# Failure ledger — negative results and non-claims

What was tested, what happened, and **why it is not a claim**. Prefer under-claiming. Numbers from sealed summaries / ledgers; if unsure, see the cited path.

**Hard non-claim (claim-stack era):** there is **no matched candidate-vs-stock first-cross ΔT%**. Joint stock **never crossed** where measured (seeds 1337 and 2029). Seed 4242 had no stock arm.

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| What was tested | Outcome | Why not a claim |
|---|---|---|
| **F2** short warmdown (WD 256), curated/prior/EMA finals stack | Terminal CE ≈ **3.405**; **no** first-cross ≤ 3.3821 | Quality miss. No \(T_{cross}\). |
| **F2b** long warmdown (WD 1024), same family | Quality **HIT** (cross @4736, terminal ≈ 3.377); historical wall ≈ **−2.9%** vs notebook F1 | Speed framing **retracted**. \|X\| below ~6% infra/noise floor; stack confound. Quality hit only. |
| Historical notebook **F1** (~229.1 min) | Absolute cross exists; torch unlogged | Not the sealed denominator. Use **F1_seal** only for published %. |
| **claim_muon_par** (Muon + parallel + triage + prior + EMA) | Final val **3.386130**; **never crossed**; slower wall than seal | Quality miss → speed N/A. Do not publish as win. |
| **claim_muon_wsd** | Quality **HIT** (~3.376 terminal); \(T\) ≈ **3.899 h** | ~**0.8% slower** than F1_seal (3.866 h). Quality without under-baseline speed. |
| Board-v3 800-step claim-class screens | Control wins/ties; schedule fracs tax step time | **No promote.** Proxies ≠ full claim. |
| FineWeb cleaners / curation screens @800 | No arm promoted to full claim | Closed levers; not under-baseline recipes. |
| Adam LR **0.003** alone | Mid-horizon lead failed persistence / 2400 gates | NO-GO for claim stack. |
| Dual-polar split-QKV | ~+0.015 CE but time ratio ≈ **1.026** | CE edge eaten by step tax. |
| muon_lr **0.025** | Reverse mid-run | NO-GO. |
| Fixed interleave shard order | ~0 edge | NO-GO. |
| Muon NS6 / warmdown 300 | ~0 @400 screens | NO-GO. |
| Late EMA as **train CE** | Mid ema_val mirage; terminal ~0 | NO-GO for train metric. |
| **Tier A** mom 0.90 / 0.98, Adam WD 0.05 / 0.2, warmdown 160 | **5/5 NO-GO**; zero promote | Defaults stay; not a claim path. |
| Claim-stack **joint stock** seed 1337 | Terminal **3.3848**; first-cross **NONE** | Control quality miss. Matched ΔT% undefined. |
| Claim-stack **joint stock** seed 2029 | Terminal ≈ **3.3840**; first-cross **NONE** | Same. Matched ΔT% undefined. |
| Claim-stack seed **4242** stock arm | **Not run** (candidate-only by design) | No matched pair on this seed. |
| Component bank alone (systems + cheap split @800/@2400) | Real CE/time component evidence | Through 2026-07-14: **0** under-baseline full recipes. Bank ≠ claim until full-horizon seals. |
| Cross-account cardinal % mixing research \(T\) with clock F1 (early policy) | Forbidden for publication under early FAIR_CLOCK | Public ΔT% uses F1_seal on matched GPU/torch pin; identify accounts. See ACCURACY_NOTES resolution. |
| “Officially won NoCap” | Organizer acceptance not in local seals | Pending organizer rules / submission. Local seals are campaign evidence only. |

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## Explicit matched-pair statement

| Seed | Candidate first-cross | Stock first-cross | Matched ΔT% vs stock |
|---:|---|---|---|
| 1337 | yes @4736 · 3.553 h | **NONE** | **N/A** |
| 2029 | yes @4736 · 3.567 h | **NONE** | **N/A** |
| 4242 | yes @4736 · 3.511 h | not run | **N/A** |

Published under-baseline percentages compare **candidate \(T\)** to **F1_seal** (and optionally F1_Claim-W2 for seed 2029), **not** to joint stock.

Sources: `MULTI_SEED_CLAIM.md`, seed summaries, `TIER_A_SEAL.md`, `claim_muon_par/SUMMARY.md`, `evidence_ledger_v1`, `FAIR_CLOCK.md`, `board_v3/WRITEUP.md`.