Training Coach

The coach reads a training run and returns a diagnosis, in-whitelist proposals and an experiment plan — and every claim cites one of the cards below. This is that corpus: 22 methodology rules distilled from a real sim2real programme, and 171 episode cards behind them, each with the sentence in the war history it came from.

Doctrine

A report may cite any of these as doctrine-N.

doctrine-1Contract freeze and fingerprint discipline
The policy I/O contract (observation layout, scales, history semantics, action pipeline) is frozen and fingerprinted; every exported policy is stamped and verified; contract changes ship as new versioned profiles that leave old artifacts bit-identical, and old policies run forever under their era's pinned profile.
Case. The 215-dim omni contract was frozen with a three-machine digest; the one contract-level extension (lateral feed-forward) went in as a new `omni_ff` profile with the old profile provably untouched, and the contract checker caught two real wiring bugs before any training (`contract-freeze-and-checker`). A silently changed gait-clock default would have fed old policies a 25% slower clock - closed by pinned legacy profiles (`legacy-profile-pinning`). A stale derived USD forked plant mass 2.2% until an automated source-vs-derived instrument gated it (`derived-asset-staleness-check`). A gain profile is part of the closed loop a policy was trained in and belongs in its stamp; the recovery line's anchored authority was left out of its manifest and recorded as the gap not to repeat (`gain-profile-belongs-in-the-stamp`), and a second policy behind a deploy-side switch made the handoff state itself a contract (`recovery-two-policies-and-a-state-machine`, `walk-recovery-fsm-handoff`).
Coach application. On any proposal touching obs/action semantics, defaults, or derived assets: demand the version/profile plan, the fingerprint update, and the checker extension in the same change; flag any old artifact that would run under new defaults.
contract-freeze-and-checker legacy-profile-pinning derived-asset-staleness-check gain-profile-belongs-in-the-stamp recovery-two-policies-and-a-state-machine walk-recovery-fsm-handoff
doctrine-2Attribution by resolved training params - never eval-override knobs
Capability differences between lineages are explained only by digging each lineage's *resolved* training configuration and eliminating columns; evaluation-side override knobs (kd-scale, power-scale, cycle-time) act on the plant for *every* policy and may serve as deployment mitigations but never as explanations.
Case. Low-friction robustness across 8 lineages x 3840 cells was traced to kd DR *bandwidth* - every lineage had ground friction pinned to (1.0,1.0), so "trained friction" could not be the axis; the parameter axis and the plant axis were explicitly separated after the first attribution conflated them (`kd-bandwidth-mu-law-attribution`). "Weak turning" on hardware was a power-scale plant effect, not a training gap (`deploy-knob-attribution-before-retraining`); slowing the deploy clock was out-of-distribution, not a feature (`cycle-time-override-is-ood`). The ground truth for what a run trained under is the logged per-run config, not the source tree (`resolved-config-is-source-of-truth`).
Coach application. Whenever asked "why is lineage A better", require the resolved-param table first; kill zero-variance columns; refuse explanations phrased in eval-knob terms; when a knob helps, label it deployment mitigation.
kd-bandwidth-mu-law-attribution deploy-knob-attribution-before-retraining cycle-time-override-is-ood resolved-config-is-source-of-truth
doctrine-3PASS gates become constraints; FAIL gates become objectives
Once a skill passes its gate, that gate converts into a standing regression constraint (budget <= 2/20 against the parent baseline) for all later training; gates currently failing are the only legitimate objectives of the next rung.
Case. The C ladder ran one frozen 13-cell x 20-seed matrix at every rung with promotion = "new skill PASS and old skills within regression budget"; C1 was stopped and re-rooted precisely because it trained away the root's backward PASS (`fixed-acceptance-matrix-per-rung`, `preregistered-stop-criteria-per-rung`). The C4 product shipped only at 260/260 cells with zero regression.
Coach application. Keep the ledger: every PASS adds a constraint row; propose rungs only against FAIL rows; treat any constraint violation as stop-and-attribute, never "the next rung might win it back".
fixed-acceptance-matrix-per-rung preregistered-stop-criteria-per-rung
doctrine-4One variable per ladder rung - counted against what the checkpoint saw
A rung changes one variable, where "one" is counted against the checkpoint's actual training state, not against the current config's diff; batching is allowed only when each change owns a disjoint symptom space with a pre-registered ablation order.
Case. Two rungs failed identically because resuming s1e-500 under the evolved config silently added four plant variables the checkpoint had never seen ("单变量纪律不只看「我改了什么」,还要看「checkpoint 见过什么」" - `resume-state-dr-audit`). v8 legally batched four orthogonal fixes with a written ablation order (`orthogonal-batch-with-ablation-order`); v9 spent one run completing a 2x2 factorial so either outcome convicted a factor (`fill-the-missing-factorial-cell`); v10b's three-way ablation wrongfully convicted the clock and had to be retried fairly.
Coach application. Before any resume: diff cfg against the checkpoint's logged training state. Before any batch: require the symptom-ownership map and ablation order in writing.
resume-state-dr-audit orthogonal-batch-with-ablation-order fill-the-missing-factorial-cell
doctrine-5Pre-register risks, readings, and stop criteria before the ladder
Before a ladder or risky rung, write down the known risks, the interpretation of every plausible outcome, and hit-any-one stop criteria - frozen before training, tightened when priors say results should come fast.
Case. The C ladder opened with three numbered risks including the exact falsification condition for its own root choice; A/B arms carried "预注册读法(事后不改)" tables; a level expected to fail was run anyway for its pre-registered diagnostic value (`preregister-risks-and-fork-readings`). Stop criteria caught C4-redo rungs at +200 instead of full caps (`preregistered-stop-criteria-per-rung`); hardware sessions pre-registered per-config expected signatures and the disagreement rule "不改结论改账" (`preregistered-real-expectations`, `feasibility-accounts-lock-design-point`).
Coach application. Refuse to open a rung without the written risk/reading/ stop block; after results, read conclusions off the pre-registered table and flag any post-hoc reinterpretation.
preregister-risks-and-fork-readings preregistered-stop-criteria-per-rung preregistered-real-expectations feasibility-accounts-lock-design-point
doctrine-6Plant parameters are measured, never invented
Every plant number carries measurement provenance: armature = N^2 x rotor inertia from no-load tests, friction split by rig and by API column, torque limits shaped by per-joint gait peaks, latency traced through the real pipeline, masses weighed - and DR bands are additive around the measured nominal, sized to the measured dispersion.
Case. Guessed friction was 2.5x low and guessed damping 5x high (`friction-measured-not-guessed`); armature had been 0 with a 9:1 gearbox (81x reflected inertia, `armature-n2-rotor-inertia`); a uniform torque derating was "the wrong shape" vs measured peaks (`torque-limit-shape-by-measured-peaks`); the delay implementation itself was a wrong plant for a whole lineage (`latency-lerp-reverse-extrapolation`); the run design point was locked by three accounts including the tau_limit/kd speed ceiling (`feasibility-accounts-lock-design-point`); identified friction had to land in the right simulator API columns to act at all (`sim-api-friction-columns`). The recovery and one-leg lines opened with the same kind of accounts before any reward existed - a connected static path and the torque along it for an armless get-up, and the gains single support needs to be holdable at all (`get-up-feasibility-accounts-before-training`, `single-support-gain-authority-probe`).
Coach application. For any plant value in a config review, ask "measured how?"; reject absolute ranges with no nominal; check API column mapping and derived-asset regeneration whenever measured values land.
friction-measured-not-guessed armature-n2-rotor-inertia torque-limit-shape-by-measured-peaks latency-lerp-reverse-extrapolation feasibility-accounts-lock-design-point sim-api-friction-columns get-up-feasibility-accounts-before-training single-support-gain-authority-probe
doctrine-7Sim2sim gate before sim2real - under deployment conditions
Every checkpoint passes a second, independently built simulator before hardware, and both the gate and the smoke loop run under the measured deployment conditions (real pipeline delay, honest contact parameters, the deployment gain/power profile).
Case. The standing order "先sim2sim 再sim2real" (`sim2sim-gate-before-sim2real`); acceptance flipped to match hardware only under measured condim/torsional friction (`eval-plant-honesty-contact-params`); gates moved permanently to `--delay 2` after the kicking incident (`pipeline-latency-is-plant-not-dr`); and the harness itself must be audited - a frame-convention bug in the cross-sim evaluator invalidated a whole line of verdicts (`body-frame-velocity-api-audit`). The recovery line's second simulator caught a torque penalty paid for by bracing the legs together (`torque-penalty-bought-by-leg-bracing`), and a 1.8x torque disagreement between the two plants stayed binding because its one surviving explanation was never tested (`torque-disagreement-between-simulators-unresolved`).
Coach application. Block any hardware request lacking a second-sim PASS at deployment conditions; when sim2sim and training-side metrics disagree, treat the evaluator as a suspect too.
sim2sim-gate-before-sim2real eval-plant-honesty-contact-params pipeline-latency-is-plant-not-dr body-frame-velocity-api-audit torque-penalty-bought-by-leg-bracing torque-disagreement-between-simulators-unresolved
doctrine-8Observation honesty - the actor's inputs are a hardware contract
The actor observes only signals the real robot produces with realistic noise; privileged truths go to the critic; history windows are estimators and must train under plant variation; rewards on quantities the actor cannot observe buy only average suppression, never closed-loop correction.
Case. Ground-truth velocity/forces went critic-only (`observation-honesty-critic-only`); frame_hist under zero DR memorized the trainer's plant fingerprint - 0/20 transfer (`history-obs-needs-plant-variation`); world-frame yaw rewards could not teach pull-back because heading is unobservable to the actor - correction was routed to the deploy outer loop instead of breaking the contract (`reward-observability-limit`, `deploy-heading-loop-and-align-training`).
Coach application. Audit every actor-obs element for hardware existence; require minimal plant jitter whenever history/recurrence exists; for each reward, ask "can the actor see this error?" and route correction tasks to outer loops.
observation-honesty-critic-only history-obs-needs-plant-variation reward-observability-limit deploy-heading-loop-and-align-training
doctrine-9Reward economics are audited in realized currency
Reward design decisions are made on realized per-step magnitudes under the actual policy and command distribution: price the do-nothing optimum before adding a mode, compare achieved values to the computed ignore-floor, calibrate thresholds between measured healthy and sick distributions, and ship every new penalty with a withdrawal clause.
Case. feet_air_time at weight 2.0 realized 0.038 vs tracking 1.2 - drag was rational (`realized-contribution-audit`); ignoring a vy command cost 28-180x less than ignoring vx until a gated tracking term was added (`reward-cost-of-ignoring-audit`, `gate-new-reward-terms-by-command`); achieved-vs-floor separated "never learned" from "priced out" (`ignore-floor-diagnosis`); the foot-distance wall was placed between measured healthy (0.6% tax) and sick (55%) policies (`calibrate-threshold-between-healthy-and-sick`); the landing penalty carried a pre-registered stand-down condition and actually stood down (`calibration-threshold-with-withdrawal-clause`); two clearance terms were inert until zero-points and gate occupancy were checked (`inert-reward-term-audit`). A get-up policy sat because three gated terms paid the seated pose 84% of the return and the one term that could tell sitting from standing was an exp kernel reading 4.6e-5 at the real error (`seated-basin-dead-exp-kernel`); a torque-tail term was weighted by its measured steady value beside a peer term after the estimate proved 12x off (`tail-torque-needs-hinge-on-computed-demand`).
