R15 hierarchy/timescale

Authored design — 2026-09-15. Section 3. This cascade elaborates the existing checklist item. It is not a dispatch, implementation receipt or completion verdict. Work outside WM-01–14 still requires Joe’s explicit greenlight; having a cascade is necessary but not permission.

Section 3/4 index · Exact TODO · Cascade JSON

Situation and design problem

A strategic phase label does not establish a two-timescale model. R15 needs the slow state to shape fast choice and independently witnessed fast outcomes to revise later slow state.

Governing checklist snapshot

R15 hierarchy/timescale. PARTIAL: slow-state prior and selection influence, independent outcome-to-next-state feedback, full lifecycle acquisition; a phase change is not the entire hierarchical model. Built evidence: Slow-state implementation and machinery feedback examples reported

This is the checklist’s dated evidence account, not a new deployment census. Existing source/test evidence keeps its bounded credit. The acceptance obligation above governs this design.

Pattern applications

R15-1 — Declare each timescale and quantity

Pattern: aif/hierarchical-and-temporal-depth

Specify slow state, tactical target, prior/preference influence and update clock. Produce a coupling contract with distinct meanings; commitment temperature must not silently double as temporal discount.

R15-2 — Bind slow-to-fast influence

Pattern: aif/hierarchical-and-temporal-depth

Record the actual slow-state revision constraining the tactical target and candidate comparison. Retain the consumer values and alternative choices; merely printing a phase name is insufficient.

R15-3 — Return independent outcome evidence

Pattern: wm-connected-learning/observation-to-next-choice

Bind the enacted tactical occurrence and independently accepted outcome to the next slow update. Preserve rejected/unwitnessed outcomes without updating the slow model from self-issued success.

R15-4 — Demonstrate later use and lifecycle

Pattern: wm-connected-learning/observation-to-next-choice

Follow the revised slow state into the next fast decision. Acquire the seven node-linked lifecycle cells as specified by the census; historical machinery feedback supports only its tested coupling.

Composition and interfaces

Each node’s stated artifact is the input or constraint for the related node below. These are design dependencies, not a claim that a runtime scheduler automatically fires patterns. Existing WM producers are reused through the linked contracts; no second implementation is implied.

Retain the actual subject, source/model revision, task/occurrence, cutoff, producer and consumer for each interface. A missing field is a named gap; a default that changes the meaning is not an adapter. Reuse existing records where they satisfy these obligations. If a new component is indispensable, identify its exact TODO/cascade clause before seeking a separately bounded implementation instruction.

Worked situation

A tactical success report switches a strategic label to consolidation. Without an independent outcome and a later consumer of the revised prior, this is only a phase change. The paired occurrences must show both directions.

This is a distinguishing design example, not a claimed production experiment.

Implementation sequence and closure evidence

1. Bind the first application to the actual source, task and authority. Resolve the decisions below before their dependent change; do not reproduce a known gap merely to claim activity.
2. Implement only the specifically dispatched producer/consumer change from the middle applications. Retain the meaningful pre-change failure and relevant post-change controls; do not start a general infrastructure project.
3. Acquire the final application’s evidence and independent review. Compare it against every clause of the exact TODO, identifying any still-open dependency. Source, tests, serving state, ordinary use and whole-run validation receive different credit.

Distinguishing controls: Reject unreviewed outcome, wrong parent context, repeated outcome counting and a next tick that ignores the slow revision. Check each lifecycle cell separately.

Closure rule: every part of the quoted obligation must be supported by the indicated artifacts and actual connections. A useful rejection proves the rejecting boundary only. One accepted subclause does not tick the whole item. A bellback must supply the exact reviewed subject, executed checks, independent verdict and remaining clauses.

Dependencies and authority boundaries

WM-13 · R2 · R6 · R12 · TRACE

WM-13 governs preference-family meaning; no new strategic goal authority follows from hierarchy machinery.

Dependency links describe required interfaces; they do not authorize work on those items. No implementation outside the existing TODO list is approved. Publication does not select a numerical law, settle an unresolved operator ruling or authorize a run.

Pattern and source scope

All seeded patterns are applied above. The JSON pins their source bytes and the governing checklist/rulings. Historical formulas, thresholds and examples in a pattern remain scoped examples unless the governing contract adopts them. This draft adds no pattern-library entries and claims no independent semantic ratification.

