DRAFT amendment: sim100 rerun under v3 visuals — arms, re-baseline, priors, and the parallel-path contingency

Drafted 2026-08-12 ~10:2xZ (work session; real date -u at write: 10:20). STATUS: DRAFT — not registered. This is the pre-reg amendment the rerun item (sim100-v1-rerun, owner_hold) requires before launch: it inherits everything from the sim100 pre-reg (seeds, horizon, metric, floor/validity gates, deliverables) and changes only what is listed here. It becomes registered when the owner unholds the rerun and the finalization steps at the bottom run (param sheet in-channel, objection window). Evidence base: sim100 v0 close · spot20 v3 results · content-diversity close · wrist-periphery close.

Plain words

Two days ago we ran five robot policies through 100 simulated episodes and none ever picked up the toy boat — but the pattern of failure said the simulator’s fake-looking pictures, not the physics, were the blocker. Since then the pictures were overhauled: real photographed table backgrounds that change every episode, desk clutter scattered the way the real operator actually scatters it, and a wrist camera moved to where the real one sits. A 20-episode spot-check already showed one policy — the old teacher — reacting to the new pictures by pushing the boat the right way, about a centimeter better per episode. This document is the plan, written before spending the GPU time, for re-running the full 100 episodes under the new pictures: which policies run, what we predict each will do (registered now so we can’t move the goalposts later), and how each episode is compared one-to-one against its old-graphics twin. It sits in draft until the owner green-lights the rerun.

What carries over unchanged (from the sim100 pre-reg)

• Seeds 0–99, identical per arm (paired design); spawn ranges, 30 replans × 30 executed ticks = 30 s horizon, chunk 50, per-replan stable noise; policy seed 0, bf16 expert, batch 1.
• Primary metric: progress_final = initial − final boat→disk cm (XY), settled post-reset state as initial; bootstrap CI95 (10k resamples, seed 0); progress_min, success rate + median tick secondary.
• Validity gates: reset strikes = 0 on every (arm, seed); hold metric floor |mean progress_final| < 0.5 cm.
• v0 physics (widened limits, solver caps 50/50, CoACD benchy, SERVO_SYSID set) — untouched by the entire visual series; settled-qpos and spawn-stream bit-identity across render styles is oracle-pinned (tests/test_sim_appearance.py).
• Success caveat, re-verified at draft time: success() still lacks the gripper-open check its docstring claims and its stillness clause reads all joint velocities — success rates carry that asterisk; distance metrics unaffected.
• Deliverables: per-arm JSON + reads JSON on fontaine-reports, dark-mode HTML report + video gallery, results post, numbers in-channel.

Change 1 — frames: render_style="v3" (the shipped default)

Arms run under the owner-approved v3 default (flip 07:29Z 08-12, commit da96d30): per-reset draws from the 26-plate real-background bank + measured clutter presence/pose draws (top), 72° fisheye + re-tuned over-the-jaw pose (wrist). Execution uses the GPU compositor path (_TorchPost, commit b99be38, owner-approved 08:12Z; ≤2/255 oracle vs the numpy reference).

Visual re-baseline (the registered probe instrument, 100-seed reset renders, er_60k encoder 5-NN AUROC vs real; 0.5 = indistinguishable):

Both cameras are at or inside their registered lines; the wrist sim frames sit inside the real embedding spread (k-ratio 0.97×). Caveat carried from every probe close: this measures encoder separability of reset frames; mid-episode content is unmeasured — which is exactly what this rerun measures behaviorally.

Change 2 — arm set (new names; output dirs must not clobber banked v0 rows)

Deltas from the queue-item text, flagged as owner decision points:

1. teacher80k added (the item predates spot20): it is the only arm with a confirmed, CI-excludes-zero behavioral response to the visuals (+0.97 cm [+0.16, +1.81] at n=20, direction flipped toward the disk). Firming that signal at n=100 is the clearest scientific payoff of the rerun; dropping it would leave the headline read at 20-seed power.
2. snap30k dropped: null at both legs (v0 sim100 −0.12 spanning zero; spot20 Δ +0.06 [−0.61, +0.85]). Re-running it burns an arm-slot to reconfirm a double null. Owner may reinstate it as a fifth arm at +~25% cost.
3. The er15k/35k/55k ordering rungs stay dead (owner amendment 22:58Z 08-11 killed them; the fidelity-ordering validation read died with them and is NOT resurrected here — this rerun makes no sim-as-policy-meter claim).