Coach application. Never discuss weights in the abstract: demand the realized-contribution table, the ignore-floor number, and the healthy-pay calibration before any reward edit is approved.
realized-contribution-audit reward-cost-of-ignoring-audit gate-new-reward-terms-by-command ignore-floor-diagnosis calibrate-threshold-between-healthy-and-sick calibration-threshold-with-withdrawal-clause inert-reward-term-audit seated-basin-dead-exp-kernel tail-torque-needs-hinge-on-computed-demand
doctrine-10The zero-cost option must be the desired behavior
For every penalty, name what the zero-cost option is; penalize failure events (slip, saturation excess, contact in flight windows), never the motion or joints that healthy behavior uses; make degenerate strategies fatal via termination where penalties cannot price them out.
Case. Joint-usage penalties for drift taxed a 1.4%-of-momentum channel 2.7/step and collapsed training; the slip penalty costs a non-slipping gait exactly zero (`penalize-the-slip-not-the-joint`). A frozen-at-clamp joint pays zero action-rate forever - only a pre-clip saturation penalty flips the cheat economics (`saturation-cheating-zero-rate-cost`). Ungated phase shaping made standing 42x more expensive than stepping and cooked the hip motors (`moving-gate-42x-stand-tax`); crouch-shuffling lived until a height termination deleted it (`termination-closes-degenerate-basin`). A gated penalty is an exit: the policy parked just outside an uprightness gate, then just under a height gate, to stop paying a stance tax, and only a positive band plus an always-on guard closed both (`penalty-gate-is-an-escape-hatch`); a soft-limit penalty that charged the standing pose itself bought a 4.1 deg lean (`soft-limit-penalty-charges-nominal-pose`); an unpriced foot attitude was spent on edge-standing (`unpriced-foot-attitude-is-a-free-variable`); and the one-leg line listed its cheapest cheats before training and still met one through a zero-gradient band (`enumerate-cheapest-cheats-before-training`, `binary-band-reward-fake-touchdown`).
Coach application. Run the "零代价的选项是什么" audit on every proposed term; convert motion taxes into event-conditional penalties; check the termination set against each known degenerate strategy.
penalize-the-slip-not-the-joint saturation-cheating-zero-rate-cost moving-gate-42x-stand-tax termination-closes-degenerate-basin penalty-gate-is-an-escape-hatch soft-limit-penalty-charges-nominal-pose unpriced-foot-attitude-is-a-free-variable enumerate-cheapest-cheats-before-training binary-band-reward-fake-touchdown
doctrine-11Measurement discipline: independent referees, signs, distributions
A disputed measurement is adjudicated only by an independent algorithm from raw state; directional ability requires sign-antisymmetry under command reversal; bimodal metrics are reported as mode shares (never medians, never 3 seeds); ratios are not comparable when totals change; reward values compare only within one command distribution; single chaotic events never cross machines.
Case. The triple reversal - a good metric was "refuted" by a sibling metric that shared the disease (`independent-referee-for-metric-disputes`, `body-frame-velocity-api-audit`); same-signed +/- responses were bias, not turning (`same-sign-response-is-yaw-bias`); the swing median sat in a bimodal gap (`median-hides-bimodal-distribution`); "v6 is jitterier" died on absolute energies (`ratio-metrics-need-absolute-check`); yaw gain measured 15x wrong in an oscillating frame (`heading-integral-not-body-rate`); a 44% improvement evaporated under same-distribution comparison (`same-distribution-reward-comparison`); drift direction was a limit cycle (`multiseed-sign-test-for-drift`); a cross-machine push cliff was chaos (`single-impulse-recovery-is-chaotic`).
Coach application. Before accepting any surprising number: ask for the independent recomputation, the sign pair, the distribution shape, and the comparison conditions. Retract in writing when a metric falls.
independent-referee-for-metric-disputes body-frame-velocity-api-audit same-sign-response-is-yaw-bias median-hides-bimodal-distribution ratio-metrics-need-absolute-check heading-integral-not-body-rate same-distribution-reward-comparison multiseed-sign-test-for-drift single-impulse-recovery-is-chaotic
doctrine-12The deployment pipeline is plant
Irreducible pipeline properties - action latency, rate limits, power/torque scaling, teleop command mappings - are part of the nominal plant, modeled from day one and reproduced in every gate; deploy-side scalings are crutches that flag unmodeled plant, and they cannot be algebraically folded into training constants.
Case. Right-leg kicking was over-trained-delay x loop gain; power 0.8 was a gain-reduction crutch that retired when the delay was modeled (`pipeline-latency-is-plant-not-dr`); power derating damages non-forward axes first (`power-scale-hurts-nonforward-axes`); training at 0.4 scale as the "twin" of deploying 0.5 x 0.8 collapsed 0/20 (`deploy-scaling-not-training-equivalent`); one shared teleop speed sent an out-of-band lateral command and the robot clipped its own foot (`teleop-command-band-per-axis`); the latency DR range had not even covered the measured pipeline (`latency-dr-covers-measured-pipeline`). A rate limiter added at deployment only clipped a policy that kept commanding (`deploy-rate-limiter-windup`); moved into training and anchored on the last command it became an integrator in the balance loop (`slew-anchor-is-an-integrator`); anchored on the measured angle it bounded torque and kept the bandwidth (`beta-anchored-action-target`). The walking lines' safe setting, power-scale 0.8, cut the ends of the recovery policy's full-range travel and left its spikes alone; a gain inside the trained band did the job (`power-derating-cuts-full-range-contract`).
Coach application. Demand the measured pipeline latency/limits in the plant model and in gate conditions; treat every deploy-side derating as a question ("what is this compensating?"); block per-axis command sources that exceed training bands.
pipeline-latency-is-plant-not-dr power-scale-hurts-nonforward-axes deploy-scaling-not-training-equivalent teleop-command-band-per-axis latency-dr-covers-measured-pipeline deploy-rate-limiter-windup slew-anchor-is-an-integrator beta-anchored-action-target power-derating-cuts-full-range-contract
doctrine-13DR budget is finite; its distribution is the measured support
Robustness is a conserved budget: disturbance training on an already-hardened lineage borrows from existing margins; DR ranges span the measured deployment support - no fictitious tails (they buy degenerate gaits), no single constants (they allow thin-margin specialization); harden the plant only after the task distribution is final.
Case. The same push dose helped a narrow lineage and damaged a balanced one - budget conservation (`push-dr-conditional-budget-conservation`); wide latency tails bought drag-glide, constant values shipped 60% thinner tilt margins - the answer is a narrow band on the measured support (`dr-tail-plant-continuation`, `constant-value-dr-overfits-margin`); task-first ordering because hardening a soon-to-change task wastes budget (`task-shaping-before-plant-hardening`); COM randomization used deliberately as a behavior-shaping tool, and rolled back on symptom per its own contract (`com-randomization-forces-leg-spread`, `com-dr-rollback-on-symptom`). DR that is switched on can still be thin: the run policy fell in the frontal plane its gain-and-latency randomization never touched (`thin-dr-judged-by-channel-coverage`), and a friction priority settled under one action contract had to be re-measured under the next (`friction-priority-re-measured-after-plant-change`).
Coach application. Before any DR rung: check the untrained policy against the spec, the lineage's current DR load, and the measured real-world range; after it: audit retained margins, not just the new tolerance.
push-dr-conditional-budget-conservation dr-tail-plant-continuation constant-value-dr-overfits-margin task-shaping-before-plant-hardening com-randomization-forces-leg-spread com-dr-rollback-on-symptom thin-dr-judged-by-channel-coverage friction-priority-re-measured-after-plant-change
doctrine-14Gates measure what hardware feels: posture, margins, stripped assists
Acceptance batteries carry posture-class rows (tilt max median, per-joint L/R asymmetry, temperature) beside task rows, graded margin columns beside binary gates, chirality scored per side, at least one condition that removes the environment's free stabilization, and validated predictive scalars promoted into the gate.
Case. Three same-shaped judging errors - survival, displacement, wz-difference - all missed what the operator felt; posture metrics had the predictive power (`task-metrics-vs-posture-metrics`, `stand-gate-posture-not-survival`); binary survival saturated and hid a 60% margin gap (`constant-value-dr-overfits-margin`); v5 passed everything on the ground and failed suspended (`suspension-probe-removes-free-stabilizer`); the hip_roll (l+r) scalar predicted real drift direction and ordering and entered the battery (`hip-roll-sum-predicts-lateral-drift`); averages hide chirality (`chirality-scored-separately`); gait-quality gates are judged at speeds that demand a gait (`low-speed-commands-reward-dragging`). The recovery line added the rest of the kit: where failed episodes end, not only where they started (`end-state-confusion-matrix`); a frozen acceptance distribution with a pinned seed (`frozen-acceptance-distribution-and-pinned-seed`); video of the metric rollout itself (`video-as-acceptance-record`); and the admission that a 10 s episode cannot see a stance that fails after a minute (`episode-length-bounds-what-a-gate-sees`). The one-leg line removed a foot-spacing wall that no gate measured, and the feet met on hardware (`removed-wall-returns-on-hardware`).
Coach application. Review every battery for posture rows, margin columns, per-side scoring, and an assist-stripped condition; when operator feel and gates disagree, suspect the metric class first.
task-metrics-vs-posture-metrics stand-gate-posture-not-survival constant-value-dr-overfits-margin suspension-probe-removes-free-stabilizer hip-roll-sum-predicts-lateral-drift chirality-scored-separately low-speed-commands-reward-dragging end-state-confusion-matrix frozen-acceptance-distribution-and-pinned-seed video-as-acceptance-record episode-length-bounds-what-a-gate-sees removed-wall-returns-on-hardware
doctrine-15Fork and root selection: recoverability, maturity, frozen rewards
Choose fork roots by which candidate's deficits the coming training can pay back (precision is recoverable; lost plasticity, symmetry, and margins are not); prefer mature checkpoints as roots even when younger ones score better as products; never fine-tune through a reward change - continuation is legal only with the reward frozen and plant/DR widening one rung at a time.
Case. s1e-500 beat higher-precision candidates because its exclusive strengths were unrecoverable (`fork-root-recoverable-shortfall`); the b300 arm proved maturity is capital against adaptation shock (`root-maturity-vs-product-quality`); the B-arm scatter/half-recover/collapse signature falsified reward-change fine-tuning and drew the legal boundary for S2 continuation (`fine-tune-reward-change-falsified`).
Coach application. For root debates, build the exclusive-strengths table and ask "which side can be trained back?"; require dual-arm evidence for maturity claims; classify any proposed continuation as reward-frozen or not before approving.
fork-root-recoverable-shortfall root-maturity-vs-product-quality fine-tune-reward-change-falsified
doctrine-16Curricula: verified engagement, lineage counters, disease-phase gating
Automatic curricula must prove they engage (a saturated ratchet is constant DR wearing a curriculum's name); every ramp counts lineage-cumulative progress, not per-process steps; penalties aimed at late-stage pathologies ramp in after exploration noise decays; difficulty rises on measured per-stratum success, never on schedule.
