Marcin Pawlowski 525d081a3c
Keep the deployed rule as the default; make the proposal an explicit arm
I had planned to flip uncle_window_anchor's default to "parent" so new configs
would measure the proposed design by default. Tried it, and it breaks a
documented guarantee: key() appends the anchor only when it is not "uncle", so
with "parent" as the default an --old run's key is no longer byte-identical to
the pre-redesign key and --old stops bit-reproducing historical runs (sec 9).
o.key() == o._base_key() fails outright.

Reverted, and on reflection the default was wrong for a second reason anyway.
The report's job is to describe the protocol as deployed and to RECOMMEND
changes; the default should therefore be the deployed rule, with the proposal
as an explicit arm. That is exactly the convention fixed_point already follows
(default exact f = the analysis convention, explicit True = spec-faithful).
Both reasons are recorded on the field.

To make the distinction visible rather than implicit, the spec-as-is studies
now pin uncle_window_anchor: uncle explicitly -- spec_point.py, spec_jitter.py
and the three spec-point-*.yaml configs answer "what does the DEPLOYED chain
do", so they must not drift onto a proposal if a default ever moves.

Adds uncle_window_anchor as a sweep axis (SweepConfig field plus _SWEEP_AXES),
and configs/absorption-window-anchor.yaml: the sec 3.4 absorption sweep re-run
under both anchors at three delays. That study is the one that can move a
recommendation -- the W >= 7/f floor was measured against the uncle gap, and the
parent gap runs about one block-interval longer, so the floor should sit higher
and the margin behind W = 10/f shrink.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-07 17:53:47 +02:00

36 lines
2.5 KiB
YAML

# Is w_u = 300 adequate at the SPEC's operating point, and how much margin is there?
#
# The spec section claims the window "never binds" (median reference lag 34 slots,
# max 197). The report puts a hard recovery floor at ~7/f = 210 slots, set by block SPACING rather than by
# delay, and advises widening to 450-600 near rho ~ 1. "Has margin at rho < 1" is defensible;
# "never binds" is not, and the difference is what this measures.
#
# absorption-window.yaml sweeps the same axis but starts at delta_max = 8; nothing has been run at
# the deployment's delta_max = 4. Since the floor is set by block spacing the knee should sit
# in the same place, which is itself worth confirming rather than assuming — the report's
# delay-invariance claim is exactly what makes a single recommended W defensible.
#
# U = 1 isolates the window: with more uncle slots the queue drains faster and the window stops
# being the binding constraint, which would mask the knee.
# Latency is in SLOTS (1 slot = 1 s).
n_nodes: [1000] # network size
stake_dist: [pareto] # heavy-tailed (realistic) stake distribution
topology: [blend] # Blend mixnet — the deployment transport
degree: [6] # peering degree of the d-regular graph
link_latency_mean: [0.5] # natural geographic transport (sub-slot)
link_latency_dist: [geo] # real-world geographic band mixture
blend_hops: [3] # the spec's Blend cascade length
blend_delay_max: [4.0] # the spec's operating point
window_absorption: [1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 15, 20] # W in expected block-intervals; w_u = W/f slots
max_uncles: [1] # FIXED at one uncle: the question is about W
uncle_strategy: [oldest] # spec Uncle Selection
uncle_window_anchor: [uncle] # SPEC AS DEPLOYED, not the sec 6.12 proposal
init_dest: [common] # per-node initial D_est from agreement
replicates: 12 # enough to place the knee, not to resolve 0.1 pp
base: # per-run settings shared by every cell
k: 2160 # true security parameter
epochs: 20 # equilibrium within ~2 epochs; burn 50%
f: 0.03333333333333333 # slot activation coefficient (1/30)
genesis_d_factor: 0.5 # start near true stake (cheap epoch 0)
early_stop: true