The §7 #22 'fails the gate' was the verdict for the DEFAULT config
(k=6/θc=0.5/θe=0.9, tuned on the clean synthetic set), not the
approach. A {model × candidate-cap k × aggregation × θc × θe} grid
sweep (bench/scripts/nli_shadow_grid.py — NLI runs once per
(model,record) over the top-12 candidate clauses, the k/agg/θ grid is
then arithmetic on cached scores; ~10s on the 4090 for 4 models) finds
clean passing configs: on the 89 real STRICT cells (n=1 bench-qa),
deberta-base-184M / k=2 / agg=max / θc=0.99 / θe=0.9 → 27/28 synthetic
recombinations caught (incl. both 5f-fal-hard fixtures), 0/89 STRICT
FP. MiniLM-82M passes too (24/28 · 0/89). Model science: 184M > 82M >
407M for fp=0 recombination recall; int8-ONNX costs ~1 catch vs fp32.
Caveats: FP side is n=1 (BENCH_QA_N=3 run in flight); recall is on the
synthetic set; flipping to a runtime demotion-only veto is fox-decides
(then nli_policy_hash folds into governance_policy_hash per §7 #2).
Manifest active defaults stay k=6/θc=0.5; recommended_operating_point
(deberta-base, k=2, agg=max, θc=0.99, θe=0.9) documented in the
manifest. 3 grid result JSONs committed. Standing lesson: neither the
clean synthetic eval NOR the default config predicts bench-qa precision
— you have to sweep. Production verifier unchanged; falsification-hard
stays 10/12.
russell@unturf.com
421b2c5fd5