Case. The s1f ratchet capped at iter 248 and never engaged (`auto-curriculum-engagement-check`); the saturation ramp re-fired at +600 after every resume and no shipped product ever saw the penalty (`curriculum-counter-lineage-steps`); the same penalty worked once gated to the disease phase and became an untouchable mechanism (`gate-penalties-to-the-disease-phase`); record-high aggregate reward hid a fully-failing delay stratum (`aggregate-metrics-mask-subgroup-failure`); bucket share is not a gradient lever (`bucket-share-is-not-a-gradient-lever`). An assist curriculum keyed to a pooled success share was withdrawn on the strength of the categories that already worked (`curriculum-criterion-conditioned-on-lagging-category`); a pace set by per-step income moved only when that income was time-gated (`per-step-income-drives-speed-time-gate`), and the same gate had to be retired in a lineage without the disease (`time-gate-vs-wide-stance-retire-the-fix`).
Coach application. Ask every curriculum three questions: does it engage (show the internal state)? what does it count (process or lineage)? when is it present (against the pathology's phase)? Check where shipped checkpoints sit relative to every ramp.
auto-curriculum-engagement-check curriculum-counter-lineage-steps gate-penalties-to-the-disease-phase aggregate-metrics-mask-subgroup-failure bucket-share-is-not-a-gradient-lever curriculum-criterion-conditioned-on-lagging-category per-step-income-drives-speed-time-gate time-gate-vs-wide-stance-retire-the-fix
doctrine-17Probe before training: feasibility first, hypotheses in tables
After two failed training attempts at a skill, stop training: demonstrate the behavior open-loop, enumerate hypotheses in a written table audited against actual configs cheapest-first, race one probe per side of the sim2real boundary for hardware-only pathologies, and use suspended tests to acquit or convict actuators before blaming authority.
Case. "在黑暗里试钥匙" - four sidewalk rungs failed until an open-loop probe separated exploration/waveform/authority in one experiment (`open-loop-probe-before-reward-tuning`); the foot-drag mystery fell to a seven-hypothesis config audit (`hypothesis-table-code-audit`); the period-doubling was resolved by racing a reward-side and a plant-side evidence line - and both paid off, one per sub-case (`period-doubling-evidence-race`); the suspended test acquitted the roll actuator in one measurement (`suspended-test-isolates-actuator-authority`). A read-only configuration probe told a wall from a slope in the recovery line's seated basin (`configuration-probe-wall-not-slope`), and the fix it pointed to - where the feet are - took prone from 0/159 to 158/159 (`prone-dead-end-is-foot-placement`); a knob that did not move its variable was recorded as no test of the idea (`dof-vel-penalty-is-not-a-pacing-knob`).
Coach application. When a skill resists training, prescribe the probe before any further reward edits; require verified target trajectories before imitation terms; keep a falsified-fixes list so closed roads stay closed (`amplitude-cut-falsified-yaw-fix`).
open-loop-probe-before-reward-tuning hypothesis-table-code-audit period-doubling-evidence-race suspended-test-isolates-actuator-authority configuration-probe-wall-not-slope prone-dead-end-is-foot-placement dof-vel-penalty-is-not-a-pacing-knob amplitude-cut-falsified-yaw-fix
doctrine-18External advice is recomputed locally; values transfer as ratios
Every external suggestion is classified adopt / already-have / modify / trap by recomputing its claim on the local reward table and probe data; numeric values transfer only as dimensionless ratios (to tracking weight, leg length, sqrt(gL), control rate); citations are verified to exist.
Case. "Start vy very small" would have destroyed sidewalk learning on this reward table - the gradient scales quadratically (`external-advice-audit-against-own-arithmetic`); swing-height targets and weights transferred correctly only through leg-length and tracking-ratio scaling (`transfer-ratios-not-absolutes`); the "6-step delay" was refused for lacking a control rate (`latency-dr-covers-measured-pipeline`); a borrowed reference's structure was FK-verified and its amplitude re-derived from the division of labor (`reference-structure-fk-amplitude-division`); retrieval agents fabricated verbatim arXiv quotes - only source-verifiable material was used; and one dismissed suggestion later proved right for a different mechanism, and was credited (`cycle-average-tracking-for-gait-quantities`). An advisor's staged state machine turned out to exist in none of the three papers it cited, and reading them changed the plan (`advisor-paraphrase-vs-paper`).
Coach application. Intercept every "paper X does Y" with the local recomputation; convert absolutes to ratios before comparison; verify quotes; revisit dismissed advice when new mechanisms appear.
external-advice-audit-against-own-arithmetic transfer-ratios-not-absolutes latency-dr-covers-measured-pipeline reference-structure-fk-amplitude-division cycle-average-tracking-for-gait-quantities advisor-paraphrase-vs-paper
doctrine-19Hardware sessions are scripted experiments, not tuning sessions
Real-robot time executes a pre-registered matrix: risk-ordered (baseline first, fragile last with a spotter), stage-gated (suspended smoke before ground), A/B sessions bracketed by a repeated reference run, operators briefed on measured zero-command and untrained-axis behavior, chirality-aware disturbance protocols, no field tuning - the only legal field changes are scripted, single-variable, and self-reversing.
Case. The S2 acceptance sheet (`risk-ordered-real-deployment`, `battery-bracketed-real-ab`, `know-zero-command-behavior`, `push-test-chirality-protocol`, `no-field-tuning-protocol`); the RAM-only torque experiment with automatic power-cycle rollback (`reversible-single-variable-field-experiments`); and the sim-veto rule - even sim's condemnations get one safeguarded hardware check when they judge the purpose-built configuration (`sim-veto-needs-real-confirmation`). The recovery line's first real run went ahead with its preconditions unmet and was stopped as dangerous (`first-real-get-up-violent-stage-one-policy`); after it: a staged hang, mat and floor protocol (`staged-hang-mat-floor-for-get-up`), a fixed power-cycle pre-flight and two-machine discipline (`power-cycle-preflight`, `two-machine-config-discipline`), a fall guard replaced rather than switched off (`fall-guard-becomes-a-state`), and logs that are part of the run (`hardware-log-is-the-attribution-input`).
Coach application. Turn every hardware request into a runbook with order, gates, brackets, briefing, and anomaly plays; refuse improvised parameter changes on the floor.
risk-ordered-real-deployment battery-bracketed-real-ab know-zero-command-behavior push-test-chirality-protocol no-field-tuning-protocol reversible-single-variable-field-experiments sim-veto-needs-real-confirmation first-real-get-up-violent-stage-one-policy staged-hang-mat-floor-for-get-up power-cycle-preflight two-machine-config-discipline fall-guard-becomes-a-state hardware-log-is-the-attribution-input
doctrine-20Close questions in writing; restart when the debt is structural
Audited questions get frozen verdicts with citable wording and an explicit reopening bar; hardware verdicts are dated by deployment-stack and calibration state and expire when those change; and when successive rungs shuffle symptoms without net progress, freeze the lineage as regression baselines, pay the structural debts, and retrain minimal - carrying laws and instruments, not weights.
Case. The chirality and COM questions were closed with frozen wording and "no reopening without new hard evidence" (`frozen-verdicts-semantic-boundaries`); v5/v6's condemnations expired with the deploy stack (`stale-verdicts-under-old-stack`); a 2-degree calibration fix moved the whole runnable envelope (`zero-offset-calibration-shifts-envelope`); plant upgrades are era boundaries with paired re-baselining (`plant-swap-invariants-vs-shifts`); and the 2026-08-05 reset froze v5-v11, fixed the latency FIFO / manifest / sampling / reward-table debts, and restarted - producing the lineage that reached hardware SOTA (`freeze-lineage-fix-structure-restart`, `minimal-reward-table-with-provenance`). The recovery line's real-robot verdicts ended up in three places that disagree, one of them an undated note in a command file (`write-hardware-verdicts-back`).
Coach application. Maintain the closed-questions ledger and quote it when symptoms recur; stamp verdicts with stack/calibration versions; when a team is three rungs into symptom-shuffling, raise the restart question explicitly with the freeze-fix-restart pattern.
frozen-verdicts-semantic-boundaries stale-verdicts-under-old-stack zero-offset-calibration-shifts-envelope plant-swap-invariants-vs-shifts freeze-lineage-fix-structure-restart minimal-reward-table-with-provenance write-hardware-verdicts-back
doctrine-21Name the quantity in the space it lives in
A goal, reward term or acceptance criterion about the feet, the base or the contact state is computed from the quantity itself - world poses, forces, per-category outcomes - never through a joint-angle, single-signal or pooled stand-in that assumes everything else sits at nominal; and every detector is validated on a behaviour known not to contain the event before it becomes a gate.
Case. The recovery line was caught three times: |ankle roll| as "flat feet" sold stance width and the real robot slid into the splits, a hip-roll criterion was confounded by 50 deg of yaw, and the joint table said 0.271 m where the feet were 0.159 m apart; task-space terms produced the first flat, wide stance (`joint-space-proxy-for-task-space-quantity`). Flight detection lied in both directions across two lines - foot height flagged 40% false flight on a walking gait, contact force alone flagged slip chatter as hops (`contact-detector-single-signal-lies`). A pooled height average described a robot that did not exist - six in ten standing, four in ten sitting (`zero-partial-credit-is-not-an-iteration-problem`) - and the walking line had learned the same lesson on yaw rate (`heading-integral-not-body-rate`).
Coach application. For every reward term and gate row, ask what physical quantity it stands for and whether it is measured directly; flag joint-space or single-signal stand-ins for task-space goals, ask for a detector validated on a negative control, and split pooled metrics by category before reading them.
joint-space-proxy-for-task-space-quantity contact-detector-single-signal-lies zero-partial-credit-is-not-an-iteration-problem heading-integral-not-body-rate
doctrine-22Continuation needs a live gradient; a release is chosen by a scan
Continue a converged policy only on a change that creates a live gradient, on a short budget, with every checkpoint scanned on the transfer axis; choose a release by running the full battery over a band of checkpoints and stop on signals, never by taking the last one; and when edits to the terminal phase cannot move a behaviour, roll back and retrain with the constraint present from the start, keeping the order in which the lineage acquired its mechanisms as explicit curriculum phases.
Case. A continuation with no new gradient drifted MuJoCo transfer from 100/98% to 80/28% while every Isaac gate stayed perfect, and a live-gradient continuation at the same depth kept it (`converged-continuation-is-poison`). One-leg checkpoints 100 iterations apart failed 1 and 38 of 40 cells, and late ones degraded (`checkpoint-choice-is-a-full-gate-scan`). Four in-lineage stance fixes failed because the stance was the end of the get-up path, and from scratch it grew right (`stance-decided-by-get-up-path`); fixes stacked on degraded states were rolled back by the user (`stop-stacking-roll-back-and-audit`); and the lineage's final recipe, trained from scratch in one run, sat at 0% because the order of its curriculum was part of the product (`curriculum-history-is-part-of-the-product`). The omni line's short adaptation budgets and mature roots are the same law seen from the other side (`continuation-budget-not-from-zero`, `root-maturity-vs-product-quality`).
