docs(m4): start-of-stage brief — vocabulary collateral strip, D19–D22 for freeze

HANDOFF.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 # HANDOFF.md — mute-map
 
-_Last updated: 2026-07-28_
+_Last updated: 2026-07-29 (M4 brief reviewed; D19–D22 frozen)_
 
 ## What was just done
 
@@ -78,24 +78,52 @@ and each needs its own brief.
 
 ## Immediate next move
 
-**Nothing is pre-committed.** The honest options, none of them owed:
-
-1. **Close the project** — a write-up of the four-milestone arc, then
-   `/seed-hunt` for the next paper. The characterization KICKOFF bought is
-   delivered: breadth (M1), localization + dose (M2), specificity (M3).
-2. **S1 stretch — scale.** 7B lens fit on a rented GPU (≤ $15, decision K3's
-   no-refit rule applies only to the core chain) plus a matrix-lite. The
-   sharpening-with-scale story is the one M1–M3 keep gesturing at and never
-   measured above 3B.
-3. **S2 stretch — scope.** Token mute button or concept mute button?
-   (translations, synonyms, morphological variants). **Its brief owes the
-   `oracle._BOUNDARY` boundary-class decision before it freezes any non-ASCII
-   list** — that is the named future trigger D18 recorded, and it is the only
-   inherited obligation on the board.
-4. **The cheap follow-up M3 explicitly did not run:** M3 measures collateral
-   among 12 concepts, not across the vocabulary. Nothing here shows that deleting
-   France spares the other 48 M1 concepts. A 12-prime × 60-probe strip would
-   close that gap for roughly the cost of one M3 subject run.
+**Decided (Kyle, 2026-07-28, session "mute-map post M3 decisions"): run the
+vocabulary collateral strip as close-out stage M4, then write-up +
+`/seed-hunt`.** The S1/S2 stretches were declined for this repo and banked as
+idea #13 in `~/Projects/j-lens-proj-ideas/jlens-followon-backlog.md` — they
+compete in the seed-hunt on equal terms, no incumbent's privilege.
+
+**Where M4 stands: `docs/M4-BRIEF.md` is written, adversarially reviewed (see
+the mailbox under `~/.claude/reviews/mute-map/` for the round-by-round
+record), and D19–D22 are FROZEN (Kyle, 2026-07-29) — (a) across the board.**
+The verdict label was resolved per review F8: the label stays `VOCAB-SPARING`
+and the realized survival proportion rides inside the verdict string, the M3
+`ON A DAMAGED FLOOR` pattern applied to a level bar. **Amended post-freeze,
+pre-run and ratified by Kyle (round 4, F20):** that string as first frozen
+carried only the as-scored proportion, so the two pre-registered reads that
+can flip which number is honest (residual-conservative fail-in-place;
+concept-level collapse) stayed in prose — the exact failure F8 was adopted to
+prevent. D20 now carries a pre-declared **AS-SCORED ONLY** qualifier, attached
+by the runner whenever a conservative read's Wilson lower bound falls below
+0.5 while the as-scored read's does not. **Amendment 2 (rounds 5–6,
+F22/F24–F27), also ratified by Kyle 2026-07-29:** the failing label became the
+lineage's null `not shown` rather than an assertive negative, 0.5B was scoped
+inside the wording, the qualifier's attachment was restricted to claim-level
+verdicts, and both string templates were stated explicitly. The gate, its 0.5
+bar, its arm and its re-certification precondition are unchanged under both
+amendments. Full `DECISIONS.md` entries D19–D22 land with the M4 code PR, per
+the M0–M3 pattern.
+
+The stage: 12 subset primes × all 180 M1 items (2,340 cells/subject), gate = a
+single-clause VOCAB-SPARING level bar on the non-subset pool (per-item
+survives-all-12, Wilson lower bound ≥ 0.5 at 1.5B AND 3B — a *new*,
+deliberately lenient, uncalibrated constant on the 12-fold conjunction, ≈
+0.944 per-cell under independence, explicitly not carried from M3's per-cell
+floor). Realized ns are known from the recorded gated sets (gate arm 41 / 71 /
+84); 486 / 844 / 993 of the pool's 492 / 852 / 1,008 cells are genuinely new,
+the rest are M1-recorded and cap the gate arm at 35/41, 69/71, 82/84 before
+any forward pass. Design facts found while drafting: five probe clues mention
+a prime's spelling under D5's own prefix rule (October→september-2,
+silver→flute-1, China→jade-1, October→opal-2, Egypt→beetle-2 — the last
+ungated on all three subjects; D21(a) keeps all five in the pool); D9(b)'s owned
+span-truncation residual re-enters a gate-bearing arm for the first time since
+M1 (0 / 2 / 2 cells, carried by a pre-registered fail-in-place conservative
+read); all 60 roster words pass the D18 span bar on all three tokenizers
+(checked in advance); and M3's own 0.5B subset already fails M4's bar
+in-statistic (19/28, Wilson lower 0.4934), so the off-gate 0.5B floor may
+genuinely fail — reportable under the standing frame. No runner code exists
+yet; with D19–D22 now frozen, code is the next step, cut from `m3_matrix.py`.
 
