arena/docs/FIRST_EVAL.md

# Running an eval — the runbook

Written 2026-08-21, the day Arena first measured anything end to end. Before this,
`outputs/` held one `config.toml` and zero episodes: every number downstream of an
eval — the dashboard, `eval-results.json`, the leaderboard, the before/after
training table — was waiting on a run that had never completed.

This is that run, written down so the next one is a copy-paste.

⚠️ **Updated 2026-08-25.** The pin is now the stable `verifiers==0.3.1`
release published 2026-08-24. It removes the 600-second model-call ceiling §5 blames for
every truncation here, and moves the output layout. §1 and §2 are the post-bump
instructions; §4 and §5 are kept as written because they are the record of what the
thinking-**off** run measured, and §6 is the thinking-**on** re-measurement the bump made
possible. **Every reward number in this file now carries its sampling configuration.**

---

## 1. The command that works

```bash
cd ~/repos/gitea/arena
export SPARK_API_KEY=dummy
# The OpenAI-compatible endpoint of the reference node, e.g. http://<host>:8001/v1.
# Kept out of this repo on purpose: it is an internal address, not a public one.
export SPARK_BASE_URL=...

uv run --project environments/canary_trap eval @ configs/canary_trap.toml \
  --model brain-qwen38-dspark \
  --client.base-url "$SPARK_BASE_URL" \
  --client.api-key-var SPARK_API_KEY \
  --env.agent.runtime.type subprocess \
  --no-push --no-rich \
  -c 8 -o outputs/run-<stamp> --run.dir canary-trap
```

Swap `environments/<pkg>` and `configs/<pkg>.toml` for any of the eight in `configs/`. The
thinking-**on** sweep is `outputs/thinking-n32/run_all.sh` (gitignored, and it takes a
`flock` — see below); the counters are `outputs/count_rewards.py` and
`outputs/summarise_run.py`.

**Thinking is off unless you ask for it**, and asking goes in a config file, not a flag —
see §5. The seven data environments have thinking-on copies in `outputs/thinking-n32/*.toml`;
§6 is what they measured.

### Why each flag is there

| flag | why |
|---|---|
| `--model brain-qwen38-dspark` | **The served id, pinned.** `--model brain` does *not* 404. SGLang does not validate the model field on the chat route: it returns 200, Qwen answers, and the trace records `brain`. The old `outputs/canary-trap--brain--null/` dir is exactly that mistake. Pin the id `GET /v1/models` reports. |
| `--client.base-url` | The default is `https://api.pinference.ai/api/v1`, which needs a `PRIME_API_KEY` this box does not have. |
| `--client.api-key-var SPARK_API_KEY` | The reference node does not authenticate with a Prime key. The client still resolves *some* env var, so point it at a dummy one rather than leaving it on `PRIME_API_KEY` (empty → the failure mode of the one earlier attempt). |
| `--no-push` | Hub push is parked (PLAN.md). Push is **on by default** and needs `$PRIME_API_KEY`. |
| `--no-rich` | The live dashboard is in-process only and unreadable in a log. Without it you get one `rollout done: … reward=…` line per rollout. |
| `-c 8` | The reference node is shared with Chatterbox, vox and ASR. The config's own `max_concurrent = 128` will hammer it. |
| `--env.agent.runtime.type subprocess` | ⚠️ **New, and not optional.** 0.3.0 defaulted the agent runtime to `subprocess`; `0.3.1` defaults it to `prime` — a *remote* sandbox. A remote role makes `Env._runs_local()` false, which makes the interception pool mint a Prime tunnel, which calls `ensure_prime_auth()` and raises `SystemExit: not authenticated with prime`. The run dies before a single rollout, having already created its output directory and an empty `traces.jsonl`. The null harness needs no runtime at all; naming a local one is the whole fix. |
| `-o <dir>` + `--run.dir <name>` | `-o` is `output_dir` and the run writes to `output_dir / run.dir`. On 0.3.0 a bare `-o` gave you a flat directory; on 0.3.1 it gives you `outputs/<your-dir>/<env>--<model>--<harness>--<hex8>/`. Pass `--run.dir` to name the leaf yourself. |

### Flags our own docs get wrong

- `README.md`'s "Running one" line omits `--client.base-url` / `--client.api-key-var`
  entirely, so copy-pasting it points at Prime's inference API with an empty key.
  That is the one attempt that was ever made, and why `outputs/` was empty.
- `MULTI_TURN.md`'s preconditions say the the reference node model id is `brain`. The served
  id is `brain-qwen38-dspark`; `brain` silently mislabels the trace.
- `EXECUTION.md` is right that `--harness.id null` is not valid — `EvalConfig` has
  no top-level `harness`. The configs already carry `[env.agent.harness] id = "null"`,
  so nothing needs passing on the command line. The CLI form, if you ever need it,
  is `--env.agent.harness.id null`.
- The `@ config.toml` form is a *positional* argument, not a flag: `eval @ file.toml`.
  Inside a shell script quote it as `"@"` so it is not glob-expanded.