Coach application. Before approving a continuation, ask for the new gradient, the budget and the transfer axis in the scan; before approving a release, ask for the scan; after three rungs without progress on the target, propose rolling back to the last good checkpoint and a from-scratch phase plan instead of a fourth patch.
converged-continuation-is-poison checkpoint-choice-is-a-full-gate-scan stance-decided-by-get-up-path stop-stacking-roll-back-and-audit curriculum-history-is-part-of-the-product continuation-budget-not-from-zero root-maturity-vs-product-quality

Experience cards

reward-shaping 18 process 13 real-acceptance 13 attribution 12 actuator-modeling 9 contract-freeze 9 gate-battery 8 hardware 6 measurement 6 plant-calibration 6 sim2sim 3 domain-randomization 2 observation-honesty 2 action-rate 1

171 cards matching “curriculum-history-is-part-of-the-product”.

An exponential kernel on instantaneous velocity punishes gait oscillation - track the cycle averagecycle-average-tracking-for-gait-quantities
Mechanism understoodomnireward-shapingreward-shapingattribution
Reward velocity tracking on gait-cycle averages (or filtered values), not instantaneous samples, whenever the desired behavior oscillates at stride frequency; widening the kernel does not fix a variance penalty.
Symptom
Even while the robot genuinely sidewalked (verified after the metric fix), the Isaac-side tracking reward sat on the ignore-floor: true sidewalk scored 0.178 vs 0.189 for ignoring the command - the reward was mildly punishing the desired behavior.
Context
Sidewalking is inherently oscillatory: per-frame vy std was 0.177 while the tracking kernel width was sigma = 0.15, applied to the instantaneous value. A kernel-width scan showed widening sigma 0.15 -> 0.50 still loses (-0.14 -> -0.07): "指数核惩罚的是方差，而侧步天生带方差" (the exponential kernel penalizes variance, and side-stepping inherently carries variance). Modeling with measured parameters: replacing instantaneous vy with the mean over one gait cycle (0.5 s) flips the margin decisively (true sidewalk 1.888 vs ignore 1.281, +0.607), half-cycle is neutral (+0.006), two cycles adds nothing more. Explicitly flagged as extrapolation pending Isaac-side implementation. This also vindicated a previously dismissed external note (sigma too small) - right conclusion, different mechanism than claimed (variance, not gradient).
Change
Proposed fix recorded: change the tracked quantity from instantaneous vy to a one-gait-cycle running average; widening sigma alone rejected by the scan.
Outcome
Diagnosis complete and quantified; the C4 product shipped via feed-forward before the reward change was implemented, so the cycle-average fix remained a verified-by-model, not-yet-trained change.
Mechanism
E[exp(-(v-c)^2/sigma^2)] decreases with Var(v) even when E[v] = c exactly; a gait's phase-locked oscillation guarantees variance at the stride frequency, so instantaneous tracking rewards structurally prefer standing still at the command mean. Averaging over exactly one cycle removes stride-frequency variance while preserving command-following error.
Conflicts
The cycle-average fix itself is model-extrapolated ("⚠️ 这一条是外推，须在 Isaac 侧实装并复量后才能当结论") - the diagnosis is measured, the remedy untested in training at the time of writing.
Applies when
tracking rewards for lateral/turn/any oscillation-carrying velocity
a verified behavior scores below the ignore-floor
choosing sigma for exp-kernel tracking terms
“侧走时 vy 的逐帧摆幅 std = 0.177，而 track_lin_vel_y_exp 核宽 σ = 0.15，且作用在瞬时值上 … 真侧走（均值 66%，振荡 ±0.18）0.178 | 完全无视指令 0.189 … 真侧走的得分比无视指令还低。… σ 从 0.15 放到 0.50，侧走仍然吃亏 … 把跟踪目标从瞬时 vy 换成一个步态周期（0.5 s）的平均 vy：… 1.888 vs 1.281”
train/C_LADDER_RUN.md § 3n. 二/三 Isaac 训练奖励为何一直坐在「无视底分」/ 修法不是放宽 σ
Every acceptance run records video of the very rollout that produced the numbers - the seated basin, edge-standing feet, tangled legs and the narrow stance were all seen on video before, or instead of, a metric catching themvideo-as-acceptance-record
Replicatedrecoverysim-evalgate-batteryreal-acceptancemeasurement
Make video a default output of every acceptance run, rendered from the same rollout the metrics come from (fixed views including the feet), and watch it - posture failures are visible before any gate row exists for them; never let video replace or override the numeric gate.
Symptom
Posture failures in the recovery line kept arriving as things the numbers had no row for: a kneeling W-sit, feet standing on their outer edges, crossed legs, a stance too narrow to hold on hardware.
Context
From 2026-08-09 (user decision) accept_recovery renders offscreen by default, following one env for the whole episode and archiving the clip. The MuJoCo gate's --video renders three views (side, front, feet) of the same rollout the metrics come from, with all plant modelling (delay, push); the older replay-based renderer produced an independent trajectory without delay and was not used for acceptance. Video never gates: if rendering breaks, --no-video keeps the numeric gate running.
Change
Video as a default acceptance artifact, named per policy, category and view, reviewed by the user.
Outcome
The R0.1 prone clip showed the same kneel-sit as R0; the R3.1 failure clip showed the crossed legs; the v2_5 feet view showed edge standing and led to V2.6; the v2_6 videos led the user to order a real-robot A/B between v2_5b and v2_6. Once, the recorder did not start (P1c final acceptance) and the visual material had to be produced separately.
Mechanism
Metrics exist only for failure modes someone anticipated; video shows the unanticipated ones, and rendering the metric rollout itself guarantees the picture and the numbers describe the same episode.
Applies when
setting up an acceptance pipeline for posture-sensitive skills
numbers pass but a human reviewer is uneasy
sim videos are rendered by a separate replay tool
“**验收存视频(用户定 2026-08-09)**:`accept_recovery.py` 默认开 Isaac 离屏渲染,跟拍一个 env 的整局并归档 … 跪坐这类盆地在数字表出现前肉眼先看见,视频是验收的定性存档,数字门不受它影响”
git:Lucen-recovery@origin/recovery:train/RECOVERY_V0_SPEC.md § §5 R0 验收门(预注册)验收存视频(用户定 2026-08-09)
A stronger action_rate penalty cut the median torque demand under the gate and left the p99 at 4x the limit - only a hinge on the pre-clip (computed) torque, weighted by comparison with a peer term, collapsed the tailtail-torque-needs-hinge-on-computed-demand
Mechanism understoodrecoveryreward-shapingactuator-modelingreward-shapingmeasurement
Judge actuator demand against the deployed limit, read the pre-clip demand (applied torque is censored and gives no gradient on the excess), use an L2 rate penalty for the median and a thresholded hinge on computed demand for the tail, and set a new term's weight from its measured steady magnitude next to a peer term rather than from a back-of-envelope estimate.
Symptom
After R0.5 hip_pitch delivered torque sat at its 12 N*m limit in a typical get-up (demand 119-125% of the limit, p99 4.2x) - zero control margin at exactly the moment modelling error matters.
Context
The 12/17/11 N*m limits are deployment limits written into robot.yaml by set_torque (RS06 at 33% of rated), and simulation uses the same effort_limit - so the gate is judged against them, not the 36 N*m rating (an early reading against the rating was retracted). Applied torque is clipped at the limit - censored data - so demand must be read from computed_torque. With the full-range action contract (hip_pitch scale 1.309, kp 30) a single-step action change of 0.306 already saturates hip_pitch, and action_rate penalizes exactly that change.
Change
R3.0: action_rate_l2 -0.01 -> -0.03 (child-run). R3.1: new torque_headroom = sum relu(|tau_computed|/limit - 0.9)^2, normalized so three motor types share a scale. Its weight was first estimated at -0.1, measured in a 12-iteration run at an effective -0.019 (12x smaller - the estimate had mixed a per-episode-peak p99 with a per-step p99, and at 1% of upright it would have been numerically absent), and set to -0.5 so its steady value (-0.095) matched action_rate's (-0.097).
Outcome
R3.0: sum |da|^2 -64%, success 99.6 -> 100%, delivered median = demand median (the clamp no longer fired in a typical episode), gate PASS at worst 79.9% - but p99 unchanged (hip_pitch 419-432% -> 427-436%). R3.1: p99 hip_pitch -> 148-189% (-57 to -65%), knee 422-439% -> 233-234%, saturation duty -60%, success 100%; the worst joint became hip_roll at 67.7%. Its cost appears in torque-penalty-bought-by-leg-bracing.
Mechanism
A squared-rate penalty presses the whole-episode sum and moves the typical step, not rare spikes; the spikes came from the kp term (large targets while a limb is blocked by the ground - velocity alone could not reach them under vel_limit), and a penalty on applied torque cannot see demand above the clip because every excess sample reads as exactly the limit.
Applies when
torque demand saturates actuator limits in high-effort skills
a smoothness penalty improves medians but not peaks
a new reward term's weight is set by estimate alone
“**必须用 `computed_torque` 而不是 `applied_torque`**:后者被 `effort_limit` 削平, 是删失数据,超限样本全被压成"恰好等于限",对超限部分梯度恒为 0。 … 改按同侪定标取 **−0.5**(稳态 ≈ −0.095,与 `action_rate_l2` 的 −0.097 等量)。”
git:Lucen-recovery@origin/recovery:train/RECOVERY_V0_SPEC.md § §24 R3.1(torque_headroom 力矩需求越限罚)
Removing a foot-spacing wall passed every simulated gate and made the feet collide on the real robot - nothing priced stance width in the two-foot phase, the policy narrowed to the simulator's self-collision floor, and real calibration offsets closed the last millimetres; the wall came back with a gateremoved-wall-returns-on-hardware
Observed onceonelegreal-deployreward-shapinggate-batteryreal-acceptance
When a constraint is removed, name what will govern that quantity instead and add a gate for it; never let a simulator's collision floor be the margin, and when a gate is exceeded by a hair, record the exact numbers and hand the release decision to a person instead of quietly passing it.
Symptom
On the first real-robot try of oneleg_v0 (2026-09-16) the two feet collided; the user also judged the folded foot not high enough.
Context
The V0 reward table had dropped the feet_lateral_distance wall because it seemed to conflict with the hip adduction single support needs. In the two-foot command bucket no remaining term governed stance width, so the policy drifted narrower until the simulator's self-collision stopped it; the sim acceptance had no foot-spacing gate, so 40/40 said nothing about it. On the robot, calibration offsets consumed the margin.
Change
V0.1: the wall restored (-10, minimum 0.16 m), re-checked against measured numbers (a swing-phase lateral spacing of ~148 mm costs 0.12 per step, acceptable); fold weight 0.8 -> 2.0; a ninth gate: minimum foot spacing >= 100 mm and zero leg-contact frames. The removal was kept on record.
Outcome
oneleg_v0_1 (V0r2 model_2200) passed 39/40 with the spacing gate 40/40. The single miss (a 15.4 deg tilt transient against a < 15 deg limit during a side switch, steady 6.9 deg, everything else green) was recorded with its numbers and released for the user to overrule.
Mechanism
An unpriced degree of freedom drifts to wherever the simulator stops it; if that stop is the simulator's own collision model, the policy's margin on hardware is whatever the calibration error leaves.