 Standing constraints unchanged: certified environment = `mps` + torch 2.13.0 +
 transformers 5.13.1 (off it: NOT A RESULT); `m0_anchor.py` stays certified and

PROJECT.md

@@ -9,13 +9,20 @@ deleting one concept's direction at the late third silences that concept and
 leaves the other eleven almost untouched (1.5B: diagonal 0/34 vs off-diagonal
 363/374). M2 PASSED (LATE-LOCALIZED at 1.5B and 3B), M1 PASSED
 (BREADTH-SPECIFIC at 1.5B and 3B), M0 PASSED (2026-07-27); all re-certified
-bit-for-bit on every later run. v1 = M0–M3 per `docs/KICKOFF.md`; S1/S2
-stretches optional.
+bit-for-bit on every later run. v1 = M0–M3 per `docs/KICKOFF.md`. **Close-out
+stage M4 (the vocabulary collateral strip) is now in flight** — brief written
+and reviewed, **decisions D19–D22 frozen 2026-07-29**, no runner code yet. The
+S1/S2 stretches were declined for this repo and banked (idea #13).
 
-**Next action:** none pre-committed — the v1 chain is closed. Open options: the
-S1 stretch (7B lens fit + matrix-lite, ≤ $15 rented GPU), the S2 stretch
-(lexical vs semantic scope, which owes the `oracle._BOUNDARY` boundary-class
-decision before freezing any non-ASCII list), a write-up, or `/seed-hunt`.
+**Next action:** build the M4 runner. `docs/M4-BRIEF.md` is written and
+adversarially reviewed (PR #10); **D19–D22 were frozen 2026-07-29 — (a) across
+the board** — so the next step is code: `m4_strip.py` cut from `m3_matrix.py`,
+`m4_verdict.py`, `test_m4.py`, and the D19–D22 entries appended to
+`docs/DECISIONS.md` in that same code PR. After M4: write-up + `/seed-hunt`.
+The S1 (7B) and S2 (lexical vs semantic scope) stretches were declined for
+this repo and banked as idea #13 in
+`~/Projects/j-lens-proj-ideas/jlens-followon-backlog.md`; they compete in the
+seed-hunt on equal terms.
 
 **Key facts**
 - Fact — Anchor: S4b (dim-stage), concept-specific off-switch at 1.5B, +.727

README.md

@@ -21,27 +21,30 @@ pre-registered gates frozen as code before any run):
 | M1 | Breadth | How much of the (measurable) vocabulary has an off-switch? |
 | M2 | Localization + dose | Where does the switch live, and how much removal does it take? |
 | M3 | Specificity | The full prime × probe collateral matrix. |
-| S1 (stretch) | Scale | The specificity-emergence curve, extended to 7B. |
-| S2 (stretch) | Scope | Token mute button or concept mute button? |
+| M4 (close-out) | Vocabulary collateral | Does deleting one concept spare the *other 48*? |
+| S1 (banked) | Scale | The specificity-emergence curve, extended to 7B. |
+| S2 (banked) | Scope | Token mute button or concept mute button? |
 
 **The honest framing:** an effect *found during a replication, characterized
 here* — the anchor is dim-stage's own recorded result, not a paper claim.
 