---

## 2. The pin, and the output layout it produces

### There is no `verifiers` 0.4.0

`~/vendor/prime-intellect/verifiers` is **not** a 0.4.0 release, and nothing on any index
is. `git describe --tags` there says `v0.3.0-59-g4bcb48e5`: fifty-nine commits past the
0.3.0 tag, version derived from git tags by `hatch-vcs`. The `version = "0.4.0"` that
earlier notes read off its `pyproject.toml:136` belongs to a `[[tool.uv.dependency-metadata]]`
block for **nemo-gym**, not to verifiers. Anyone who goes looking for `verifiers==0.4.0`
will not find it.

The stable `0.3.1` wheel was published to PyPI on 2026-08-24 after the dev stream.
It contains the unbounded model-call timeout and output-layout changes this runbook
requires; `verifiers/v1/clients/base.py` reads:

```python
DEFAULT_TIMEOUT = httpx.Timeout(connect=5.0, read=None, write=None, pool=None)
```

**So the pin is an ordinary index dependency, not a path or git source.** Every
`environments/*/pyproject.toml` now reads `verifiers==0.3.1`. It is an ordinary
stable index dependency — no `--prerelease=allow`, no `[tool.uv.sources]`, no
`tool.uv` block, and nothing that resolves differently in CI than it does here. A path
dependency on `~/vendor` would have been reproducible only on this box; a git URL would
have pinned a commit no wheel matches. Neither was necessary.

```
Resolved 114 packages in 620ms
 - verifiers==0.3.0
 + verifiers==0.3.1
```

`uv sync` each environment after pulling. Verify the thing you bumped *for*, not the
version string:

```bash
for d in environments/*/; do printf "%-34s " "$d"
  grep -h "DEFAULT_TIMEOUT = " $d/.venv/lib/python*/site-packages/verifiers/v1/clients/base.py
done
# environments/bot_detection/       DEFAULT_TIMEOUT = httpx.Timeout(connect=5.0, read=None, write=None, pool=None)
# ... eight of eight
```

`uv sync` rewrites each `environments/*/uv.lock`; none of them are tracked any more
(`.gitignore:5` is `environments/*/uv.lock`, and `git ls-files environments | grep uv.lock`
is empty), so the bump does not put a lock file into a commit. CI's lock-policy step is
`test -z "$(find environments -name uv.lock -print -quit)"` — it looks on **disk**, not in
git, so it passes on a fresh checkout and would fail on a working tree that has been
synced. Do not run it locally and conclude the repo is broken.

### The layout 0.3.1 writes

`verifiers/v1/cli/output.py` — `output_path()` is `config.output_dir / config.run.dir`,
and `run.dir` defaults to `run.name`, which is
`<env>--<model>--<harness>--<uuid4-hex8>`, lowercased, with slashes in the model id
becoming `--`. Measured, not read off the source:

```
outputs/<output-dir>/<env>--<model>--<harness>--<hex8>/
├── configs/eval.json   # the RESOLVED config, re-runnable as `eval @ configs/eval.json`
├── traces.jsonl        # one JSON *Episode* per line, appended as rollouts land
└── logs/eval.log       # written for you now — no redirect needed
```

Three differences from 0.3.0 that an ingester or a script has to handle:

1. **The uuid leaf is gone.** 0.3.0 wrote `<env>--<model>--<harness>/<uuid>/`; 0.3.1
   writes one flat directory with an 8-hex suffix on the name. `-o` no longer flattens
   anything — it sets `output_dir`, and the run still makes its own leaf underneath.
   `--run.dir <name>` is what pins the leaf, and it is what `outputs/thinking-n32/run_all.sh`
   uses.
2. **`config.toml` → `configs/eval.json`.** JSON because JSON keeps nulls, so an explicit
   `None` round-trips on re-parse. `RunConfig._id` is a `PrivateAttr` and is **not** in it —
   derive the run id from the directory basename.
3. **`logs/eval.log` is written unconditionally.** On 0.3.0 you only got it if you
   redirected stdout yourself, which is why `outputs/run-20260821-1401/*.log` sit beside
   their run dirs rather than inside them. Anything that globs for a log should look in
   both places.
4. **`--resume` exists now**, and it is the answer to §5's "a timed-out run leaves no
   evidence": `uv run eval @ <run-dir>/configs/eval.json --resume` re-runs only the
   missing and errored rollouts, in place. (Its own `--help` still says
   `@ <run-dir>/config.toml` — the 0.3.0 filename. The file is `configs/eval.json`.)

