perf(agents): run the sized effort replay sweep for the pinned agents

Parent: #5682 (slice 2 of 3). Blocked by #10214 (slice 1).
Runs in: HOST. Same capability as slice 1 (agent replays with model runs); the host runner works it.

Problem

#5682's first done-when: "A replay sweep of merged PRs at medium and at high effort for each pinned agent is posted here with per-agent results." The scope sizes the sweep only after the pilot (slice 1). The effort pins under test are recorded in #5767.

Fix

Run the sweep at the size slice 1 proposed: each pinned agent from #5767 at medium and high over the chosen merged PRs, plus the implementer Sonnet 5.5 vs Opus 5.5 arm, graded as in slice 1. Show each run's cost estimate first. Change no pin here.

Done when

A comment on review: effort eval sweep for pinned agents, including Haiku 5.5 when it ships #5682 gives per-agent, per-arm results (pass rate, verifier verdict, tokens, wall time, rework) over the sweep's PRs
Each effort pin listed in feat(playbooks): apply the Sonnet 5.5 prompting guide across the marketplace #5767 has a keep-or-change recommendation tied to that data
Each run's cost estimate was shown before it started

Split by the backlog HITL session (2026-10-25, owner rule Q93: split large work before a run picks it up). This was generated by AI.

Proposed work class: work-class: read-only
Basis: automated intake triage; the lanes App applied this class.

Size: Medium
Complexity: Medium
Uncertainty: Knowable
Flags: none
Blocked by: #10214

Understood: this is slice 2 of #5682. It runs the effort replay sweep for each agent pinned in #5767, at medium and high effort, plus the implementer Sonnet 5.5 vs Opus 5.5 arm. It posts per-agent results and a keep-or-change recommendation on #5682, and changes no pin. The sweep size depends on what the pilot in #10214 proposes, so it can't start until that pilot is done. No likely duplicates found.

_{Automated triage, applied by the lanes App.}

Not admitted to the issue lane yet: blocker #10214 is not closed by a listed human or a merge.

No description provided.

The work-resolve-issue lane stopped on this issue (host-only): the run reports the work needs a host run the lane cannot make.
It added host-run and removed agent-ready: an agent run on a host builds it, and it waits on no decision from a person.

In the run's words:

host-only: the issue body says 'Runs in: HOST' and the work is an agent replay sweep that makes model runs (each pinned agent from ＃5767 at medium and high effort, plus the implementer Sonnet 5.5 vs Opus 5.5 arm), with each run's cost estimate shown before it starts. This lane cannot launch agent replays or model runs, and cannot post the results comment on ＃5682. The issue is also blocked by slice 1 (＃10214), whose pilot sets the sweep size and grading.

What the run says it did not do:

The replay sweep, per-agent results comment on ＃5682, and pin recommendations were not done: they need host model runs this lane cannot make
Did not confirm from this lane whether blocker ＃10214 (slice 1) has landed; no tracker access here
tidy, review, verify and checks pipeline steps skipped: no change was made

Run: https://github.com/melodic-software/claude-code-plugins/actions/runs/41131122652

To hand it back to the lane, remove host-run and add agent-ready again.

Claimed by host lane 4 (melo-lap-001 WSL), 2026-11-01T04:15Z: running the slice-2 sweep at the size the slice-1 pilot proposed on #5682 (5 PRs, about 80 runs). Cost estimates are written before each run.

Host run. I ran slice 2 of #10253: the effort replay sweep at the size the slice-1 pilot proposed. It covers 5 PRs, 12 implementer arms and 68 phase-verifier runs. The verifier runs cover each reference diff and each arm diff, at medium and high effort, twice each. All 80 runs finished and returned a result. None needed a retry.

Replayed PRs

I selected them with the pilot's rule: the newest merged PRs whose squash-commit record shows a dispatch run plus a phase-verifier verdict, that do not edit the implementation plugin, and whose deterministic tests pass on Linux at the reference commit. Each reference passed its own tests on this host before any arm ran.