Existing pattern source snapshots

Reference text; historical examples and prescriptions retain the scope stated above.

@flexiarg aif/hierarchical-and-temporal-depth
@title Hierarchical and Temporal Depth (Each Level Has Its Own Quantities)
@keywords hierarchy, timescale, strategic loop, tactical loop, temporal discount, calibration state, two-tick campaign, Beta update
@audience aif implementers; anyone coupling a fast loop inside a slow one
@tone technical
@style pattern
@provenance written 2026-08-30 (claude-15) from the catalogue paragraph numbered R15 in p4ng/sec-catalog.tex (PLoP 2026), so that every R-node on Figure 4 has a library pattern; wording follows the paragraph, which is the standard
@see-also aif/temporal-depth-beyond-greedy aif/hierarchical-budget-aware-action-selection
@holds-at R15   ;; pegged 2026-08-30 (claude-15): the catalogue paragraph numbered R15; see PREREG-war-machine §1b

@see-also aif/policy-precision-commitment-temperature
@why R15 dossier problem: R15 solves how a fast tactical loop and a slower strategic loop become a hierarchy rather than two unrelated scorers: the roster places **“Hierarchy and timescale”** in SELECT (`p4ng/empirics-futon/control-stages.edn:26`; control-stage numbering). (source: futon2 holes labs wm-contract PROBLEMS-r15-r11-r17-batch5.md, R15, The problem it solves; L3 rationale-backfill pilot, zai-1, 2026-09-05)
@how own mechanism: When a fast tactical loop acts inside a slower strategic loop, make the coupling explicit and give each level its own quantities — strategic selection fixes the tactical target, witnessed tactical outcomes update the next strategic calibration state, and longer policies carry a named temporal discount of their own — so that no quantity does duty at two levels at once. (source: this pattern's ! conclusion line; L3 rationale-backfill pilot, zai-1, 2026-09-05)
@why problems/r15-hierarchy-and-timescale (L14 edge-resolution; basis: holds -- the problem node's own holds-at token covers this pattern; source: receipt runs/L14-edge-resolution.edn; zai-1, 2026-09-05)
! conclusion: When a fast tactical loop acts inside a slower strategic loop, make the coupling explicit and give each level its own quantities — strategic selection fixes the tactical target, witnessed tactical outcomes update the next strategic calibration state, and longer policies carry a named temporal discount of their own — so that no quantity does duty at two levels at once.

  + context: An AIF harness with two grains of decision: a strategic loop that chooses which task
    to work on and updates priors and preferences slowly, and a tactical loop that constructs and
    executes a cascade against the chosen target quickly. (R13 names the two loops; R11 is the
    orthogonal resource hierarchy over a shared budget. This pattern is the coupling between the
    two timescales.)

  + IF:
      A fast tactical loop acts inside a slower strategic loop.

  + HOWEVER:
      Merely giving both levels a scalar score does not create a hierarchy. A second use of the
      same score — the commitment dial doing duty as a temporal discount, a tactical outcome read
      as if it were strategic evidence — collapses the levels back into one, and nothing in the
      record can then say which level learned what.

  + THEN:
      Make the coupling explicit, in three named seams: (1) strategic selection fixes the tactical
      target — the tactical loop does not choose what to work on; (2) witnessed tactical outcomes
      update the next strategic calibration state — an outcome enters the slow level only through
      a witness the fast level did not manufacture; (3) longer policies use a named temporal
      discount of their own, rather than overloading the commitment dial (R14) to stand in for
      time preference.

  + BECAUSE:
      Hierarchy is a relationship between levels and timescales, not a second use of the same
      score. Each level has its own quantities; the invariant to preserve is that no quantity does
      duty at two levels at once.
      + evidence: the opt-in two-tick campaign records both levels separately, rejects unwitnessed
        learning, folds a grounded fast outcome into a Beta update of the slow state, and uses that
        state to parameterise the next fast rollout. Campaign S (2026-08-21): Tick A's independently
        approved and grounded outcome advanced the slow posterior from Beta(1,1) to Beta(2,1),
        changed the slow mode from exploration to consolidation, and parameterised Tick B under
        that state. This is evidence for the explicit coupling, not for a general nested
        generative model.
      + COUNTERFACTUAL: a run in which a tactical outcome changed the strategic state without a
        witness, or in which the commitment dial and the temporal discount are one number, would
        show the coupling is not explicit.