;
• stateless_policy (an explicit required set).

Application:

• StatefulFullScopePolicy and StatelessScopePolicy;
• EvaluationRequest.open_targets;
• an identity strategy passed to the orchestrator (default EvidenceIdentity).

Dev run (local, 12 Nov 2026)

• Inputs: 224 dev targets × 4 conditions = 896 trials. DAIL at e8f43c3, TerraPreserve at terrapreserve-v1.0, manifest pin verified.
• Outcome: 896 COMPLETED, 0 failures, 903 s. These are counts, not results: no label was opened and nothing was scored.
• Counts: in the P8a section of docs/PHASE_GATES.md.

Checks (Python 3.12.10)

• dev.py test: 4402 tests OK, 5 skipped (two opt-in TerraPreserve tests, two opt-in Ollama tests, the symbolic-link test).
• pytest: exit 0.
• dev.py lint: clean.
• The real-data tests with TERRAPRESERVE_ROOT set: OK.
• Mutation checks: 18 of 18 killed, plus 2 of 2 for the amended test.
• No new dependency.

Review verdict: (link to be added)

🤖 Generated with Claude Code