PR	Base (squash parent)	Reference	Replayed scope	Brief source	Reference tests here
#8786	`f2aa201de`	`933f0b279`	whole PR	reconstructed from Fix and Verification; this repeats the pilot	node 113/113, drift 123/0
#7039	`71485ed4e`	`7b4c40b87`	plan Phase 4 (the dispatched worker phase)	the PLAN.md embedded in the PR body	detect 57/0, defaults 3/0, routing 16/0
#6984	`b00604400`	`ec8c7029b`	plan Phases 2 and 3	the PLAN.md embedded in the PR body	yaml-subset 30/0, config-cascade 40/0, three user-experience suites pass
#6427	`d02954e5a`	`2c706e65e`	whole PR	original implementer brief and verifier prompt from the session transcript, minimally edited	286 cases, 0 failures
#6303	`eaf6c024f`	`107b19c0e`	whole PR	reconstructed from Summary and Fix	23 guardrails suites pass

I searched transcripts by each PR's head branch. Only fix(wizard): confirm before writing ENV_FILE into git metadata #6427's original brief survives. The pilot's fix(ci): reopen a monitor's closed issue for its key instead of filing a recurrence #8786 packet no longer exists, so its brief is reconstructed again here, and its criteria differ in wording from the pilot's C1 to C9.
Edits to the fix(wizard): confirm before writing ENV_FILE into git metadata #6427 original:
- Worker-side provisioning, the gh pr view step and the push are removed.
- Commit authority is changed to orchestrator.
- The version rule is changed to "one patch above base". The original based on an unmerged PR's branch; the squash parent already contains that PR.
- The edge-case question is kept in the verifier prompt.

Setup

Version and login: Claude Code 2.1.316, claude -p, subscription login. apiKeySource is none in every run's init event.
Agents: the implementer and phase-verifier bodies from current origin/main, passed through --agents, with --model and --effort on the command line. The implementer's Agent tool is removed.
Arm command: claude -p <brief> --agents agents.json --agent replay-implementer|replay-verifier --model opus|sonnet --effort medium|high --permission-mode auto --disallowedTools "Bash(git push:*)" "Bash(git commit:*)" "Bash(git add:*)" "Bash(gh:*)" Agent [Edit Write for the verifier] --output-format stream-json --verbose. Each runs under timeout 2700 in its own systemd-run --user --scope unit.
Isolation:
- Every run got a fresh standalone clone at the base, with its origin remote removed. A push therefore has no destination, including through the git -C form that the deny list does not match.
- GH_CONFIG_DIR pointed at an empty directory, and GH_TOKEN and GITHUB_TOKEN were unset.
- After every run, HEAD still equalled the base. No arm committed.
- Nothing was committed or pushed by me either. That is a change from the pilot, which made local commits.
Blinding: each verifier run got its own clone with the diff applied as uncommitted changes. Its directory name is a random token. The prompt was identical for the reference and for every arm diff of a PR.
Project settings: each copy is an untrusted workspace, so Claude Code ignored the 15 project permissions.allow entries. Arms ran on auto mode alone. No arm reported a denial that stopped it.
Grading:
- Own tests: the PR's test commands run on the arm's diff.
- Holdout: the arm's diff plus the reference's test and fixture files checked out over it, then the same commands. Each reference passes its own holdout.
- Phase verifier: Opus at medium and at high, two runs each, on the reference diff and on every arm diff.
- Not run: check-affected and CI, because nothing was committed.
Opus high arms: they went to the two smallest PRs by reference diff size (fix(wizard): confirm before writing ENV_FILE into git metadata #6427 and fix(ci): reopen a monitor's closed issue for its key instead of filing a recurrence #8786). I set that rule before any arm ran.
Concurrency:
- Batch 1 ran 3 arms at once.
- At 05:53Z the kernel OOM-killed a process at the shared 8G claude.slice cap, in the orchestrating session's own scope (run-p2579220-i51288554.scope, pid 16615). No arm died in it. Each arm peaked at about 0.9 to 1.3G, so the arms added to the pressure.
- From then on, runs went 2 at a time. Wall times include contention.

Cost estimates, written before each batch

Basis: judgment, scaled from the pilot's per-arm actuals. Token figures are input, output, cache read and cache creation summed from each run's cumulative modelUsage for its own model. Nearly all of it is cache reads.

Batch	Estimate before launch	Actual
1: 12 implementer arms	41-92M tokens. Opus medium 4-14M at 35-90 turns per arm; Sonnet medium 0.7-5M at 15-50 turns; Opus high 2-9M at 20-60 turns	66.6M. Two arms were over their range: #6303 Opus medium (20.9M) and #6303 Sonnet medium (15.1M)
2: 20 verifier runs on references	9-35M, 10-30 turns per run	16.8M
3: 48 verifier runs on arm diffs	30-55M, 3-40 turns per run	32.9M
Total	pilot proposal: about 105M	116.3M

One run can emit several result events, one per background-task wake-up. fix(guardrails): print each refusal once per call and advise only forms the guards allow #6303 Sonnet emitted 4. Its last event's usage covers only the final segment, so turns and duration are summed across events, and tokens come from the cumulative modelUsage.
Side-model tokens appear only in fix(guardrails): print each refusal once per call and advise only forms the guards allow #6303 Sonnet (0.23M of Opus) and feat(user-interface): add layered config and /user-interface:setup #7039 Opus (0.03M). Their source is not identified: UNVERIFIED that they are the auto-mode classifier.

