| name | validate-online |
| description | Confirm an offline relevance win with an online A/B on CTR/conversion before declaring victory. Reach for this after an offline gain. |
Skill: Validate online
Offline gains don't always transfer to user behavior (§3 #6).
Step 1 — Confirm the offline win
A clear NDCG/MRR improvement on the judgment list first (§3 #1).
Step 2 — Design the A/B
Control vs variant on a real metric (CTR/conversion), powered and bias-aware (§3 #6).
Step 3 — Read the online result
Did the offline gain move the user metric? It may not (§3 #6).
Step 4 — Ship only on confirmation
Promote the variant only if online confirms; otherwise keep digging (§3 #6).
Output
An online A/B result confirming (or refuting) the offline relevance gain. Traverse Tree 1 in the decision-trees file.