# Experiment exp-002 (learned-decision-engine design section 6, engine-level experiments): variance reduction. # Registered before it runs; `ousast learn experiment register` records this file's sha256, and a changed file is a new # experiment. The incumbents are the slice-2 compiled programs (benchmarks/measurements/2026-10-02-decision-engine-slice-2), # whose canary agreement on a re-run was 0.83 (injection, 30 candidates) and 0.83 (access_control). id: exp-002-retrieval-ensemble hypothesis: > Drawing the k = 5 samples from five disjoint retrieved example sets at temperature 0 (a retrieval ensemble) makes the decision more repeatable than five temperature samples over one example set, without hurting the ranking within a candidate pair, at no higher cost per candidate. kind: program programs: # the incumbents: one compiled program per family (slice 2, record.json `program.id`) injection: b207a0710e0abf053b3b9397b25f9ee1cab4679144865e3a82c1b9be2c7b4982 access_control: 745cb1d76bbb09dc1574d333d2118489be62e39886517894d3699fa565b0e8c2 arms: A: label: today's sampling -- k = 5, sample 1 at temperature 0 and samples 2..5 at 0.7, one retrieved example set spec: {} # the compiled program as it is replay_only: false # replicate 0 replays the evaluation's cached responses at $0; replicate 1 (the canary) is paid repeats: 2 budget_usd: 1.0 B: label: retrieval ensemble -- k = 5 at temperature 0, each sample over a disjoint retrieved example set spec: {sampling: retrieval_ensemble} # the one declared difference (ProgramSpec.sampling) repeats: 2 budget_usd: 3.0 unit: candidate pairing: paired # every candidate in both arms, same memory, same outer folds cluster: repository order: {randomise: per_case, seed: 2} metric: primary: - {name: canary_agreement, target: 0.90} # replicate 0 and 1 give the same verdict; B must reach 0.90 - within_pair_auc # the vulnerable side of a candidate pair scores above the fixed side secondary: [usd_per_candidate, auc, advisory_recall, advisory_precision] test: {primary: cluster_bootstrap_paired_diff, secondary: exact_mcnemar, alpha: 0.05, sides: 2, resamples: 10000} mde: 0.10 # agreement 0.83 -> 0.93 on ~147 paired candidates stopping: {looks: [0.5, 1.0], boundary: obrien_fleming} budget_usd: {total: 4, per_arm: {A: 1.0, B: 3.0}} # ~$0.5-0.7 per arm-pass of 147 candidates at k = 5; 3 paid passes families: [injection, access_control] folds: {kind: outer, k: 5, seed: 0, compile_fraction: 0.25} # the incumbent evaluation's folds (learn/compile.toml seed) units_file: plane/experiments/exp-002-retrieval-ensemble.units.jsonl # frozen by `ousast learn experiment units`