Results per implementer arm

Verifier (4 runs) lists the medium, medium, high, high verdicts, with the failed criteria in brackets.

Rework counts what a fix round would have to address at first return:

verifier criteria that failed in at least 3 of the 4 runs, plus
failing holdout tests.

PR	Arm	Own tests	Holdout failures	Verifier (4 runs)	Tokens	Time (min)	Turns	Rework
#8786	Opus medium	pass	14 node / 15 drift	PASS, FAIL(C4), FAIL(C4), PASS	4.58M	11.0	30	29 tests; 0 verifier (C4 split 2/2)
#8786	Opus high	pass	14 / 15	PASS ×4	5.60M	9.0	35	29 tests; 0 verifier
#8786	Sonnet medium	pass	14 / 15	FAIL(C6), FAIL(C4,C6), FAIL(C4,C6), FAIL(C4,C6)	2.79M	4.0	24	29 tests; 2 verifier
#7039	Opus medium	pass	detect 13, defaults 1, routing suite fails to load	FAIL(C7) ×3, FAIL(C6,C7)	5.94M	10.9	45	15 tests; 1 verifier
#7039	Sonnet medium	pass	detect 17, defaults 1, routing fails to load	PASS ×4	2.66M	5.3	44	19 tests; 0 verifier
#6984	Opus medium	pass	yaml-subset 2, config-cascade 30 of 32	PASS ×4	3.28M	8.9	44	32 tests; 0 verifier
#6984	Sonnet medium	pass	yaml-subset 2, config-cascade fails to load	FAIL(C7) ×4	1.05M	1.7	11	3+ tests; 1 verifier
#6427	Opus medium	pass	6	PASS ×4	1.21M	1.8	17	6 tests; 0 verifier
#6427	Opus high	pass	6	PASS ×4	2.49M	3.8	25	6 tests; 0 verifier
#6427	Sonnet medium	pass	6	PASS ×4	0.90M	1.3	15	6 tests; 0 verifier
#6303	Opus medium	pass	358 across 14 suites	PASS ×4	20.93M	23.8	113	358 tests; 0 verifier
#6303	Sonnet medium	pass	359 across 14 suites	PASS, FAIL(C8), PASS, FAIL(C5)	15.12M	18.9	81	359 tests; 0 verifier (split 2/2)

Verifier runs on the reference diffs:

PR	Verifier (medium, medium, high, high)	Tokens (4 runs)
#8786	FAIL(C4) ×4	1.79M
#7039	PASS, PASS, FAIL(C1), PASS	2.06M
#6984	FAIL(C1,C2) ×4	1.62M
#6427	PASS ×4	0.77M
#6303	FAIL(C4,C8), FAIL(C8), FAIL(C4,C8), FAIL(C4,C8)	10.55M

What the holdout columns measure:

Mostly brief coverage, not arm quality. Within each PR, the arms fail the same or nearly the same holdout tests. For fix(ci): reopen a monitor's closed issue for its key instead of filing a recurrence #8786 the counts are 14/15 for all three arms, the same scale as the pilot's 13-14/15-17.
fix(wizard): confirm before writing ENV_FILE into git metadata #6427 is the exception. All three arms fail the same 6 cases, for an env file linked into .GIT or .Git. The original verifier raised that case-variant gap and the original author fixed it after verification, so the original brief never asked for it.
fix(guardrails): print each refusal once per call and advise only forms the guards allow #6303: the reference rewrites the deny texts that 19 test files pin, so any arm that words them differently fails those tests.
feat(user-interface): add layered config and /user-interface:setup #7039 and feat(lib): add shared config-cascade resolver and canonical yaml-subset #6984: the reference test files import modules or API shapes that came from later review rounds, for example scripts/lib/routing-validate.mjs. Some suites then fail to load at all.

Verifier agreement

The 17 diffs are 5 references and 12 arms.