The episode schema did **not** move, despite `4bcb48e5 feat(v1): make episodes
training-native` landing in this range. One Episode per line, not one Trace:

```jsonc
{"id": "...", "env": {...}, "ok": true, "errors": [],
 "traces": [ { "id": "...", "agent": "...", "rewards": {...},
               "metrics": {...}, "stop_condition": "agent_completed",
               "errors": [], "timing": {...} } ] }
```

`outputs/count_rewards.py`, written against 0.3.0, reproduces every published number from
`run-20260821-1401` unchanged against a 0.3.1 run. The two traps in that file are also
unchanged, and both still bite an ingester:

1. **`Reward.value` is a `@property` and never appears in the JSON.** Each entry
   in `rewards` is `{"score": float, "weight": float}`. The episode total is
   `sum(score * weight)`. The `reward=0.525` in the log line is computed, not stored.
2. **`write_episode` dumps with `exclude_none=True`.** A `None` reward is dropped
   from the file entirely, so "not measured" and "key absent" are indistinguishable
   on the wire. Carry the run's declared reward-name set from the resolved config if you
   need to tell them apart.

### What the bump does not fix

`sampling` in `configs/eval.json` now carries `chat_template_kwargs` through resolution, so
a run's own config records whether thinking was requested. **The trace still does not.**
Every `calls[].sampling` is `{}` — `ChatDialect.parse_sampling` keeps an allow-list of
known keys — and `usage.reasoning_tokens` is still null, because SGLang reports it at the
top level of `usage` while `Usage.from_openai` reads it out of `completion_tokens_details`.
The only in-trace evidence that a model thought is a `reasoning_content` field on the
assistant message. `outputs/summarise_run.py` counts exactly that, and prints the run's
resolved `sampling` beside every mean it reports.

## 3. Counting what actually scored

**`eval` exits 0 even when every rollout errors.** An errored trace is written with
`rewards: {}`. Never report a run on its exit code.

```bash
uv run python outputs/count_rewards.py outputs/run-<stamp>/<env>
```

It prints `traces_scored` (non-empty `rewards`), `traces_errored` (`rewards: {}`),
`provider_errors`, the stop-condition histogram, and two means:

- `reward_mean_scored` — the mean over what survived. This is Arena's own
  "score what survived" trap in reporting form: a run where 30 of 32 rollouts
  errored and the 2 survivors scored 0.9 reads as 0.900.
- `reward_mean_attempted` — errors counted as 0. **Rank on this one**, and refuse
  to rank at all below a scored-fraction floor.

A quick eyeball without the script:

```bash
jq -r '.traces[] | if (.rewards|length)>0 then "scored" else "errored" end' \
  outputs/run-<stamp>/<env>/traces.jsonl | sort | uniq -c
```

### And under what sampling configuration

`count_rewards.py` answers *did anything score*. It does not answer the question that made
`run-20260821-1401` unpublishable: *how was it sampled*. `outputs/summarise_run.py` adds
that, and nothing else you cannot get from the first script:

```bash
uv run --project environments/<pkg> python outputs/summarise_run.py outputs/<run-dir>
```

It reads the run's own resolved config (`configs/eval.json` on dev59, `config.toml` on
0.3.0) and prints, beside the means:

- `sampling` — the run's own record of `max_tokens` / `chat_template_kwargs`. A run whose
  `sampling` is `{}` was sampled at the reference node's server-side default, which is
  `enable_thinking: false`.
- `traces_with_reasoning` — assistant messages carrying `reasoning_content` (or a literal
  `<think>` block). **This is the only in-trace evidence that the model was allowed to
  think.** Verify the flag from here, never from the fact that you passed it.
- `finish_reasons` and the completion-token quartiles — `length` in that histogram means
  truncation, and a truncated answer scores whatever an empty answer scores.
- `reward_mean_from_eval_log` — the mean of the `reward=` field on the harness's own
  `rollout done` lines. It must equal `reward_mean_scored` exactly. An unweighted mean over
  reward *components* does not, which is how six of seven means were misreported once.

Its arithmetic is checked against the published run: it reproduces `fault-localisation`
0.9531, `canary-trap` 0.6289, `grand-exchange` 0.0055 and `drop-table-inference` 0.4174
from `run-20260821-1401`, with `reward_mean_from_eval_log` agreeing in every case, and
`traces_with_reasoning` 0/32 in every case.

---

## 4. What it cost, and what it scored


**The run: `outputs/run-20260821-1401/`.** Seven data environments, 32 rollouts each,
224 episodes, **223 scored**. Model `brain-qwen38-dspark` (Qwen3.8-27B) on the reference node.
Wall-clock 14:03 → 14:58, 55 minutes, `-c 8`.