Applies when
dropping a reward term that looked redundant or conflicting
hardware shows a failure no simulated gate measures
a release candidate misses one gate row by a small amount
“V0 撤墙被真机证伪（2026-09-16）：双脚桶没有任何项管站宽，策略贴 sim 自碰撞底线收窄，真机标定偏差一吃**双脚相碰**。 … min ≥ 100 mm 且腿碰 0 帧（eval_straight 同判据）—— … V0 真机双脚相碰暴露 sim 门未看脚距的缺口 … L s2 标称 tilt 瞬态 15.4°（门限 <15, 超 0.4°, 稳态 6.9°, 该跑其余全绿）——换侧瞬态蹭线, 判定放行留档, 用户可否决。”
git:Lucen V2@origin/oneleg-line:train/ONELEG_V0_SPEC.md § §4 feet_lateral_distance 行 / §6 验收门 ⑨ / §8 核查单 7
Ungated phase shaping made standing 42x more expensive than stepping - and the stepping was cooking the hip motorsmoving-gate-42x-stand-tax
Mechanism understoodomnireward-shapingreward-shapinghardwarereal-acceptanceprocess
Gate every phase/clock-driven shaping term on the command that justifies motion, price the cmd=0 case explicitly during design - and when a reward flaw is sim-only, book it with trigger conditions instead of operating immediately on a working lineage.
Symptom
At cmd = 0 the sim policy never stood still - it stepped in place and crept 0.98 m per 20 s; on the real robot the same lineage's stepping made hip_roll motors run 20 degC hotter than every other joint (43-48 degC vs 25-28).
Context
The arithmetic closed it: the three phase-shaping terms (joint_pos_ref 1.6, feet_contact_number 1.2, feet_clearance_swing 1.6) are driven by the gait clock with NO command gating, so standing at cmd=0 forfeits 3.32/step of shaping while honest standing earns only 0.078 of tracking - stepping wins 42x. The heat chain: perpetual stepping = perpetual single support = one hip_roll stalled at ~4.3 N*m (25% of torque limit) carrying the torso's frontal-plane moment - two hip_rolls = 90% of whole-machine steady-state I2R; measured stand-vs-step comparison: total heat -71% when actually standing. The suspended test acquitted the actuator (0.21 rad sag -> 0.0008 rad in air) and mechanics vetoed the easy fix ("降 kp 救不了热" - equilibrium torque equals the external load regardless of kp). The fix (moving_gate: hard-gate the three shaping terms on |cmd| > eps) was designed - then DEFERRED by the user because the real robot at the time stood fine: "真机不表现该问题, 为真机不存在的病改奖励表不划算", with written trigger conditions (C-ladder stand row persistently failing, or real robot starting to step/drift at cmd=0) and the known hazard tag (this is exactly the reward-change class that triggers the B-arm signature). When the real robot later DID step and cook, the booked trigger fired and moving_gate moved from debt to to-do with its benefit re-priced: "停止空烧 hip_roll,稳态发热降 ~71%".
Change
moving_gate designed with the gate_by_cmd convention; deferral, triggers, and expected heat recovery all pre-registered instead of patching the reward for a then-sim-only symptom.
Outcome
The cmd=0 stepping went from mystery to closed arithmetic; the thermal measurement (hip_roll +20 degC) quantitatively confirmed the 90%-of-heat prediction; the reward change waited for real-world justification instead of spending a risky revision early.
Mechanism
Clock-driven shaping terms define a perpetual-motion bounty unless gated by command; the resulting idle gait is not a training bug but the table's optimum. Its cost surfaces on hardware as stall-torque heating set by statics (mass x lateral offset), which no gain change can remove - only removing the motion (gating) or widening the stance can.
Applies when
the policy steps in place or creeps at zero command
specific joints run hot in idle behaviors
deciding when a known reward flaw justifies a risky mid-lineage fix
“塑形合计 −3.32/步 … 净: 站定亏 42 倍 … 两颗 hip_roll 4.29 / 4.09 N·m(各占限扭 25%),占全机稳态 I²R 的 90% … 吊挂实测 hip_roll 跟踪误差 0.21 rad → 0.0008 rad … 降 kp 救不了热 … 真机不表现该问题, 为真机不存在的病改奖励表不划算”
train/README.md § C1 FAIL 节 (cmd=0 的 sim/真机分歧记账) / C2 真机 A/B 三b 发热定性
Real robot walked at half the sim clock for two generations - resolved by racing a reward-side and a plant-side evidence line, not by guessingperiod-doubling-evidence-race
Observed oncewalkattributionattributionactuator-modelingplant-calibrationprocess
For a hardware-only pathology, refuse to guess: pre-register one probe per side of the sim2real boundary (can the reward mechanism change it on hardware? can fitted plant parameters reproduce it in sim?) and let the first positive result direct the next version.
Symptom
The number-one sim2real gap: on hardware v6/v7 stepped at 1.23-1.32 Hz - almost exactly half the 2.50 Hz gait clock they were trained and simulated at; sim never reproduced it, two generations running.
Context
Instead of committing training budget to a guess, v8 pre-registered two mutually controlled evidence lines and kept the clock OUT of the training variables: (a) reward-side - if the v8 saturation fix revives joint_pos_ref (the term that pins the gait to the clock), re-run hardware and see whether frequency returns to 2.5 Hz (hypothesis: v7's frozen actions meant NO reward was pinning the gait to the clock, and the real plant - with armature and friction making high frequencies expensive - slid down to the leg's pendulum natural frequency ~1.1 Hz); (b) plant-side - record suspended joint data (fit_actuator), fit armature/friction, load the fitted values into sim2sim and see whether the 1.25 Hz reproduces IN SIM. Decision rule fixed in advance: "谁先给出阳性结果谁定 v9 的方向 (奖励侧 vs plant 侧)" - whichever line goes positive first sets the next version's direction.
Change
Period-doubling excluded from the v8 change set; both diagnostic lines scheduled in parallel as non-blocking work; frequency reported factually in acceptance with no pass/fail attached ("倍周期是否消失不设判定,它是 §9 的关键证据").
Outcome
The gap was routed into a decisive-experiment structure rather than a speculative retrain; the plant-side line pointed at exactly the unmodeled armature/friction that were later measured and installed as the plant baseline. Resolution (era-2c full-plant retest): the family had TWO causes - v8's low-speed period-doubling vanished once measured armature+friction were installed (1.30 -> 2.50 Hz, bifurcation-edge machine sensitivity), while v7's stood untouched at 1.20 Hz (saturation-freeze-driven policy property) - both evidence lines paid off, one per case.
Mechanism
A behavior appearing only on hardware has candidate causes on both sides of the sim2real boundary; changing training to fix it tests only one side per expensive cycle. Two cheap parallel probes - one intervening on the reward mechanism, one making sim reproduce the real behavior - localize the cause to a side before any training money is spent, and sim-reproduction of a real pathology is itself the strongest form of plant validation.
Applies when
a gait pathology appears on hardware but never in any simulator
deciding whether a sim2real gap is reward-side or plant-side
tempted to change the gait clock/reward to chase a hardware symptom
“倍周期(真机 1.23~1.32 Hz ≈ 时钟一半,v6/v7 连续两代;sim 从不出现):两条证据线互为对照——(a)… 真机重跑看频率是否回 2.5 Hz(假说:v7 没有任何奖励把步态钉在时钟上,真机 plant 有 armature/摩擦、高频贵,自由滑落到复摆自然频率 ~1.1 Hz);(b)真机吊挂录 fit_actuator.py … 看能否在仿真里复现 1.25 Hz。谁先给出阳性结果谁定 v9 的方向。”
train/WALK_V8_SPEC.md § 9. 平行线 (倍周期)
A 10 s acceptance episode left 6-7 s of standing to observe - a narrow stance held for that window and split on hardware; a gate cannot see instability slower than its own horizonepisode-length-bounds-what-a-gate-sees
Observed oncerecoverysim-evalgate-batteryreal-acceptance
Size the standing phase of an acceptance episode, and its disturbances and floor friction, to what deployment will impose; a pass on a short static window certifies only that window.
Symptom
v2_6 passed every simulation gate (success 99.6%, re-falls 0-1%) and then, on the real robot, stood up and slid into the splits several times; prone starts stood and then fell backwards.
Context
Acceptance ran 10 s episodes; a ~1-2 s get-up left roughly 6-7 s of static standing on a nominal floor with no disturbance. The narrow stance's lateral margin and the straight-knee stance's lack of any flex buffer are both failure modes that need time, disturbance or lower friction to show.
Change
The gap was booked as a known blind spot of the gate ("long-duration standing stability") alongside the task-space stance criterion; later rungs added MuJoCo friction sweeps at mu 0.4 to every checkpoint scan.
Outcome
The spec through §50 records the blind spot but no longer standing window or disturbance row in the recovery acceptance itself.
Mechanism
An acceptance episode observes only the dynamics that unfold within its horizon under its conditions; slow drifts and disturbance-triggered failures are outside it by construction.
Applies when
a policy passes sim gates and fails on hardware after a delay
acceptance episodes are short relative to deployment use
stability is judged without pushes or friction variation
“**sim 门为什么没逮住**:10 s episode 起身后只站 ~6-7 s,静态窗口内窄站距撑得住;真机站立时长/扰动谱在门口径之外 —— 长时站立稳定性记为口径缺口。”
git:Lucen-recovery@origin/recovery:train/RECOVERY_V0_SPEC.md § §43 判读:sim 门为什么没逮住
Audit rewards by realized contribution (weight x achieved value) - a weight of 2.0 was really paying 0.04realized-contribution-audit
Mechanism understoodwalkreward-shapingreward-shapingattribution
Evaluate a reward table by each term's realized per-step contribution under the current policy, never by its weight column; if a term's realized value is ~0, escalating its weight is a no-op - change the term's structure instead.
Symptom
Foot dragging persisted through repeated weight escalation: feet_air_time had been raised 0.25 -> 1.0 -> 2.0 across versions with no behavioral change, and the training-side comment even recorded the fact ("几乎没有单支撑相, 是拖着脚蹭") without the fix changing form.
Context
Computing realized per-term contributions in the trained state exposed the economy: feet_air_time contributed weight 2.0 x achieved 0.019 = 0.038 per step, against tracking's +1.20 - lifting the leg earned 3% of what tracking earned, so dragging was the rational optimum no matter the weight escalation. The same table acquitted the energy penalties (total -0.30 negative vs +1.74 positive) that a naive read of weights (-5.0 orientation!) would have blamed.
Change
Fix redirected from "raise the weight again" to "add a term whose realized contribution changes the optimum": a clearance penalty sized so its realized magnitude (~0.018/foot when dragging) is comparable to feet_air_time's, enough to flip the optimum without drowning tracking.
Outcome
With the term economy corrected (plus posture/range fixes), swing height reached 34 mm and tracking 87% by v6; weight escalation of the old term was abandoned.
Mechanism
A reward weight is only a multiplier on whatever the policy currently achieves on that term; when the achieved value is near zero (behavior absent), escalating the weight multiplies near-zero. Optimizer behavior is governed by realized per-step magnitudes, so audits must be conducted in that currency.