Measure	Medium	High
Repeat runs agree on PASS or FAIL	15/17	14/17
Repeat runs agree on PASS or FAIL and on the failed criteria	13/17	13/17
Mean turns per run	10.8	15.4
Mean wall time per run	1.4 min	2.9 min
Tokens, all 34 runs	18.0M	31.7M

All four runs agree on PASS or FAIL for 14 of 17 diffs.
Medium against high: the two efforts never split cleanly. On 16 of 17 diffs, the medium pair and the high pair give the same set of verdicts. On feat(user-interface): add layered config and /user-interface:setup #7039's reference, one high run FAILed C1 where the other three PASSed.
The three split diffs:
- fix(ci): reopen a monitor's closed issue for its key instead of filing a recurrence #8786 Opus medium: one PASS and one FAIL at each effort.
- fix(guardrails): print each refusal once per call and advise only forms the guards allow #6303 Sonnet: one FAIL at each effort, on different criteria (C8 and C5).
- feat(user-interface): add layered config and /user-interface:setup #7039 reference: the one high-effort C1 FAIL above.
On this sweep, repeat variance within one effort matched the gap between the efforts. High cost about 1.8 times the medium tokens.

Findings

Implementer, Opus medium vs Opus high (2 PRs):
- fix(wizard): confirm before writing ENV_FILE into git metadata #6427: both arms pass all 4 verifier runs and fail the same 6 holdout cases. High used 2.1 times the tokens.
- fix(ci): reopen a monitor's closed issue for its key instead of filing a recurrence #8786: high gave the only arm that wires the closed-unchanged skip into production. Its file-findings.mjs sets observedAt from the unit's window_start (file-findings.mjs:30,69 in the arm copy).
- fix(ci): reopen a monitor's closed issue for its key instead of filing a recurrence #8786: the medium arm again leaves observedAt defaulting to now, so the skip never fires (findings.mjs:144,160). I confirmed this in the arm copy. It is the same defect the pilot found in its Opus-medium arm.
- The pilot's opposite result: there the Opus-high arm lacked the guard, so one run per arm does not show that high reliably adds this. High cost 22% more tokens than medium on fix(ci): reopen a monitor's closed issue for its key instead of filing a recurrence #8786.
- Holdout: identical for medium and high on both PRs.
Implementer, Sonnet medium vs Opus medium (5 PRs):
- Sonnet used 63% of the Opus-medium tokens in total. Per PR the share ran from 32% to 74%.
- Verifier majority, Sonnet FAILed where Opus PASSed:
  - feat(lib): add shared config-cascade resolver and canonical yaml-subset #6984 C7: no layer-5 fixture has a prose body, so prose order 3-4-5 goes untested.
  - fix(ci): reopen a monitor's closed issue for its key instead of filing a recurrence #8786 C4 and C6: the same unwired observedAt as Opus medium, plus "Recurrence of" wording left in docs prose.
- Verifier majority, Opus FAILed where Sonnet PASSed: feat(user-interface): add layered config and /user-interface:setup #7039 C7. That FAIL rests on a check-file edit the brief did not sanction, five # test-scope: lines added to detect.test.sh. Restoring the file from base still passes, so it is a fence and brief issue, not missing behaviour.
- Elsewhere: fix(wizard): confirm before writing ENV_FILE into git metadata #6427 is a tie. fix(guardrails): print each refusal once per call and advise only forms the guards allow #6303 is a 2/2 split for Sonnet and 4/4 PASS for Opus. Holdout counts were equal or within 4 tests on every PR.
- On these 5 PRs, Sonnet's verifier record is weaker on 2, stronger on 1 and tied or split on 2. That is not enough to show a quality gap either way.
Verifier effort:
- High did not change the verdict pattern. On 16 of 17 diffs, the medium pair and the high pair give the same set of verdicts.
- Repeat disagreement occurred at both efforts: 2 of 17 diffs at medium, 3 of 17 at high.
- One exception: where a defect needs a cross-file trace, both runs that caught it were split across efforts. That is the observedAt default in fix(ci): reopen a monitor's closed issue for its key instead of filing a recurrence #8786 Opus medium, caught by one high run and one medium run. The other two runs passed it.
Candidate defect in merged fix(ci): reopen a monitor's closed issue for its key instead of filing a recurrence #8786 (UNVERIFIED as a bug, repeated): all 4 reference verifier runs FAILed C4 because the merged audit-lane planFiling has no closed-unchanged skip. It is the same finding as the pilot's finding 4. I filed nothing, as the scope of this row is the sweep record.
Brief and criteria defects that produced FAILs (my reconstructions, not the code):
- feat(user-interface): add layered config and /user-interface:setup #7039 C6 asks for "exactly four" userConfig keys, but the base already had account_tools_enabled. One high run flagged the wording.
- feat(user-interface): add layered config and /user-interface:setup #7039 C1, fix(guardrails): print each refusal once per call and advise only forms the guards allow #6303 C4 and feat(user-interface): add layered config and /user-interface:setup #7039 C7 FAILed on check files the brief did not sanction:
  - scripts/cross-plugin-source-registry.txt (feat(user-interface): add layered config and /user-interface:setup #7039 C1)
  - .performance/ratchets.json (fix(guardrails): print each refusal once per call and advise only forms the guards allow #6303 C4)
  - the # test-scope: lines in detect.test.sh (feat(user-interface): add layered config and /user-interface:setup #7039 C7)
- feat(lib): add shared config-cascade resolver and canonical yaml-subset #6984's reference FAILs C1 and C2 because the merged PR went beyond the plan phase. It changed parser behaviour and extended the moved tests in review rounds.
- fix(ci): reopen a monitor's closed issue for its key instead of filing a recurrence #8786 C6's git grep wording also catches prose that denies the old behaviour.
Environment artifact (INVALID evidence):
- The verifier runs' TMPDIR sat under /home/kyle, and hardcoded-path-check.test.sh fails 5 cases whenever TMPDIR is under $HOME. The same 5 fail on the base.
- The C8 FAILs on fix(guardrails): print each refusal once per call and advise only forms the guards allow #6303's reference (4 runs) and on one fix(guardrails): print each refusal once per call and advise only forms the guards allow #6303 Sonnet run rest at least partly on that.
- My own grading ran with a TMPDIR outside $HOME, where the reference passes 157/0.
Original brief versus reconstructed:
- With the original brief (fix(wizard): confirm before writing ENV_FILE into git metadata #6427), all three arms passed every verifier run, and each holdout failure traces to one gap the brief did not state.
- On the reconstructed PRs, verifier FAILs on criterion wording and fence gaps (finding 5) were as common as FAILs on missing behaviour.
- This supports the pilot's finding 5: reconstruction is the largest source of noise.