> ⚠️ **Sampling configuration for every number in this section — read it before quoting
> one.** `verifiers==0.3.0`; `sampling = {}`, i.e. no `max_tokens` and no
> `chat_template_kwargs`, so the reference node's server-side default applied and
> **`enable_thinking` was `false`**; `temperature`, `top_p` and `reasoning_effort` all
> unset; `-c 8`; harness `null`; agent runtime `subprocess`. `traces_with_reasoning` is
> **0 of 224**. These are thinking-**off** numbers. §6 re-measures the same eight
> environments with thinking on, and the two columns are not interchangeable —
> `grand-exchange` moves by two orders of magnitude between them.

⚠️ **Compute the mean as `sum(score × weight)` per trace.** An unweighted mean over the
reward components is a different number and it is wrong — it disagrees with what the
harness itself prints. Cross-check against the `reward=` field on each env's 32
`rollout done` lines in `eval.log`; the two must agree exactly. The first transcription
of this run got six of seven means wrong by taking the unweighted mean.

| environment | traces | scored | errored | reward_mean_attempted | reward_mean_scored |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| `fault-localisation` | 32 | 32 | 0 | **0.9531** | 0.9531 |
| `canary-trap` | 32 | 32 | 0 | **0.6289** | 0.6289 |
| `schema-migration` | 32 | 32 | 0 | **0.4432** | 0.4432 |
| `drop-table-inference` | 32 | 31 | 1 | **0.4174** | 0.4309 |
| `redaction-pressure` | 32 | 32 | 0 | **0.4040** | 0.4040 |
| `bot-detection` | 32 | 32 | 0 | **0.3488** | 0.3488 |
| `grand-exchange` | 32 | 32 | 0 | **0.0055** | 0.0055 |

The single errored episode is a genuine the reference node gateway timeout (`ProviderError`, 504) in
`drop-table-inference` — not a scoring bug. **Rank on `_attempted`** (errors as 0); the
`_scored` column is Arena's own "score what survived" trap in reporting form.

### Two numbers not to publish as capability scores

⚠️ **`grand-exchange` 0.0055 measures a sampling configuration, not a capability.**
In **31 of 32 rollouts** the model returned a valid, parseable, degenerate answer
(27 of them in exactly 18 completion tokens; the full distribution is
`{18: 27, 19: 1, 24: 3, 4954: 1}`) —
`{"expected_profit": 0, "orders": []}` in 18 completion tokens, `finish_reason=stop`,
never entering a thinking block. The one rollout that did reason (4,954 completion tokens)
placed 4 real orders and scored 0.176 weighted, with `filled=1233` against `planned=2100`.
**The parser, the execution engine and the reward all work end to end** — the environment
is not broken. But `probe.py` rates the *crude* baseline here at 0.082, so 0.0055 sits
**below crude** and barely above inaction. Re-run with thinking forced on before this
number goes anywhere near `/evals`. **That re-run happened — see §5.** With thinking on the
same model scored **1.000 on every component** of the one rollout that finished inside its
token budget.

⚠️ **`drop-table-inference` 0.4174 is two populations, not one.** Twelve of its 31 scored
rollouts answered in 116–174 tokens and averaged 0.0894; the other nineteen wrote
4,585–11,034 tokens and averaged 0.6465. §5 has the distribution.

⚠️ **`fault-localisation` 0.9531 has two of four components pegged at maximum.**
`evidence` mean 1.000 (max 1.000) and `fault` mean 1.000 (max 1.000) across all 32
rollouts; only `gate` (0.9062) and `service` (0.9062) still move. Half the reward mass
no longer discriminates at this capability level. Nemotron scored 0.352 here on 19 August —
a 2.7× swing that needs separating into a stronger model, a prompting difference, or an
environment that has become too easy, before it appears on a scoreboard.

### The `gate` component carried no gradient in four of seven environments

Across all 32 rollouts each, `gate` scored **exactly 0.000, max 0.000**, in
`bot-detection` (weight 0.25), `grand-exchange` (0.25), `redaction-pressure` (0.30) and
`schema-migration` (0.25). It fired elsewhere — `canary-trap` 0.2188, `drop-table` 0.2258,
`fault-localisation` 0.9062.

This is **not** a house-rule-3 violation: `probe.py`'s oracle row is 1.000 for every one of
those environments, which requires `gate = 1`, so it is reachable. But a quarter to a third
of the reward mass produced no gradient in this run, and any ranking or before/after
training table over those four environments is really a ranking over their two soft
components. Understand that before training against them.

---

## 5. The run was measured with thinking OFF, and nothing in the run says so

Appended 2026-08-21, after re-measuring `grand-exchange`.