Applies when
a behavior persists despite repeated weight increases
auditing whether penalties are "too strong" or rewards "too weak"
sizing a new reward term against existing ones
“把 feet_air_time 权重从 0.25 → 1.0 → 2.0 一路加,但没有加高度项。量级算下来:feet_air_time 权重 2.0 × 实得 0.019 = 0.038,而跟踪奖励是 1.2。抬腿的边际收益只有跟踪的 3%,拖地当然是最优解。… 正项 +1.74,负项 −0.30。能量惩罚不是瓶颈,抬腿没收益才是。”
train/WALK_DIAGNOSIS.md § 决定性证据(#1) / 各项奖励的实际量级
Three times a joint-angle stand-in for a foot-level quantity was gamed or lied - the absolute ankle roll sold stance width to buy flat feet, a hip-roll criterion was confounded by 50 deg of yaw, and the joint table said 0.271 m where the feet were 0.159 m apartjoint-space-proxy-for-task-space-quantity
Replicatedrecoveryreward-shapingreward-shapingmeasurementreal-acceptance
Express foot-level (task-space) goals and acceptance criteria in task space - link attitude and lateral spacing from world poses - never through joint angles that assume other joints are at zero, and measure the task-space value before trusting a joint-space estimate of it.
Symptom
The line's first real-robot get-up (v2_6, 2026-08-11) was "fairly stable", but after standing the feet were too close and the robot slid into the splits and fell several times; later reports added that it also got up through a split posture.
Context
(1) flat_feet penalized sum |q_ankle_roll|, but a flat foot is ankle roll compensating hip roll; the proxy taxed the compensated wide solution, and the untaxed combination was hips straight plus ankles at zero - flat and narrow. On hardware the lateral support shrank to hip width plus centimetres, lateral balance rested on 11 N*m ankle motors, and the feet slid apart. (2) The next rung's acceptance criterion "hip roll >= 20 deg" assumed zero hip yaw; at 50 deg of yaw the lateral contribution is x cos 50 ~ 0.64 - the same substitution again, inside a criterion. (3) A new task-space diagnostic reading the foot links' world poses measured v2_6c's stance at 0.159 m where the kinematic audit from joint angles had said 0.271 m (0.271 x cos 47 ~ 0.17).
Change
Rule written into the spec: task-space quantities are never expressed through joint-space proxies. V3.1's stance terms were all task-space: flat_feet_task from the foot links' world orientation, lateral foot spacing in metres, stand_pose stripped of both roll joints.
Outcome
From scratch with task-space terms (V3.1 P1c): lateral stance 0.355 m, foot residual tilt median 0 deg / P75 2.0 deg, all six criteria passing, mu 1.0-0.4 all 100%.
Mechanism
A joint proxy bundles the goal with everything else those joints do; the optimizer finds the combination the proxy does not tax, and a joint-based criterion silently assumes the other joints sit at their nominal.
Applies when
rewarding flat feet, stance width, foot placement or end-effector pose
an acceptance criterion is written in joint angles for a geometric goal
joints with large yaw or coupled axes are involved
“**病根 = 关节空间代理**:`flat_feet` 罚 Σ|q_ankle_roll|(§41 取的简易口径)。 "脚掌平"的运动学正解是 **踝滚补偿髋滚**(q_ankle_roll ≈ −q_hip_roll) … 代理把"脚平"和"站距"绑死在一起卖了。”
git:Lucen-recovery@origin/recovery:train/RECOVERY_V0_SPEC.md § §43 真机首试入账(2026-08-11)判读:flat_feet 的代理口径错误
Prove an armless get-up exists before training it - a connected static domain, 25% torque on the cheapest path, an 8 mm hand-over gap, a static roll-over - and write down what each scan cannot representget-up-feasibility-accounts-before-training
Mechanism understoodrecoveryplant-calibrationplant-calibrationhardwareprocess
Before training a get-up or any multi-contact skill, compute the quasi-static accounts - connectivity of the static domain, torque along the cheapest path, hand-over gaps, COM shift available for rolling - and state which configurations each scan cannot represent; when a policy gets stuck in one of those, extend the scan before blaming the reward.
Symptom
A torso-and-legs robot has no arms to push off the ground; whether it can get up from the floor at all was unknown when the line opened.
Context
recovery_feasibility.py ran three accounts before any training (the run line's "hard accounts first" discipline): a sagittal quasi-static scan (0.05 rad grid, 44,520 configurations, MuJoCo FK, flat-foot assumption). (1) The static standing domain (COM over the feet, torques in limit) has 29,586 cells, flood-fill connected with no islands, from a 0.097 m deepest squat to the 0.384 m stand. (2) The minimum-torque path peaks at 25% of the limits (knee 2.9/12, ankle 3.7/17 N*m) - a 4x margin. (3) All 508 ground-contact configurations have the contact behind the COM; the smallest gap to pure foot support is 8 mm. A roll-over account: swinging both straight legs to one side shifts the COM 96 mm against a 62 mm torso half-width - 1.6x, so rolling needs no momentum. Three conclusions were written down for later attribution: the legs are 80% of the mass (swinging them moves the COM), prone has no flat-foot hand-over face (merge into a supine/side sit first), and supine needs no sit-up (hip flexion is limited to 75 deg).
Change
The accounts gated opening the line and were cited in every later argument about what the robot can physically do.
Outcome
They held where they applied: in V1.0 every fall category was righted under a hard rate limit, which the spec records as the quasi-static roll-over account verified by training, and the 25% torque path was the basis for pursuing a slow get-up. They also misled once: account (3) is sagittal, and on 08-09 the spec corrected its scope - it cannot represent the splayed W-sit where the policy actually stalled. A follow-up prone hip-ROM scan (471,625 cells) found 3,912 two-foot-contact cells and none with both soles within 25 deg of level (best 40.2 deg): a flat-footed push-up from prone is infeasible on this robot, so the fix became where the feet go after sitting up.
Mechanism
A get-up needs a connected path through statically feasible configurations and enough torque along it; quasi-static accounts bound both cheaply, and momentum can only make the real problem easier. A reduced-dimensional scan, though, only speaks for the configurations it can express.
Conflicts
In R0.1-R0.2 the spec read account (3)'s "prone has no front hand-over" as "prone lacks the roll-over skill"; R0.3's confusion matrix showed prone had righted its torso 159/159, and the spec then restricted account (3) to the sagittal configurations it models.
Applies when
opening a get-up, recovery or climbing skill on a new robot
a robot lacks arms or other obvious contact options
a policy stalls in a configuration a feasibility scan never modelled
“本机 **torso + legs、无手臂可撑地**,开训前先证明存在不依赖手臂的物理解 … 双腿同侧直腿摆最大横移 **96 mm = 1.6×** … **静态摆腿即可翻身,无需动量**”
git:Lucen-recovery@origin/recovery:train/RECOVERY_V0_SPEC.md § §1 机械可行性判决(2026-08-09,recovery_feasibility.py 三笔账)
A field experiment is allowed when it is pre-scripted, single-variable, and self-reversing (RAM-only writes)reversible-single-variable-field-experiments
Observed oncewalkreal-deployhardwarereal-acceptanceprocessattribution
Permit hardware-side experiments only when scripted in advance with one variable, a log, and automatic reversion (volatile writes, git restore); keep every config mirror (yaml vs firmware) changed and restored as a unit.
Symptom
A hypothesis needed a hardware test - v5's "wild kicking" might trace to the RS00 torque cap being deployed at 11 N*m vs its trained 14 (-21%), on exactly the ankle-roll/hip-yaw joints doing lateral-yaw work - but changing limits in the field is the classic way to lose track of robot state.
Context
The experiment was written to be safe by construction: change exactly one number (robot.yaml RS00 tau_limit 11.0 -> 14.0), write to firmware RAM only (--write without --save, so a power cycle automatically rolls back to the saved 12/17/11), run the single logged trial, then restore both yaml (git checkout) and RAM immediately. The consistency requirement is explicit: the deploy tool's torque self-check compares against robot.yaml, so yaml and firmware must change and restore together; and the hypothesis scoping is itself single-variable - RS06's 67% cut was measured irrelevant (gait uses only 16% of rated) and hip torque was left alone for safety.
Change
Field experimentation policy refined: not "never touch hardware settings" but "only pre-scripted, one-variable, logged, auto-reverting changes with config/firmware kept consistent".
Outcome
The sub-experiment could answer the torque-cap hypothesis without any risk of the robot persisting in an undocumented state - forgetting to restore costs nothing but a git checkout.
Mechanism
The danger of field changes is state divergence (robot config drifting from the repo's record), not the change itself; volatile (RAM-only) writes bound the divergence lifetime to one power cycle, and single-variable scoping preserves attributability even in a field setting.
Applies when
a hypothesis requires changing firmware limits or gains on the robot
field debugging tempts persistent config writes
designing safe escape hatches for deployment tooling
“程序(--write 不带 --save = 只写 RAM,断电自动回滚)… deploy 的限扭自检是对 robot.yaml 比对的,所以 yaml 和固件必须同改同还原;忘了还原也没事,断电重启即回 12/17/11(上次 --save 的值),但 yaml 要 git checkout。”
train/REAL_SWEEP_V5_V8.md § 4. 限扭子实验(可选二期,只对 v5,单变量)
With no term on foot attitude the robot stood on the edges of its feet (ankle roll -26 deg) from R0.5 to V2.5b; pricing it fixed that and turned stance width into the next free variable - the user saw both on video before any metric flagged themunpriced-foot-attitude-is-a-free-variable
Replicatedrecoveryreward-shapingreward-shapingreal-acceptance
List every posture quantity the hardware cares about (foot attitude, stance width, yaw, knee flexion) and make sure each is priced by a term with real gradient at the observed error; pricing one exposes the next, so re-inspect the feet-level video after every change.
Symptom
Watching the v2_5 video the user said the ankle roll after standing looked very strange - the feet were not flat. The feet view showed the right foot standing on its outer edge; median ankle roll at t = 8 s was -/+26 deg (limit +/-35), mirrored. This was the physical form of the ankle_roll saturation criterion that had failed since R0.5.
Context
No term priced foot attitude: feet_contact_upright counts an edge contact as contact, and stand_pose's wide exp kernel (sigma^2 = 9) gives almost no gradient at 0.45 rad. HoST carries an "ankle parallel" term (+20); this table never had one. Edge standing was made a blocking precondition for hardware (continuous ankle load, unstable contact, wear).
Change
V2.6 (single variable): flat_feet = (|q_l_ankle_roll| + |q_r_ankle_roll|) x upright gate x height gate, a linear hinge with a 5 deg margin, weight -2, continued from V2.5b.
Outcome
Ankle roll -/+26 -> 5.3/5.2 deg, ankle_roll saturation 6.6% (< 10%), feet flat on the feet-view video; success 99.6%, re-falls 0-1%. Then the user watched v2_6: hip yaw constantly tense and the legs very close together. The numbers: hip roll -/+4.9/4.8 deg against a nominal 25 - feet flat and hips open 25 deg cannot coexist without ankle compensation, the new term taxed that compensation, and nothing priced stance width. "Foot attitude as a free variable" was fixed and "stance width became the new free variable" - which the real robot then exposed as splits.
Mechanism
An optimizer spends every posture degree of freedom no term prices; closing one reallocates the slack to the next unpriced one.
