2026-05-15-shyftr-phase-8-evaluation-track-closeout.md

ShyftR Phase 8 (Evaluation Track) Closeout

Date: 2026-05-15 Repo: /Users/stefan/ShyftR Status: complete locally and verified against the full repo gate set

Scope closed

This closeout covers Phase 8 (Evaluation Track) only.

Closed deliverables:

• canonical Phase 8 evaluation-track plan and handoff packet;
• canonical evaluation bundle runner with CLI surface;
• canonical ablation report generator with explicit measured vs deferred rows;
• canonical local latency/throughput contract generator with local-only caveats;
• canonical frontier-readiness report generator assembled from measured local artifacts;
• focused Phase 8 test coverage for the new surfaces;
• generated Phase 8 status artifacts under docs/status/.

Explicitly not opened here:

• external benchmark adapters;
• hosted or production claims;
• unqualified frontier-ready wording;
• retrieval redesign or authority changes.

Final implementation surface

Code and tests landed in the working tree:

• src/shyftr/cli.py
• scripts/evaluation_bundle.py
• scripts/phase8_ablation_report.py
• scripts/phase8_latency_contract.py
• scripts/phase8_frontier_readiness_report.py
• tests/test_phase8_cli_eval_bundle.py
• tests/test_phase8_eval_bundle_runner.py
• tests/test_phase8_ablation_harness.py
• tests/test_phase8_latency_contract.py
• tests/test_phase8_frontier_readiness_report.py

Canonical generated artifacts now present on disk:

• docs/status/phase-8-evaluation-bundle/evaluation-bundle.json
• docs/status/phase-8-evaluation-track-ablation-report.json
• docs/status/phase-8-evaluation-track-ablation-report.md
• docs/status/phase-8-evaluation-track-latency-contract.json
• docs/status/phase-8-evaluation-track-latency-contract.md
• docs/status/phase-8-evaluation-track-frontier-readiness-report.json
• docs/status/phase-8-evaluation-track-frontier-readiness-report.md

Tranche outcome summary

P8-0: kickoff and schema lock

Complete.

• canonical plan and handoff exist;
• naming collision with old Phase 8 productization kept explicit.

P8-1: canonical evaluation bundle runner

Complete.

• scripts/evaluation_bundle.py builds a local-first bundle from existing baseline, metrics, hygiene, audit, and frontier snapshot surfaces;
• shyftr eval-bundle is wired in src/shyftr/cli.py as the smallest canonical CLI wrapper.

P8-2: ablation harness for already-implemented layers

Complete within the approved honesty boundary.

• measured rows:
  • durable memory only
  • durable memory + continuity
  • durable memory + continuity + live context
  • current frontier foundations snapshot
• deferred rows are explicit rather than implied:
  • no memory baseline
  • long-context-only baseline
  • vanilla RAG baseline

P8-3: fixture expansion aligned to broad-roadmap questions

Closed as explicitly deferred to backlog rather than silently unfinished.

• the final report carries this forward in next_research_backlog;
• Phase 8 still closes honestly because the measured/reporting contract and deferred rows are explicit.

P8-4: latency and throughput measurement contract

Complete as a local informational contract.

• measured outputs include pack latency samples/p50/p95, continuity pack token counts, live-context pack token counts, and caveated signal-latency reporting;
• wording stays local-only and non-gating.

P8-5: frontier-readiness report assembly

Complete.

• required sections are assembled into the canonical frontier-readiness report;
• positive claims are bounded to local measured evidence.

P8-6: optional external benchmark adapters

Not started by design.

• remains outside the approved Phase 8 stop boundary.

Verification actually run

Focused Phase 8 verification:

cd /Users/stefan/ShyftR && PYTHONPATH=.:src pytest -q tests/test_phase8_cli_eval_bundle.py tests/test_phase8_eval_bundle_runner.py tests/test_phase8_ablation_harness.py tests/test_phase8_latency_contract.py tests/test_phase8_frontier_readiness_report.py

Result:

• 18 passed in 2.61s

Artifact generation verification:

cd /Users/stefan/ShyftR && mkdir -p docs/status/phase-8-evaluation-bundle
cd /Users/stefan/ShyftR && PYTHONPATH=.:src python scripts/evaluation_bundle.py --cell-root /tmp/shyftr-phase8-eval --cell-id eval-cell --output-dir docs/status/phase-8-evaluation-bundle
cd /Users/stefan/ShyftR && PYTHONPATH=.:src python scripts/phase8_ablation_report.py
cd /Users/stefan/ShyftR && PYTHONPATH=.:src python scripts/phase8_latency_contract.py --iterations 3
cd /Users/stefan/ShyftR && PYTHONPATH=.:src python scripts/phase8_frontier_readiness_report.py

Result:

• all four generators completed successfully;
• canonical status artifacts were written to docs/status/.

Full repo gate set:

cd /Users/stefan/ShyftR && PYTHONPATH=.:src python -m compileall -q src scripts examples
cd /Users/stefan/ShyftR && python scripts/terminology_inventory.py --fail-on-public-stale
cd /Users/stefan/ShyftR && python scripts/terminology_inventory.py --fail-on-capitalized-prose
cd /Users/stefan/ShyftR && python scripts/public_readiness_check.py
cd /Users/stefan/ShyftR && git diff --check
cd /Users/stefan/ShyftR && PYTHONPATH=.:src pytest -q

Result:

• ShyftR public readiness check PASS
• 1003 passed, 31 warnings in 16.10s

Notable implementation notes

1. The latency contract originally tripped the public memory-vocabulary guard when user-facing script prose referenced compatibility tokens directly.

   • final implementation keeps public-facing Phase 8 wording clean while still populating the required runtime outcome payload.

2. The frontier-readiness report depends on generated upstream artifacts.

   • tests explicitly generate the evaluation bundle, ablation report, and latency contract first, then assemble the final report.

3. The full-suite result is green with warnings only.

   • no residual Phase 8 gate failure remains.

Claim boundary after closeout

Allowed after this closeout:

• ShyftR has a complete local-first Phase 8 evaluation track;
• the repo can generate a reproducible evaluation bundle, ablation report, latency contract, and frontier-readiness report from local measured surfaces;
• the current frontier-readiness report is public-safe and explicitly bounded.

Still not allowed after this closeout:

• unqualified frontier-ready claims;
• external benchmark superiority claims;
• hosted, production, or multi-tenant claims;
• context-window-expansion claims.

Ready-for-next-phase determination

Phase 8 is confidently complete.

The repo is ready to move beyond Phase 8 (Evaluation Track). Current broad-roadmap truth does not define a canonical Phase 9 section after the Phase 8 heading, so the next honest step is a new planning/handoff artifact that treats the next phase as undefined-but-ready rather than inventing scope.

One-line closeout summary

Phase 8 (Evaluation Track) is complete locally: the repo now has a tested evaluation bundle runner, ablation report, latency contract, frontier-readiness report, generated status artifacts, and a full green repo verification pass with explicit claim boundaries intact.