### The cause

The reference node's SGLang is started with a default that overrides the chat template:

```bash
curl -s "${SPARK_BASE_URL%/v1}/get_server_info" | jq '.default_chat_template_kwargs, .reasoning_parser'
# {"enable_thinking": false}
# "qwen3"
```

**Every one of the 224 episodes in `run-20260821-1401` was sampled with Qwen3's thinking
mode disabled**, and not one of them requested otherwise. Confirmed from the traces: no
assistant message in any of the seven environments carries a `reasoning_content` field, and
none contains a `<think>` block — 0 of 223 scored traces.

Nothing in the run's own artefacts records this. The resolved `config.toml` says
`sampling = {}`, and `ChatDialect.parse_sampling` keeps only an allow-list of known keys, so
even a run that *does* pass `chat_template_kwargs` writes a `calls[].sampling` that does not
mention it. `usage.reasoning_tokens` is null too: SGLang reports `reasoning_tokens` at the
top level of `usage`, while `Usage.from_openai` reads it out of `completion_tokens_details`.
**A trace in this repository cannot tell you whether the model was allowed to think.**

### Turning it on

`SamplingConfig` is `extra="allow"` and `ChatDialect.apply_overrides` merges the whole dump
into the request body, so an untyped key rides through to the provider untouched. There is
no CLI flag — `--sampling.*` is typed — so it goes in a config file:

```toml
[sampling]
chat_template_kwargs = { enable_thinking = true }
max_tokens = 16384
```

`outputs/thinking/grand_exchange_thinking.toml` is that file. **Verify it worked from the
trace, not from the flag**: the assistant message gains a `reasoning_content` field.

### What thinking on actually did to `grand-exchange`

**`outputs/thinking/ge-think-n6/`** — 6 tasks × 1 rollout, `-c 2`, `max_tokens = 16384`,
thinking on. All 6 traces carry `reasoning_content`, so the flag reached the model.

| tokens | `finish_reason` | content | weighted reward |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16384 | length | 0 chars | 0.000 |
| 16384 | length | 0 chars | 0.000 |
| 16384 | length | 0 chars | 0.000 |
| 16384 | length | 0 chars | 0.000 |
| 16384 | length | 0 chars | 0.000 |
| **8335** | **stop** | 1089 chars | **1.000** |

**Mean 0.1667** against 0.0055 with thinking off — a 30× move, and above `probe.py`'s crude
baseline of 0.082 for the first time. But read the column, not the mean: it is one perfect
run and five truncations.

The run that finished scored **1.000 on every component** — `profit` 1.000, `discipline`
1.000, **`gate` 1.000** — with `realised` 40,081 gp against a `reference_realised` of
36,157, `committed` 0.994 of the purse and `conversion` 0.835. Four orders, a written
rationale, `orders_dropped` 0:

```json
{"expected_profit": 15000, "orders": [
  {"item": "Chipped bone charm",        "quantity": 400, "buy":  120, "sell":   134},
  {"item": "Coarse fletching feather",  "quantity": 700, "buy":   97, "sell":   114},
  {"item": "Emberglass shard",          "quantity":  80, "buy": 1420, "sell":  1640},
  {"item": "Heart of the sunken cairn", "quantity":   2, "buy": 9500, "sell": 13500}]}
```

⚠️ **So the environment is not merely unbroken — it is fully solvable by this model, gate
included, and the thinking-off number measured none of that.** `arith_ok` was still 0.0 on
that rollout (`expected_profit` 15,000 against an implied 40,184, `arith_error` 0.627),
which is exactly the line the taskset docstring says it records for this reason.

The five truncations are not junk either. The reasoning is the analysis the environment asks
for, item by item — counting crossings, applying the 25%-of-volume cap, sizing against the
buy limit — it simply does not converge inside 16k:

```
**Heart of the sunken cairn**:
  Buy ticks (<=10000): 9267, 8846, 9656, 9541, 9703, 8853, 9945 = 7 ticks
  Volumes: 2, 2, 3, 6, 2, 3, 3   25%: 0.5, 0.5, 0.75, 1.5, 0.5, 0.75, 0.75
  Total: 5.25 in 56 ticks. In 30 ticks: ~2.8.   So I can only buy about 2-3 units!
```

A single rollout at `-c 1` (`outputs/thinking/smoke/`) does the same: 486 seconds,
`completion_tokens` 16384, `reasoning_content` 30,121 characters, `content` empty, reward
0.000. So does the same prompt sent straight at the reference node with `curl`, no verifiers in the
path — `reasoning_tokens` 16390, `finish_reason` length, content empty. **This is not a
harness bug, and it is not fixed by raising `max_tokens`** — see the next section for why.