Change 3 — primary read: paired v3 − v0 per seed, per arm

The spot20 instrument at full power, now the registered primary:

1. Per arm: paired per-seed Δ progress_final (v3 − banked v0 row, same seed, 100 pairs) — mean, bootstrap CI95 (10k, seed 0), sign counts. This is the highest-power read available because the banked v0 rows pair bit-identically: spawn streams are oracle-pinned across render styles (verified 60/60 in spot20).
2. Within-v3: each policy arm − hold_v3 paired CI95; teacher80k_v3 − er60k_v3 and ftrig4k_v3 − er60k_v3 record-only.
3. Engagement split per arm: episodes with best-point > 1 cm, v0 → v3, and toward:away among engaged — the axis the v0 close identified as the finding.
4. Success rate (owner goal: ≥ 1 success anywhere on the 100 seeds; baseline 0/500 across all v0 arms), with the success() caveat.
5. Integrity tripwires (any failure voids the affected arm): spawn_xy bit-match vs banked v0 on every (arm, seed); strikes 0; hold floor.

Registered priors (stated before any GPU minute)

• teacher80k_v3 — the confirmatory prediction: paired Δ positive with CI95 excluding zero; arm mean moves from −0.73 toward ≥ 0 (spot20 point estimate on its 20 seeds: −0.90 → +0.07). This is the headline registered read. Failure to confirm at n=100 = the spot20 signal was a 20-seed fluctuation; report either way.
• er60k_v3 — prior null: spot20 read Δ −0.07 [−0.33, +0.12] with 13/20 episodes byte-identical (it rarely touches the boat). What a real change would look like: engagement rising clearly above v0’s 4/100, or a CI-excludes-zero paired Δ — either would mean 100-seed power caught what n=20 could not, and would be the bigger news since er60k’s miss was the original spatial-mismatch fingerprint (fisheye + pose geometry moved where things appear — exactly the axis the v1 close named).
• ftrig4k_v3 — uncertain, most interesting open cell: never spot-checked under v3. Its training pixels (owner rig) already resemble the sim scene, so its visual gap was smallest — prior is a Δ smaller than teacher80k’s, sign positive; the registered look for a response is toward:away sharpening beyond 27:20 and/or a positive CI-excludes-zero Δ.
• hold_v3: floor holds (|mean| < 0.5 cm) — anything else is a reset/settle artifact and blocks all reads.
• Success: prior remains near-zero probability per episode — grasp-phase physics is still fidelity-limited (phantom collision margin p99 3.78 mm; gripper-priority friction override), so even a visually-matched policy may top out at push-the-boat. A single latched success would clear the owner’s stated bar and headline the results post regardless.
• Disk position stays pinned at (0.22, 0.11) for this rerun: the measured real disk wander (8–29 cm × ±19 cm, banked in bank_manifest.json) is the queued sim-disk-position-prereg-draft item; drawing it here would break per-seed pairing against the banked v0 rows. Explicitly chosen, not overlooked.

Execution path and cost (sequenced per owner 09:32Z)

On GPU release, sim_parallel_oracle.py runs FIRST (the owner-sequenced item, its own pre-reg); this rerun is the second thing on the box and inherits the outcome:

• Path A — oracle GREEN at 2 and 8 workers: arms run on the parallel path at its validated settings (registered use per that pre-reg’s decision rule). ~20–30 min per 100-seed policy arm → 3 policy arms + cheap hold ≈ 1.5–2.5 h wall, ~2–3 GPU-h.
• Path B — oracle FAIL: sequential arms on the GPU-compositor path (94 ms/tick under load, measured), ~6–9 h wall projected from the spot20 pace. Gate ≤ 10 GPU-h. Abort rule: first policy arm

  2.5 h wall → pause after the in-flight arm, reassess in-channel.

• Either path: arm order er60k_v3, hold_v3, teacher80k_v3, ftrig4k_v3 (reference + floor first, then the confirmatory read, then the open cell).

Finalization checklist (runs at owner unhold, before launch)

1. Owner call on the arm-set decision points (teacher80k add / snap30k drop / rungs stay dead).
2. Re-pin HEAD commit + asset-manifest hash in the param sheet (machine pin unchanged: this box, EGL, MuJoCo 3.11.0).
3. Param sheet in-channel with a stated objection window; DRAFT → REGISTERED stamp on this post.
4. Babysit registry entries at launch; first-poll GPU-utilization check per standing rule.