-**Status: M3 PASSED 2026-07-28 — the v1 chain is complete.** On the full 12 × 12
-prime × probe matrix at the switch's home band, deleting one concept's direction
-silences that concept and leaves the other eleven almost untouched: at 1.5B the
-diagonal names **0/34** while the pooled off-diagonal names **363/374**
-(+0.971 [+0.867, +0.983]); at 3B 3/32 vs 343/352 (+0.881 [+0.731, +0.943]). The
-same contrast restricted to *same-category* pairs — the arm the lineage's single
-control actually tested — is +0.950 and +0.891, likewise CI-clean. Of the
-matrix's 132 ordered off-diagonal pairs, **126 had never been measured before**
-(the other 6 are M1's own country control cells, which this run re-certifies
-bit-for-bit before it reads anything new). What the gate did not
-ask: collateral concentrates on a few fragile **probes** rather than being caused
-by damaging **primes** (`silver`'s direction damages *nothing*, while `silver`
-itself is the most fragile probe in the grid — inverting what a single control
-cell had suggested), category-block collateral is CI-clean at 0.5B and dissolves
-by 1.5B, and the only imperfect mutes anywhere are `Egypt` and `October` at 3B —
+**Status: M3 PASSED 2026-07-28 — the v1 chain is complete; close-out stage M4
+is in flight — brief reviewed, decisions D19–D22 frozen 2026-07-29, runner not
+yet written.** On the full 12 × 12 prime × probe matrix at the switch's home
+band, deleting one concept's direction silences that concept and leaves the
+other eleven almost untouched: at 1.5B the diagonal names **0/34** while the
+pooled off-diagonal names **363/374** (+0.971 [+0.867, +0.983]); at 3B 3/32 vs
+343/352 (+0.881 [+0.731, +0.943]). The same contrast restricted to
+*same-category* pairs — the arm the lineage's single control actually tested —
+is +0.950 and +0.891, likewise CI-clean. Of the matrix's 132 ordered
+off-diagonal pairs, **126 had never been measured before** (the other 6 are
+M1's own country control cells, which this run re-certifies bit-for-bit before
+it reads anything new). What the gate did not ask: collateral concentrates on
+a few fragile **probes** rather than being caused by damaging **primes**
+(`silver`'s direction damages *nothing*, while `silver` itself is the most
+fragile probe in the grid — inverting what a single control cell had
+suggested), category-block collateral is CI-clean at 0.5B and dissolves by
+1.5B, and the only imperfect mutes anywhere are `Egypt` and `October` at 3B —
 the two concepts pre-registered as the leaky-switch stratum.
 
 **M2 PASSED 2026-07-28** — on a pre-registered 12-concept subset, the
@@ -70,9 +73,15 @@ deterministic prefix rule on the recorded 3-token span (decision D9b, frozen
 before any run), M1's published numbers stand untouched, and the re-score is
 published beside them as a labelled reanalysis (D10a) in which the contrast
 survives on every subject and the dark categories light up. **The v1 chain
-(M0–M3) is now closed; the S1 (7B) and S2 (lexical vs semantic scope) stretches
-remain optional.** Models: Qwen2.5-0.5B/1.5B/3B-Instruct, local MPS,
-forward-only; core chain $0.
+(M0–M3) is now closed.** In progress: close-out stage **M4, the vocabulary
+collateral strip** (12 characterized directions × all 60 concepts), which
+measures the one thing M3's near-white grid does *not* show — that deleting
+France spares the other 48 concepts. Its brief is adversarially reviewed and
+its decisions (D19–D22) were frozen 2026-07-29, before any runner code exists
+— the lineage's freeze-before-code discipline. The S1 (7B) and S2 (lexical vs
+semantic scope) stretches were declined for this repo and banked for a future
+seed-hunt. Models: Qwen2.5-0.5B/1.5B/3B-Instruct, local MPS, forward-only;
+core chain $0.
 
 Full brief: [`docs/KICKOFF.md`](docs/KICKOFF.md). The 12-idea backlog this was
 picked from: dim-stage