⚠️ **`grand-exchange` 0.0055 was a sampling artefact and 0.1667 is a truncation artefact.**
Neither is the environment's number. The number is somewhere at or above 0.1667, taken with
a budget large enough that the model finishes, and this box cannot currently run that.

### ⚠️ The harness has a hard 600-second ceiling on one model call

`verifiers/v1/clients/base.py:11`:

```python
DEFAULT_TIMEOUT = httpx.Timeout(connect=5.0, read=600.0, write=600.0, pool=600.0)
```

`BaseClientConfig` exposes `base_url`, `api_key_var` and `headers` and nothing else. **There
is no config key and no CLI flag for this timeout.** At the reference node's ~34 tok/s single-stream it
caps one call at roughly 20,000 completion tokens, and far fewer under concurrency.

That is not theoretical. `outputs/thinking/ge-think-n8.log` is 8 tasks at `-c 8` with
`max_tokens = 32768`:

```
16:09:27 INFO rollout start: ... (×8)
16:19:30 WARNING model call failed: id=... ProviderError:      (×8)
```

Eight failures, all at 16:19:30, exactly 603 seconds after the starts, with an empty
`ProviderError` message and `traces.jsonl` left at **zero lines**. `eval` still exited 0.
The `-c 1` smoke run survived at 486 seconds; the same work at `-c 8` did not.

`-c 2` is not safe either. `ge-think-n6.log` at `max_tokens = 16384` still logged **4
`ProviderError`s in 6 rollouts**, each exactly 601–603 seconds after its rollout started —
`16:36:12 → 16:46:15`, `16:46:15 → 16:56:16`. Those rollouts survived only because the null
harness's program retries the call itself (tenacity), which is why their traces carry two
`calls` entries, the first with a null `finish_reason`. A retry that also lands at 16k
tokens costs another ten minutes and scores zero anyway.

**Raising `max_tokens` therefore does not fix the truncations.** The five rollouts that ran
out at 16,384 tokens want more budget; the wall says they cannot have it, because 16,384
tokens is already 486–603 seconds of wall clock on this box. The two limits point in
opposite directions and there is no setting that satisfies both.

**And the thinking block cannot be bounded from the request either.** SGLang's
`thinking_budget` is accepted (HTTP 200) and ignored by this build: the same prompt with
`{"max_tokens": 8192, "thinking_budget": 3000}` came back with `reasoning_tokens` **8195**,
`finish_reason` length, content empty. The server also reports `enable_strict_thinking:
false`. The only lever is `max_tokens`, and `max_tokens` cuts the answer, not the reasoning.

Three consequences for anyone re-running this suite against a reasoning model:

1. **Keep `-c` low and `max_tokens` under the wall**, or budget the run knowing calls will be
   cut at ten minutes. The reference node is shared — another lane's eval was running against it during
   this measurement, and contention alone moves a rollout across the line.
2. **A timed-out run leaves no evidence.** Zero traces, exit code 0. `count_rewards.py`
   reports on a file that does not exist. This is the same trap as §3 with a bigger blast
   radius: check the log for `ProviderError` and check `wc -l traces.jsonl` before believing
   any run.
3. ⚠️ **CORRECTED: the 600-second ceiling is the INSTALLED WHEEL, not upstream.** The
   remedy stated here first — "the 600-second default gets a config key upstream" — is
   wrong, and it is wrong in the expensive direction, because it reads as blocked on someone
   else. Upstream **already removed it**: `verifiers/v1/clients/base.py:12` in
   `~/vendor/prime-intellect/verifiers` reads `httpx.Timeout(connect=5.0, read=None, ...)`,
   commit `a298bcfe fix(v1): restore the unbounded model-call timeout (#2304)`, 2026-08-08.
   Every `environments/*/.venv` here pins `read=600.0` because it resolves verifiers 0.3.0.
   **The fix is a dependency bump**, and an n=32 thinking-on run is achievable today. That
   makes the "grand-exchange is solvable" claim — currently resting on six rollouts — cheap
   to settle properly.

✅ **RETIRED 2026-08-21 evening.** The bump happened — `verifiers==0.3.1`, §2 — and
every venv on this box now reads `read=None`. One correction to the paragraph above, which
matters because it is the version anyone will type: the fix is **not** `verifiers==0.4.0`.
There is no such release. `a298bcfe` is `v0.3.0-8-ga298bcfe`; the vendored HEAD is
`v0.3.0-59-g4bcb48e5`; the wheel that carries them is `0.3.1`. Everything below this
line about 600 seconds describes the old pin and is kept as the record of why the bump was
worth doing, not as current behaviour. The `max_tokens` / wall-clock contradiction it
describes — "the two limits point in opposite directions and there is no setting that
satisfies both" — no longer holds: with `read=None` the only limit left is `max_tokens`,
and §6 spends it.

