Research-Loop Flexibility Controls

These controls preserve useful signals while making maturity, retention, and generation close follow the task owner's declared protocol. Exact task fields and the recommended combined profile are defined in Task Projects.

Mature Evidence¶

When a task enables ratio-based maturity, its canonical evaluator summary emits:

• effort_ratio: actual evaluation effort divided by the task's mature reference effort;
• coverage_ratio: completed required evaluation units divided by all required units.

Praxist copies these normalized facts into auto-materialized findings. A standalone finding without a canonical summary reference must carry them itself. With require_ratio_gate: true, missing or non-finite ratios remain unknown; stage names cannot fill the gap. A task that deliberately uses labels or completion flags instead may leave ratio gating disabled and define those semantics explicitly.

Initialization validates one real file from the evaluator's production summary writer with praxist resolve --result-summary. During a run, a durable-looking result missing required ratios remains visible as a validation signal and produces one bounded warning; it is not promoted or counted for mature close.

Gems, frontier lanes, reports, and close all consume the same maturity decision. Praxist counts generic evaluation units and never gives a domain-specific stage name global meaning.

Generation Close¶

synthesis_trigger.mature_quorum_fraction controls normal close when a task distinguishes close-grade evidence:

The scheduler's mature supply target is advisory and cannot replace this gate. When close begins, CLOSING_SIGNAL blocks every new experiment while already running protected work finishes. A bounded drain grace lets agent sessions publish final evidence before STOP_SIGNAL; it never kills an active protected evaluator.

Runtime-owned stdout files are not completion facts because a successful command may emit no text. Structured runtime completion and exit status own that state. Task-owned progress files remain valid only when their readiness contract is explicit.

The committed boundary records close reason, maturity outcome, and optional peer-mix telemetry. orchestrator_status.json exposes that compact state to status, monitor, and diagnostics.

Durable Incubator¶

An incubator lane is a lower-admission, long-term library, not a stricter winner lane. It can retain protocol-authorized, protocol-passed, non-suspect candidates that establish a task-defined Pareto point or new high even when the confirmed lane is full.

Confirmed and mature incubator lanes may be parent-eligible. Preliminary, diagnostic, suspect, protocol-failed, and other task-declared non-parent modes remain in validation lanes for follow-up. Optional display/tiebreak axes do not silently become Pareto dimensions. The complete lane schema, source-routing rules, and reachability test are owned by Task Projects.

Promotion rejection summaries remain inside frontier/frontier_manifest.json; Praxist does not create a second runtime fact file.

Constructive Peer Mix¶

When enabled, Praxist estimates constructive solution work versus diagnostic/control work at each committed boundary. The next generation sees the result as advisory feedback, not a quota or execution gate. Disabling the feature stops both calculation and prompt injection, including historical telemetry on resume.

This control is independent of the Deep Innovation Gate (DIG) initial innovation-slot policy and Quality-Diversity (QD) allocation. Those switches are described in Deep Innovation Gate and Quality-Diversity Allocation.

Launch Freeze¶

The launch guard cooperates with the central scheduler to freeze queued and new submissions before CLOSING_SIGNAL. It covers training, evaluation, scripts, shell launchers, and background processes while still allowing result reading, finding publication, and memory updates. Existing protected jobs drain naturally.

Tasks may disable the guard only when they explicitly own an equivalent close-safe boundary. Disabling it does not waive timing feasibility or mature close requirements. Heavy-work and close-grade runtime estimates remain separate because a task may permit long optional evaluation while authorizing a shorter protocol for normal close.

Central submission, semantic retry, queue ownership, and process-group behavior are defined only in Central Experiment Scheduler.