ml-feedback-ladder

name	ml-feedback-ladder
description	Use when planning how to verify an ML experiment cheaply before expensive runs - design the R0-R7 ladder from local sanity checks to full study, with promotion/stop criteria.

ML Feedback Ladder

Overview

In normal software, a passing test suite can mean the code works. In ML research, passing tests only show the code PATH might run - they do NOT show the method works. You need STAGED EMPIRICAL verification, ordered cheapest-to-expensive, where every cheap check GATES the expensive cluster/GPU jobs below it.

This skill OWNS the canonical ladder. Design the rungs for ONE specific experiment with your human partner before launching anything.

Core principle: Cheap checks gate expensive jobs. Never spend a slow rung to find a bug a fast rung would have caught.

Upstream: the experiment, metric, and protocol come from superpowers-ml:ml-experiment-design. Downstream: the ladder you design here becomes verification steps in superpowers-ml:writing-plans, and the final rung hands off to superpowers-ml:ml-result-review.

The Ladder

Each rung names what it CHECKS, the ARTIFACT that proves it passed, and rough COST. Cost is relative - a rung is "expensive" if it consumes a scheduled GPU/cluster job.

Rung	Checks	Proof artifact	Cost
R0	Experiment card / protocol defined: question, locked primary metric, baseline, decision rule	The experiment card itself	minutes, no compute
R1	Code / import / config / static sanity: it imports, config parses, paths resolve, seeds set	Clean import + config dump + linter	seconds, dev node
R2	Shape / dtype / device / one-batch forward+backward: loss is finite, gradients flow	Logged shapes/dtypes/device + one non-NaN loss + non-zero grads	seconds-minutes, dev node
R3	Tiny overfit: a handful of examples driven to ~zero loss (or memorized)	Loss curve collapsing to near-zero on the tiny set	minutes, dev node / 1 GPU
R4	Real launcher smoke run: the ACTUAL launch path (local GPU or cluster smoke job) starts, checkpoints, logs, resumes - on tiny data/steps	Launcher exits 0, checkpoint written, logs/metrics emitted	one short job
R5	Short pilot / early signal: real data, real config, truncated budget; metric is moving the right way and is stable	Early metric curve vs. baseline on the locked metric	a fraction of a full run
R6	Full run / full study: the locked protocol at full budget, seeds/sweeps as specified	Complete metrics across all planned seeds/conditions	the expensive job(s)
R7	Result review / decision memo: compare to baseline under the locked primary metric, decide	Decision memo (handed to superpowers-ml:ml-result-review)	analysis time

R0-R3 should run on your dev node in well under an hour. R4+ consume scheduled jobs - protect them.

Promotion and Stop Criteria

State the gate between EACH adjacent rung before you launch. A rung promotes ONLY when its proof artifact exists and is green.

• R0 -> R1: card has a single locked primary metric and an explicit decision rule. No metric, no launch.
• R1 -> R2: imports clean, config parses, paths/seeds resolved.
• R2 -> R3: one batch forward+backward, loss finite, gradients non-zero on the right devices.
• R3 -> R4: tiny set overfits. If it CANNOT overfit a handful of examples, the model/loss/data wiring is broken - fix before any GPU job.
• R4 -> R5: real launcher runs end-to-end on tiny budget, checkpoints, resumes, logs the metric.
• R5 -> R6: early signal is stable and not obviously worse than baseline. Promote to the expensive full run only here.
• R6 -> R7: all planned seeds/conditions complete; metrics intact, no silent failures.

STOP rule at every rung: if the proof artifact is missing or red, do NOT spend the next rung. Fix the cheap thing first.

Policy

State these plainly and hold to them:

• A cheap rung PASSING is a PRECONDITION, not proof of final success. R3 overfitting tells you the plumbing works; it tells you NOTHING about whether the method beats the baseline.
• A cheap rung FAILING means do NOT spend the expensive rung. Diagnose and fix at the lowest rung that reproduces the problem.
• Early signal (R5) may REJECT an obviously bad run - kill it, save the budget. Early signal must NOT claim victory. Only R6/R7 under the locked primary metric can support a "beats baseline" claim.
• Never skip a rung to "save time." A skipped fast rung is paid back as a burned slow job.

Scheduler-Agnostic

The launcher at R4+ is whatever your cluster uses. Slurm is ONE example (e.g. a small sbatch smoke job), not an assumption - the ladder is identical for a bare torchrun, a Ray/Kubernetes submission, or a plain SSH-to-GPU script. Design the rungs around YOUR launch path; do not hard-code a scheduler.

Reporting

Report progress as the highest GREEN rung, and separate what is supported from what is not:

Verified through R3 (tiny overfit). Not yet verified by smoke run, pilot, or full study.

Never report a method as beating a baseline without R6 (or an equivalent full evaluation) under the locked primary metric.