R7 channel precision

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 channel reliability update must affect an applicable consumer. Reusing its scalar as commitment temperature would change its meaning rather than connect the node.

Governing checklist snapshot

R7 channel precision. PARTIAL: current input/update/consumer chain and relevant gain applicability; do not confuse channel precision with policy precision. Built evidence: Running mechanism and pinned equation witness

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

R7-1 — Declare precision provenance

Pattern: aif/term-to-channel-traceability

Name channel, observed quantity, uncertainty convention and admitted precision update. Produce channel-to-term bindings with units and model revision. Distinguish nonnegative precision from a silently stronger positivity assumption.

R7-2 — Retain the update inputs

Pattern: aif/term-to-channel-traceability

Bind independent observations and residual history at the right cutoff. Produce before/after precision under the declared law; absence of data is not infinite confidence.

R7-3 — Resolve consumer applicability

Pattern: wm-connected-learning/modulation-needs-an-applicable-consumer

Identify the exact score/update mode and how it uses channel precision. Retain clipping, floors and saturation as effective behavior. Policy commitment is a separate R14 quantity.

R7-4 — Demonstrate effective use

Pattern: wm-connected-learning/modulation-needs-an-applicable-consumer

Trace the computed value into its actual consumer with an applicable sensitivity control. Record legitimate saturation or inapplicability without calling it successful modulation.

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 precision value changes in the trace but the active scoring mode excludes it. This demonstrates a computation, not the required influence. An applicable mode must show the consumer taking that input.

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: Test wrong channel, stale cutoff, negative precision, saturation and a consumer that ignores the value. Keep policy-temperature substitution a rejecting control.

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

R2 · R3a · R5 · R14 · R20

No new precision law, floor or gain is chosen here; bind the accepted one and retain unresolved applicability.

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/term-to-channel-traceability
@title Term-to-Channel Traceability
@sigils [🏃/功]
@audience fulab agents, aif implementers
@tone technical
@style pattern

@see-also aif/evidence-precision-registry
@how aif/expected-free-energy-scorecard
@why no matching problem dossier node (@holds-at absent; not among the twenty dossier nodes R1-R17, R20, TRACE). Negative claim per the committed check futon2 holes labs library-loop runs l3_no_dossier_check.py, receipt runs L3-no-dossier-check.edn (enumerates every aif pattern's @holds-at against the dossier node set extracted from PROBLEMS-*.md headings). Rationale not invented (L3 rationale-backfill pilot, zai-1, 2026-09-05)
@how own mechanism: Require each score term to declare the observation channels and precision settings it consumed. (source: this pattern's ! conclusion line; L3 rationale-backfill pilot, zai-1, 2026-09-05)
! conclusion: Require each score term to declare the observation channels and precision settings it consumed.

  + context: A pattern-guided agent evaluates candidates with a multi-term expected free energy score built from heterogeneous evidence.

  + IF:
    You want tuning decisions and failures to be diagnosable at the level of which evidence actually drove each score term.

  + HOWEVER:
    Without explicit traceability, terms like risk or ambiguity silently absorb whatever signals are available, making post-hoc explanations indistinguishable from rationalization.

  + THEN:
    Require every G term contribution to declare the observation keys it consumed, the precision channels applied, and the intermediate values used to compute that term, and persist this mapping alongside the score.

  + BECAUSE:
    Explicit term-to-channel linkage prevents semantic drift in scoring terms and makes policy behavior mechanically inspectable.

  + NEXT-STEPS:
    - DONE: Validate PSR :aif/g-terms provenance keys (term-id, observation-keys, precision-channels, intermediate-values, final-contribution) in check-psr. Evidence: src/futon3/hx/logic.clj
    - DONE: Add (dominant-channels psr) analysis that flags when a single channel accounts for >60% of a term's value. Evidence: src/futon3/hx/logic.clj
    - DONE: Add term provenance + dominant channel summaries to fulab pattern reports. Evidence: src/futon3/fulab/pattern_competence.clj, dev/lab-pattern-report.clj
    - DONE: Emit :aif summaries in MUSN turn start/select/use responses and log them in musn_stream. Evidence: src/futon3/musn/service.clj, dev/musn_stream.clj, src/futon3/musn/schema.clj
    - BLOCKED: Define :aif/term-provenance schema in tatami_schema.clj with keys [:term-id :observation-keys :precision-channels :intermediate-values :final-contribution]. blocked-by[tatami-schema]
    - BLOCKED: Include term provenance in fulab-pattern-check CLI output for top-3 candidates. blocked-by[term-provenance-schema, fulab-pattern-check]