### Did the other six collapse too?

Only one of them, and only partly. Completion tokens per trace, and the mean weighted
reward in each half of the length distribution:

| environment | min | p25 | median | p75 | max | shape |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| `grand-exchange` | 18 | 18 | 18 | 18 | 4954 | **collapsed**; distribution `{18: 27, 19: 1, 24: 3, 4954: 1}` — 27/32 at 18 tokens, and **31/32 planned no orders at all** |
| `drop-table-inference` | 0 | 159 | 5347 | 7205 | 11034 | **bimodal** |
| `fault-localisation` | 34 | 37 | 37 | 39 | 191 | short by design |
| `schema-migration` | 105 | 145 | 168 | 271 | 1687 | unimodal |
| `redaction-pressure` | 153 | 240 | 310 | 369 | 2014 | unimodal |
| `canary-trap` | 56 | 139 | 148 | 626 | 3128 | unimodal |
| `bot-detection` | 1156 | 2508 | 3457 | 4603 | 8146 | unimodal |

⚠️ **`drop-table-inference` 0.4174 is a mixture of two regimes, not a capability estimate.**
Twelve of its 31 scored rollouts answered in 116–174 tokens and averaged **0.0894**; the
other nineteen wrote 4,585–11,034 tokens and averaged **0.6465**. The same prompt, the same
sampling settings, a 7× gap in outcome depending on whether the model chose to work. Report
it with that split or not at all.

The other five are unimodal and their reward does not track length — `fault-localisation`
answers three fields in 37 tokens and scores 0.9531, `canary-trap`'s shortest half scores
0.6141 against its longest half's 0.6437. Those five numbers stand as measured. They are
still **thinking-off numbers**, which is a property of the run nobody chose and nothing
recorded.

### What to do before the next run

- Put the sampling configuration in the run's own name or its notes. A number that changes
  by two orders of magnitude with one server-side default is not a capability score unless
  the configuration travels with it.
- Ask the reference node what it defaults to (`/get_server_info`) rather than assuming a model's own
  default applies.
- If `reasoning_tokens` matters to you, read it off the provider — the trace drops it.

---

## 6. The thinking-ON re-measurement, n=32

Run 2026-08-21 evening, after the `verifiers==0.3.1` bump of §2. This section
exists because two of §4's seven numbers were artefacts of a sampling configuration
nobody chose and nothing recorded, and because §5's remedy — "an n=32 thinking-on run is
achievable today" — was owed a run.

> **Sampling configuration for every number in this section.** `verifiers==0.3.1`
> (`read=None`); `chat_template_kwargs = {enable_thinking = true}`; `max_tokens = 49152`;
> `temperature`, `top_p`, `reasoning_effort` unset; `-c 8`; harness `null`; agent runtime
> `subprocess`; model `brain-qwen38-dspark` on the reference node. The configs are
> `outputs/thinking-n32/*.toml`, the sweep is `outputs/thinking-n32/run_all.sh`, the runs
> are `outputs/thinking-n32/run/<env>/`.

**Thinking is verified from the traces, not from the flag.** `traces_with_reasoning` is
**32 of 32** for `grand-exchange`, mean 56,560 characters of `reasoning_content` per
trace, against 0 of 224 for `run-20260821-1401`.

### `grand-exchange` — 0.0055 → **0.4338**

| | thinking off (§4) | 6 rollouts, 16k (§5) | **thinking on, n=32** |
|---|---|---|---|
| `reward_mean_attempted` | 0.0055 | 0.1667 | **0.4338** |
| traces scored | 32/32 | 6/6 | **32/32** |
| traces with reasoning | 0/32 | 6/6 | **32/32** |
| `finish_reason=length` | 0 | 5/6 | **2/32** |
| median completion tokens | 18 | 16,384 | **29,376** |
| `gate` mean (max) | 0.0000 (0.000) | — | **0.2188 (1.000)** |

`probe.py` rates the crude maximiser at 0.082 and the plausible strategy at 0.608. **0.4338
sits between them**, which is the first time this environment has produced a number that
means anything: 0.0055 was below crude, and 0.1667 was one perfect run and five
truncations.

Wall clock 18:28 → 20:33, 2 h 5 min, 965,217 completion tokens for 32 rollouts. Zero
`ProviderError`s. **Under the old pin every one of these rollouts would have died**: the
median call ran ~20 minutes against a 600-second ceiling, and the median completion is
29,376 tokens against the 16,384 that section 5 could afford.