Applies when
a standing or landing posture looks wrong on video while gates pass
a saturation criterion keeps failing on one joint
a new posture term was just added
“用户看 v2_5 视频:"起身之后 ankle_roll 非常奇怪,脚根本不是平着站立"。 … 机理:奖励表**无任何脚掌姿态项** —— feet_contact_upright 边缘接触也算触地, stand_pose 的 exp 核(σ²=9)对 26°=0.45 rad 梯度≈0。脚掌姿态是自由变量。”
git:Lucen-recovery@origin/recovery:train/RECOVERY_V0_SPEC.md § §41 预注册 V2.6:flat_feet —— ⑥ 老账的物理形态被用户目视锁定
Before adding a command mode, compute what ignoring it costs - the lazy optimum must losereward-cost-of-ignoring-audit
Mechanism understoodomnireward-shapingreward-shaping
Price the do-nothing policy for every new command or objective: compute reward-per-step for "comply" vs "ignore" from the actual table, and only train once ignoring is decisively unprofitable.
Symptom
A new command mode can be silently unlearnable if the reward table makes "ignore the command entirely" nearly free compared to the tracking reward available elsewhere.
Context
For each C rung the team computed the per-step cost of completely ignoring the new command versus ignoring forward: ignoring vx=0.25 costs 1.264/step; ignoring wz=0.20 costs 0.984/step (78% of forward - gradient sufficient, so C2 was certified "zero reward surgery"); but ignoring vy=0.10 cost only 0.020/step - 50-60x weaker, because vy entered the table only as an L2 tax, not a tracking term.
Change
Rule instituted: a rung may claim "no reward change needed" only after this arithmetic shows the ignore-cost is the same order as forward's. For C4 the audit failed, so track_lin_vel_y_exp (+2.0, std 0.15, same form as vx) was added - raising the ignore-cost at cmd_vy=0.10 from 0.020 to 0.718/step (36x).
Outcome
C1/C2/C3 proceeded with zero reward edits, keeping single-variable attribution clean; C4's needed surgery was identified before training instead of after a failed run.
Mechanism
PPO converges to whatever costs least; if the reward margin for obeying a new command is a rounding error against existing terms, the "ignore" policy is the optimum and no amount of training fixes it. The audit prices the lazy optimum explicitly before spending compute.
Applies when
adding a command axis or task mode to an existing reward table
a new skill trains flat while other skills stay healthy
certifying a rung as "no reward change"
“cmd wz 0.20 → 0.984（coarse .473 + fine .491 + L2 .020）… 对照：忽略 vx=0.25 = 1.264（本级 78%，同量级）；忽略 vy=0.10 = 0.020（弱 50 倍——那才是 C4 必须加 track_lin_vel_y_exp 的原因）。本级不动奖励表。”
train/C_LADDER_RUN.md § 4. 原地转级（C2）② 奖励梯度已验够
Calibrate a wall penalty by measuring healthy and sick policies - healthy pays ~0, the disease pays a wallcalibrate-threshold-between-healthy-and-sick
Mechanism understoodwalkreward-shapingreward-shapinggate-battery
Calibrate every threshold penalty by evaluating its exact formula on replays of at least one healthy and one sick policy: place the threshold between their distributions, size the weight so the sick policy pays a decisive fraction of tracking while the healthy one pays ~0, and pre-compute neighboring thresholds for cheap adjustment.
Symptom
Real walk_v7 occasionally clipped its own legs (stance narrowed to 133 mm mean vs nominal 214.5); a foot-distance penalty was needed, but an uncalibrated threshold/weight risked either doing nothing or becoming a reverse barrier.
Context
The term (relu(d_min - lateral foot distance), measured in the base yaw frame because world-frame y is meaningless after turning) was calibrated before training by replaying three known policies through the exact reward formula at the acceptance operating point: healthy v5 (183 mm) pays 0.6% of tracking - effectively free; narrowed v7 (133 mm) pays 22% - effective widening pressure; collapsed v8 (93 mm) pays 55% - a wall. d_min 0.16 was placed deliberately between healthy and sick, with alternative thresholds (0.14/0.18) pre-computed in the tool output for later adjustment. The shape self-check was named as a standing question: "先问'零代价的选项是什么'" - the zero-cost region must be exactly the desired behavior.
Change
feet_lateral_distance added at d_min 0.16 / weight -10, with telemetry expectation pre-registered (should decay toward 0 as stance learns >160 mm; if bow-legged over-widening >214 appears, only then discuss an upper bound).
Outcome
v9_probe on hardware: no leg contact ("没碰腿(N2 兑现)"), stance min 145/126 mm green; the term's zero-cost design left healthy gait untaxed.
Mechanism
A relu threshold penalty defines a free region and a priced region; its correctness is entirely in where the boundary sits relative to the healthy and pathological distributions. Replaying known-good and known-bad policies through the exact formula measures both distributions in the term's own currency, making the threshold and weight a placement decision instead of a guess.
Applies when
adding any relu/threshold-style wall penalty
a safety margin (foot distance, joint limit, clearance) needs enforcement without taxing normal behavior
choosing between candidate thresholds for a new term
“形状自检 (v6 横向组/v8-B 的教训 —— 先问"零代价的选项是什么"): 标称站距付 0, 健康步态付 ~0, 收窄才付费 … v5(健康) 183 mm … 0.6% ≈ 免费 | v7(收窄) 133 mm … 22% —— 有效推宽 | v8(塌陷) 93 mm … 55% —— 墙 … d_min=0.16 恰在 v5(183)与 v7(133)之间”
train/WALK_V9_SPEC.md § 2. N2 —— 脚距惩罚(已完成权重预标定)
Foot dragging is an attractor, not a low amplitude - and joint damping is the mode switch, adjustable at deploy timeswing-bistability-damping-switch
Mechanism understoodomniattributionattributiondomain-randomizationactuator-modelingreal-acceptance
When a quality metric is bimodal, stop treating it as an amplitude to be trained up: map the modes against initial conditions and plant parameters, find the parameter that switches basins, apply it first as a deployment lever, and only then bake it into the training distribution (as a plant-family shift, never as an execution-mapping change).
Symptom
s2e_pd-1400's swing height "median 12.1 mm" hid a perfect bimodal distribution: 20 seeds split into a drag mode (2.6-4.9 mm) and a step mode (19.3-24.0 mm) with NOT ONE seed in between - the median sat in the empty gap, and "swing debt -11 mm" really meant "50% probability of falling into the drag attractor".
Context
Two designed experiments closed the mechanism. Test A (nominal plant, 40 seeds): step 42% / drag 58% / middle 0 - at nominal gains, initial conditions alone pick the mode, both modes 100% survivable. Test B (fixed init, kp x kd grid): kd is the mode SWITCH - at kd 1.3 all surviving cells step (13-22 mm), at kd 0.7 nearly all drag (2.7-4.3), only at kd 1.0 does init get a vote; kp >= 1.2 is dangerous (5/6 falls). Global verification at kd x1.3 (20-seed, delay 2): survival 20/20 at ZERO cost, step share 42 -> 80%, swing median 12.1 -> 18.4 mm, slip record low 334, thicker tilt margin - costs: vx 85 -> 78%, saturation +5 pp. A Pareto sweep then priced the knob: step share 42/72/75/88/82/90 across kd 1.00-1.30 with a linear vx tax of -2.3 pp per 0.1 kd - the basin gain is fully collected at kd 1.20 ("1.30 是 over-damping 纯多付税"). Mechanism: low damping leaves a landing micro-oscillation / ground-slide channel the policy can exploit to drag; damping plugs the channel.
Change
Deployment lever adopted: kd-scale 1.20 (conservative 1.15) as the legitimate successor to the power-0.8 crutch ("前者削幅度保稳,后者堵拖地通道换步态,且不牺牲存活"); training-side prescription: move the DR band to nominal-1.2 x (0.9,1.1) = [1.08,1.32], deleting the [0.7,1.0) drag-teaching zone - a contract-level change requiring digest re-baselining, gated on measuring the real robot's actual kd dispersion first.
Outcome
The kd surgery rung (s2e_kd) delivered basin 8 -> 11/20, slip 405 -> 331, vx 81 -> 85% with no out-of-band fragility (below-band check 20/20) - "拐杖烧进分布的正确姿势", explicitly contrasted with the failed s1g amplitude version: this one changes the plant family the policy has seen, that one changed the execution mapping the policy would have to relearn.
Mechanism
The gait's swing behavior is a bistable dynamical system whose basin boundaries are set by plant parameters; a policy trained across a kd band that includes the drag basin has learned to inhabit it. Shifting the deployed (and then trained) damping moves the system into the step basin without touching the policy - a plant-side fix for what looked like a training deficiency.
Applies when
a gait quality metric splits into distinct modes across seeds
deciding between more training and a gain/damping change
converting a deployment crutch into a training-distribution change
“20-seed 里拖地模式 2.6~4.9mm 与迈步模式 19.3~24.0mm 各半,中间一个不落 … kd 是模式开关——kd1.3 下 6/6 存活格全迈步 … kd0.7 下几乎全拖地 … swing 债的解(至少大半)在部署端阻尼档,不在训练端 … 机理:低阻尼下落脚微振荡/贴地滑给了策略顺势拖行的通道,加阻尼堵之。”
train/README.md § swing 双稳态定性 + kd 部署杠杆 (2026-08-07, 用户设计 Test A/B)
The run policy never left the ground and fell in the second simulator from the frontal plane - its DR (gains and latency only) covered the actuator axis, not the frontal-plane contact and inertia disturbances the doubled stride amplified; "is DR on" is the wrong questionthin-dr-judged-by-channel-coverage
Replicatedrundr-tuningdomain-randomizationsim2simattribution
Judge a DR recipe by whether its randomized terms cover the channel where the skill can lose stability, not by whether DR is enabled; when a new skill lengthens single support or enlarges motion in one plane, add disturbances in the plane it destabilizes before training.
Symptom
run R1 (6,000 iterations, 78 min): no flight phase ever appeared, and every one of 13 checkpoints failed the eight-gate MuJoCo smoke. In Isaac: zero terminations in 6,000 iterations, 4.2 deg tilt. In MuJoCo at delay 2: 1/6 survived, falls within 1.9-6.2 s at 50.8-58.7 deg, the most saturated joints all roll joints.
Context
The run contract doubled sagittal travel (knee action scale 0.9, knee swing peak 1.14 rad) with a 0.60 s period and 0.40 duty - long single support - while roll/yaw scales were deliberately left at 0.5. DR copied the s1e recipe: kp/kd (0.9, 1.1) and latency on; mass, COM, joint friction and push all off; ground friction pinned at (1.0, 1.0). Flight was read two independent ways: Isaac's per-foot contact reward stayed 0.845-0.857, never above 0.87 - the arithmetic ceiling of a gait with zero flight - and 30 of 36 MuJoCo seeds had flight fraction exactly 0 (the nonzero six were all tumbling falls). Foot lift itself worked (46-59 mm against a 50 mm design point): the walk-era "not enough travel" failure did not recur.
Change
Verdict FAIL, with the pre-registered first knob (exploration noise 1.0 -> 1.2) explicitly rejected as aimed at a different axis. The lesson was generalized and applied at the next line's design review: the one-leg spec made push, body mass, base COM and friction DR mandatory for its permanent single support and banned the thin recipe.
Outcome
The run line did not continue past R1 in the sources. The one-leg V0 with the wider DR passed its friction-variant gate (mu 0.4 and 1.2) inside a 40/40 acceptance.
Mechanism
Randomizing gains and latency covers the actuator's axis; a skill whose failure lives in frontal-plane contact and inertia needs randomization on that channel (push, mass, COM, friction), or the trainer's exact plant becomes the only one the policy can stand on - the omni_s1 transfer trap a second time, this time with DR switched on.
