# Campaign timeline — causal order

Evidence state: **2026-07-16**. Prefer sealed Jul 15–16 claim-stack summaries over stale README / early FAIR_CLOCK wording.

Short sentences. Forensic, not promotional.

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## 1. Early waves → failed finals

Notebook- and archive-era work established the absolute quality bar: disjoint `val ≤ 3.3821` on GPT-2 ~124M / FineWeb, one A100.

**F2** (short warmdown 256, curated/prior/EMA stack) never crossed. Terminal CE ≈ **3.405**. Quality miss. See `nocap-repo/results/evidence_ledger_v1/SUMMARY.md` (`f2_record`).

**F2b** (warmdown 1024, same family) crossed at step **4736** with terminal CE ≈ **3.377**. Quality hit. Historical wall framing of about **−2.9%** vs notebook F1 was **retracted as speed evidence** (infra drift / stack confound; below the ~6% publish floor). Keep the quality hit; do not cite the old speed %. See `docs/ops/FAIR_CLOCK.md` and `results/finals/f2b_record/PULL_SUMMARY.md`.

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## 2. Fair-clock reform → sealed F1 denominator

Stack pin: **A100-SXM4-40GB** · **torch 2.13.0+cu130**. Metric \(T\) = `train_time` at first logged disjoint val ≤ 3.3821.

**F1_seal** on **Clock-W**: stock AdamW, raw FineWeb, no prior/EMA. Cross @4736 · val 3.381538 · \(T\)=**3.866 h**. This is the public speed denominator. See `results/f1_seal/SUMMARY.md`.

Historical notebook F1 (~229.1 min) is provisional only (torch unlogged). Do not use it for published %.

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## 3. Failed full claims (pre–component bank)

**claim_muon_par** (Clock-W): Muon + parallel + triage + prior + EMA. Full 4768. Final val **3.386130**. **Never crossed.** Quality miss → no speed claim. Proxies @800 did not transfer. See `results/claim_muon_par/SUMMARY.md`.

**claim_muon_wsd**: quality **HIT** (cross @4736, terminal ≈ 3.376) but \(T\) ≈ **3.899 h** — about **0.8% slower** than F1_seal. Quality without speed. Logs live outside `nocap-repo/` at workspace `results/claim_muon_wsd/`; board writeup in `results/board_v3/WRITEUP.md`.

Board-v3 800-step screens after that run: **no promote**.

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## 4. Component bank (research accounts)

Systems path **B32×accum16**: ~**6%** faster core step-time vs B16 path (matched systems_v1). Tokens/step stay **524,288**.

**Timing-cheap split-QKV** (block NS5, `match_joint=0`): multi-seed MECHANISM-REPEAT @800 · mean terminal gain ≈ **+0.015 CE** · time ratios ≤ ~1.01. Persistence sealed @2400 on Research-W4 seed **5151** · **+0.0147 CE** · no late reverse.

Many other levers closed as NO-GO (curation cleaners, Adam LR 0.003 alone, dual-polar split, muon_lr 0.025, interleave, NS6, warmdown 300, late EMA train CE, etc.). See `results/evidence_ledger_v3/SUMMARY.md` and `results/claim_ready_stack_v1/STACK.md`.

As of 2026-07-14 evening: under-baseline complete recipes still **0**. Bank existed; full claim did not.

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## 5. Tier A hparam screens — all NO-GO

Mid-horizon (800-step) screens on Research-W3 / Research-W4. **Zero promote.**

| Lever | Verdict |
|---|---|
| Muon mom 0.90 / 0.98 | NO-GO (reverse) |
| Adam WD 0.05 / 0.2 | NO-GO / flat |
| Warmdown 200 → 160 | NO-GO (shorter hurts) |

Defaults kept: mom **0.95**, Adam WD **0.1**, warmdown **200** (proxy; full claim uses wu476/wd1192). See `results/research_atomic_v1/TIER_A_SEAL.md`.

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## 6. Claim-stack seals (3/3 candidates under F1)

Recipe: Muon B32 systems path + timing-cheap split-QKV candidate vs joint-QKV stock control. Full 4768. Exact A100-40 + torch 2.13. Fire-and-forget `spawn()` after nested `.remote()` cancels killed earlier work.

| Seed | Account | Candidate \(T\) | vs F1_seal | Stock control |
|---:|---|---:|---:|---|
| **1337** | Claim-W1 | **3.553 h** | **+8.1%** | matched pair · never crossed · terminal 3.3848 |
| **2029** | Claim-W2 | **3.567 h** | **+7.7%** (+7.5% vs F1_Claim-W2) | matched pair · never crossed · terminal ≈ 3.3840 |
| **4242** | Claim-W1 | **3.511 h** | **+9.2%** | **candidate-only** (no stock arm) |

All three candidates first-cross at step **4736**. Mean cand \(T\) ≈ **3.544 h** · mean ΔT% vs F1_seal ≈ **+8.3%**.

Same-account AdamW re-seal **F1_Claim-W2** on Claim-W2: \(T\)=**3.858 h** (~+0.2% vs F1_seal). Supports seed-2029 same-account ratios.

**Seed 4242 ops note:** first spawn failed GPU guard (Modal gave A100-SXM4-**80GB**). Relaunch got **40GB**. Seal is the 40GB run.

**Do not claim matched ΔT% vs joint stock.** Stock never crossed where measured (1337, 2029); 4242 has no stock arm.

Source of truth: `results/claim_stack_v1/MULTI_SEED_CLAIM.md`.

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## Causal spine (one line)

Failed finals → fair clock + F1_seal → Muon compose misses → bank systems + cheap split → Tier A keeps defaults → claim-stack **3/3** under sealed F1 (candidate recipe, not matched stock speedup).