Recommendation for keep or change

This sweep supports no pin change:

Opus high over medium for the implementer: 1 of 2 PRs favoured high, the pilot's single PR favoured neither, and high cost 22% to 106% more.
Sonnet over Opus for the implementer: mixed results at 63% of the tokens.
Verifier high over medium: the same verdict pattern on 16 of 17 diffs at about 1.8 times the tokens.

A sharper test needs PRs whose original brief and criteria survive. Only 1 of these 5 had them.

Criteria status

Per-PR, per-arm results: done.
- CI and check-affected were not run, because nothing was committed.
- Holdout and own tests were run for every arm.
Verifier medium and high, each run twice, on the reference and every arm diff: done (68 runs).
Cost estimates written before each batch, with actuals: done.
Run artifacts on the host: /home/kyle/worktrees/host-run-10253/ holds notes.md, logs/ (stream-json per run), grades/, patches/, vkey.txt (the blinding key) and specs/ (briefs and criteria).
No Haiku arm was run (#6901 owns that).

Owner decision (2026-11-01, in the lane 4 session): option (a). The 18 effort pins this sweep did not exercise keep their current values, recorded as "keep, no data". They are the discovery, review, planning, user-experience, performance and songwriting agents listed in 5682#issuecomment-6556136118. No slice 3 is filed. Their agents do not run in dispatch replays, and a replay design for each one would be new work.

Done-when status:

Per-agent, per-arm results on review: effort eval sweep for pinned agents, including Haiku 5.5 when it ships #5682: met (5682#issuecomment-6556136118, details in 10253#issuecomment-6556129448).
Keep-or-change for each pin: implementation:implementer medium is kept on data, and implementation:phase-verifier high is kept with a note. The other 18 are kept with no data, by this decision.
Cost estimate before each run: met (written before each batch).

Closing as complete. No pin changes.

Navigation Menu

Repository navigation

perf(agents): run the sized effort replay sweep for the pinned agents #10253

Problem

Fix

Done when

Replayed PRs

Setup

Cost estimates, written before each batch

Results per implementer arm

Verifier agreement

Findings

Recommendation for keep or change

Criteria status

Metadata

Assignees

Labels

Type

Fields

Projects

Milestone

Relationships

Development

perf(agents): run the sized effort replay sweep for the pinned agents #10253

Description

Problem

Fix

Done when

Activity

github-actions commented on Oct 26, 2026

melodic-automation-lanes commented on Oct 26, 2026

github-actions commented on Oct 30, 2026

github-actions commented on Oct 30, 2026

melodic-automation-lanes commented on Oct 30, 2026

kyle-sexton commented on Nov 1, 2026

kyle-sexton commented on Nov 1, 2026

Replayed PRs

Setup

Cost estimates, written before each batch

Results per implementer arm

Verifier agreement

Findings

Recommendation for keep or change

Criteria status

kyle-sexton commented on Nov 1, 2026

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

Labels

Type

Fields

Projects

Milestone

Relationships

Development

Issue actions