The distribution is properly graded — not the two-spike shape thinking-off produced:

```
 total  gate  profit   disc  tokens finish
   0.0   0.0     0.0    0.0   20305 stop     <- 7 genuine zeros: finished, planned nothing usable
   ...
   0.0   0.0     0.0    0.0   49152 length   <- 2 truncations, both scored 0
 0.102   0.0   0.203  0.038   38913 stop
 0.162   0.0   0.302  0.087   30042 stop
 0.413   0.0   0.653  0.397   37978 stop
  0.56   0.0   0.746  0.746   22000 stop
 0.683   0.0    0.91   0.91   20886 stop
 0.747   0.0   0.996  0.996   32545 stop
 0.993   1.0     1.0  0.977   23531 stop
   1.0   1.0     1.0    1.0   20579 stop     <- 6 perfect rollouts
```

Nine zeros, six 1.000s, seventeen strictly between. Median 0.4165. Dropping the two
truncations gives 0.4627 over the thirty that finished — quote 0.4338 and say why, rather
than quoting the higher number.

⚠️ **The dead `gate` in `grand-exchange` was partly a sampling artefact.** `docs/GATE_DIAGNOSIS.md`
records it at exactly 0.000, max 0.000, across all 32 thinking-off rollouts. With thinking
on it fires on **7 of 32**, mean 0.2188, max 1.000. That does not repair the shape — it is
still exact equality, still all-or-nothing, and it still only opens for a rollout that is
already at `profit` ≈ 1.0, so it adds no gradient anywhere below the top. But the
diagnosis's evidence for *this* environment was measured under a configuration in which
the model answered in 18 tokens, and the three other dead gates were measured under the
same one. **Re-read GATE_DIAGNOSIS against this column before acting on it.**

### `drop-table-inference` — thinking on does not fit in 49,152 tokens

The question §5 left was whether thinking on collapses this environment's two regimes
(twelve short rollouts at 0.0894, nineteen long ones at 0.6465). **It does not collapse
them; it pushes the whole distribution off the end of the token budget.** The first eight
rollouts of the n=32 run, all eight carrying `reasoning_content`:

```
weighted  fit    gate   rare    tokens  finish
  0.4082  0.692  0.0    0.277    31649  stop
  0.4082  0.692  0.0    0.277    33803  stop
  0.0000  0.0    0.0    0.0      49152  length
  0.0000  0.0    0.0    0.0      49152  length
  0.0000  0.0    0.0    0.0      49152  length
  0.0000  0.0    0.0    0.0      49152  length
  0.0000  0.0    0.0    0.0      49152  length
  0.0000  0.0    0.0    0.0      49152  length
```

**Six of eight hit `finish_reason=length` at 49,152 completion tokens** — three times the
budget §5 could afford, on a model whose reasoning here runs 74–86 thousand characters.
The two that finished scored 0.408 each, above §4's short regime (0.0894) and below its
long one (0.6465).

⚠️ **Whatever mean this run finishes with is a truncation artefact, exactly like
`grand-exchange`'s 0.1667 was.** Do not publish it as a capability score, and do not read
it as evidence about the mixture. The comparison `grand-exchange` earned — a distribution
where 30 of 32 finish — this environment has not: it needs a larger `max_tokens` (the reference node's
context is 262,144, so there is room) and a correspondingly larger wall-clock budget. One
49,152-token rollout costs roughly 25 minutes at `-c 8` on this box.

### What is still running, and how to pick it up

`outputs/thinking-n32/run_all.sh` was launched detached (`setsid`) and works down the
priority order in §6: grand-exchange (done), drop-table-inference, bot-detection,
redaction-pressure, schema-migration, canary-trap, fault-localisation. It holds a `flock`
on `outputs/thinking-n32/.lock`, so a second launch refuses rather than writing two evals
into one `traces.jsonl`.

```bash
tail -f outputs/thinking-n32/sweep.log                  # stage transitions + per-rollout
grep 'exit=' outputs/thinking-n32/sweep.log             # which stages finished, with counts
uv run --project environments/<pkg> python outputs/summarise_run.py \
  outputs/thinking-n32/run/<env>                        # the numbers, with the sampling config

pkill -f 'thinking-n32/run_all.sh'                      # stop it after the current stage,
pkill -f 'bin/eval @ outputs/thinking-n32'              # then kill the eval in flight
```

⚠️ **Read every stage's `finish_reasons` before its mean.** `length` in that histogram
means the model was cut off mid-answer, and a cut-off answer scores what an empty one
scores. A stage whose histogram is mostly `length` has measured `max_tokens`, not the
model — that is the single mistake this section exists to stop repeating.

### Every number here is comparable only to the thinking-on column

`grand-exchange` moves by 79× between the two sampling configurations. Nothing in §4 and
nothing in §6 may be tabulated beside the other without the configuration attached, and no
number from either belongs on `/evals` or in `eval-results.json` without it. That is the
whole lesson of the last two phases, stated as a rule:

**A reward mean is not a number. It is a number plus a sampling configuration, and the
pair travels or neither does.**