Applies when
a policy is flawless in the trainer and falls immediately in a second simulator
reusing a DR recipe from a skill with a different support pattern
failures concentrate on one axis (roll, yaw) the DR does not touch
“**机理**: 矢状面行程翻倍 (膝摆动峰 1.14 rad) + T 0.60 + duty 0.40 的长单支撑, 把额状面扰动放大了一个量级; 而 roll/yaw 通道按 §3 **刻意没有放大** (仍 0.5), DR 又是 s1e 复刻的薄配方 (mass/COM/关节摩擦/push **四关全关**, 地面摩擦钉死 (1.0, 1.0))。 … 说明**薄 DR 的判据不能只看"有没有开 DR"**, 要看**开的那几项是否覆盖失稳所在的通道** —— kp/kd 与延迟是执行器轴向的, 对额状面接触/惯性扰动零覆盖。 … 0.87 正是「零腾空的走路步态」的天花板算术”
git:Lucen V2@origin/run-line:train/README.md § run R1 FAIL (2026-08-09, run 21-30-30_run_r1): 腾空零, 但病根在额状面不在探索
When a contract default changes, old policies must run under a pinned legacy profile - a silent clock swap is out-of-distribution on hardwarelegacy-profile-pinning
Mechanism understoodwalkreal-deploycontract-freezereal-acceptanceprocess
Treat every trained policy as bound to the contract values of its training era: version the deployment profiles, pin old policies to their era's profile in every command, and never let a changed default silently apply to an old artifact.
Symptom
The walk profile's gait clock moved from 0.40 s to 0.50 s for new training, but versions v5-v9 were all trained at 0.40 s - running them under the updated default would silently feed a 25% slower phase clock to policies that never saw one.
Context
The re-test runbook hard-codes --policy-profile legacy_walk_040 into every command for the old versions, with the warning not to omit the flag: the mismatch is invisible (no error, no crash) but puts the policy out of distribution on hardware, where the same file had already documented that off-clock operation collapses gait quality.
Change
Deployment profiles versioned per training era; historical policies permanently associated with their era's profile; runbooks write the profile flag explicitly rather than relying on defaults.
Outcome
Old policies stayed runnable and comparable after the contract moved on; the silent-mismatch failure mode was closed by convention.
Mechanism
Changing a shared default rebinds every old artifact to a contract it was not trained under; unlike a schema break, a value change produces no error - only degraded, unexplainable behavior. Version-pinned profiles make the binding explicit and permanent.
Applies when
changing any default in the deployment contract (clock, scales, gains) while old policies remain in use
writing runbooks that mix policy generations
a re-tested old policy behaves worse than its era's records
“2026-08-02 起 walk profile 的时钟改为 0.50(WALK_V10_SPEC §3)。v5~v9 全是 0.40 训的,本文件所有命令已改带 --policy-profile legacy_walk_040 ——不要省掉这个 flag,否则是拿慢 25% 的相位时钟静默喂旧策略(分布外,真机危险)。”
train/REAL_SWEEP_V5_V8.md § 1. 预检 ⚠️ 时钟改为 0.50
Size each joint's action authority to its measured working range - lock a channel to zero only when its job is provably elsewhereper-joint-action-scale-lockdown
Observed oncewalkobservation-designobservation-honestyreward-shapingcontract-freeze
Set per-joint action scales from measured target ranges and momentum decompositions: full authority for working channels, working-range authority for balance channels, zero for channels whose contribution is measured negligible - and prefer this structural quieting over perpetual reward penalties, keeping the contract dimensions intact.
Symptom
"Walks crooked" - roll and yaw channels wandered; hip_yaw peak-to-peak reached 22.3 deg in v11 while contributing essentially nothing to locomotion; a uniform action scale of 0.5 gave every joint the same authority regardless of its actual job.
Context
The v12 design replaced the scalar action scale with per-joint scales justified by measurements: pitch-class 0.5 (the gait's entire working channel - untouched); hip_yaw 0.0 - lossless because it carries only 1.4% of yaw momentum (v6 decomposition) and straight-line targets use merely +/-0.006-0.03 ("乱动纯属浪费"); roll 0.2 - NOT zero, because lateral balance and weight transfer are roll's unique job (locking it would degenerate into foot-edge rocking, "比现在更歪"), and 0.2 covers the measured working range +/-0.06-0.19 while "0.5 的另一半全是 '歪歪扭扭'的来源". Costs were accepted consciously: turning demoted to an observation row with a fallback (yaw 0 -> 0.1 in v13). Contract preserved: the 12-dim action interface unchanged, yaw values simply neutralized. The structural lockdown also RETIRED the reward-side hip_yaw_quiet penalty - "A 的 yaw=0 结构性取代,不再付奖励塑形成本".
Change
action_scale_joint pitch 0.5 / roll 0.2 / yaw 0.0 wired through robot.yaml -> policy_io (verified: all-ones action gives hip_yaw target exactly 0) -> Isaac action term, guarded by the contract checker ("它就是抓这种双侧不一致的").
Outcome
Designed and verified on the shared side before the lineage freeze; stands as the pattern for authority sizing: structure replaces reward shaping wherever a channel should simply not act.
Mechanism
Action scale is a per-channel authority budget; uniform budgets give noise channels the same voice as working channels, and reward-side quieting then pays a permanent shaping tax for what a zero scale provides for free. But zeroing is only lossless when decomposition proves the channel's contribution negligible AND no unique function (balance) lives there.
Conflicts
Wired and verified on the config/deploy side but never trained - the 2026-08-05 reset suspended v12 before the Isaac-side run.
Applies when
some joints wander without contributing to the task
a quieting penalty (deviation/L1) taxes every step forever
deciding action-space authority for a new task or robot
“yaw=0 是无损的:实测它只贡献 1.4% 偏航动量、直行目标只 ±0.006~0.03,乱动纯属浪费。… roll 不能为 0:横向平衡/重心换脚是它的独有职责,锁死会退化成脚缘摇摆(比现在更歪)。0.2 的依据:各代实测 roll 目标只用 ±0.06~0.19,0.5 的另一半全是"歪歪扭扭"的来源。”
train/WALK_V12_SPEC.md § 3. A —— 逐关节动作幅度(用户"只动 pitch"的安全版)
A binary reward band on the swing knee had zero gradient everywhere below it, so the one-leg policy parked in an unloaded "fake touchdown" that Isaac's 5 N threshold scored as success and MuJoCo showed as real pressing - a capped constant-gradient ramp, retrained from scratch, passed 40/40binary-band-reward-fake-touchdown
Mechanism understoodonelegreward-shapingreward-shapingsim2sim
Shape approach-to-target rewards as capped ramps with gradient from the starting posture, never as bands or indicators; and compare contact-based terms across simulators, because a policy riding just under a force threshold looks perfect in one and wrong in the other.
Symptom
At iteration 1,000 of the first one-leg run the swing foot never lifted: the policy stood with the "raised" foot resting lightly on the ground. In Isaac the contact-match term paid 96% of full marks; the same policy in MuJoCo pressed that foot on the ground for 450 frames.
Context
The swing-leg goal was "shank folded fully back" (knee 1.5-1.95 rad), rewarded as a binary band: +0.8 inside [1.5, 1.95], zero elsewhere. From knee 0.05 to 1.5 rad the term was flat. Contact is judged at a 5 N force threshold, so a foot carrying less than 5 N counts as lifted. The walk line had hit the same disease with a binary indicator (v4) and fixed it with a capped ramp (knee_swing_amplitude).
Change
swing_knee_fold changed from the binary band to a ramp clamp(|q|/1.5, 0, 1) - a constant gradient capped near 86 deg - and the policy was retrained from scratch (V0r1). After the first real-robot try showed the fold still too low, its weight went 0.8 -> 2.0 (V0.1).
Outcome
V0r1 model_2300 passed the full acceptance 40/40 (swing knee 1.72 rad, about 98.5 deg) and was stamped as oneleg_v0.onnx; the cross-simulator disagreement is recorded as the thing that caught the cheat.
Mechanism
A reward that is flat until the target is reached gives no gradient to approach it, so the policy settles for the nearest state other terms reward - here, a foot that satisfies the contact threshold without lifting; a second simulator with different contact force resolution exposes such threshold-riding.
Applies when
rewarding a posture target with an in-band / out-of-band indicator
a contact threshold decides whether a foot counts as lifted
trainer-side contact terms are near full marks while the video looks wrong
“初版二值带 [1.5,1.95] 在膝 0.05→1.5 全程零梯度，策略停在"卸力虚点地"（Isaac 5N 阈下 contact_match 96% 满分 / MuJoCo 同策略 450 帧实压——跨仿真器互证抓作弊）；v4 二值指示同型病，按 knee_swing_amplitude 判例改常数梯度封顶 ramp，从零重训 … **oneleg_v0.onnx = V0r1 model_2300, 40/40 PASS**”
git:Lucen V2@origin/oneleg-line:train/ONELEG_V0_SPEC.md § §4 奖励表 swing_knee_fold 行 / §8 核查单 5
Armature must be N^2 x rotor inertia, never 0 - measure it no-loadarmature-n2-rotor-inertia
Mechanism understoodwalkplant-calibrationplant-calibrationactuator-modeling
Every geared actuator carries N^2 * I_rotor of reflected inertia at the joint; set armature from a no-load measurement, never leave it 0 and never guess it.
Symptom
Sim joints accelerate more easily than real joints; old MJCF had armature = 0 (rotor reflected inertia entirely unmodeled), a systematic sim2real gap on every joint.
Context
Original hand-written MJCF plant used armature 0. The team derived and then measured the correct value: torque needed at the rotor is I_rotor * N * alpha; after the N:1 gearbox the output shaft "feels" an extra N^2 * I_rotor of inertia. With a 9:1 reduction that is an 81x amplification of the rotor inertia, far too large to ignore.
Change
Set per-motor armature from no-load (motor out of the robot) measurement instead of 0: RS06 = 0.0070 kg*m^2, RS02 = 0.0032 kg*m^2, RS00 = 0.0015 kg*m^2. Landed together with measured friction as the first fully-measured plant parameter set.
Outcome
Plant parameters "第一次全部来自实测" (first time all from measurement); became the frozen plant baseline for all subsequent training generations.
Mechanism
Reflected inertia scales with the square of the gear ratio: the rotor spins N times faster than the joint, so its kinetic energy (and the torque needed to accelerate it) appears N^2 larger at the output. Omitting it makes simulated joints unrealistically fast/light, so policies learn action rates the real actuator cannot deliver.
Applies when
building or auditing a simulation plant model for a geared/QDD actuator
sim policy moves joints faster or snappier than the real robot can
MJCF/URDF review shows armature or rotor inertia set to 0 or a default
“armature 转子反射惯量有问题在sim里面一定要处理不能是0，空机测试。转子处需要的力矩 = I_rotor × N × α 经减速箱放大 N 倍后 = N² × I_rotor × α 所以输出轴"感觉到"多了一个 N² × I_rotor 的惯量。这就是 armature。… 关键是那个平方。减速比 9:1 就放大 81 倍。”
Experience.md § # armature 转子反射惯量有问题 (line 9)
The median of a bimodal metric lands in the empty gap - check the distribution, and never judge swing on 3 seedsmedian-hides-bimodal-distribution
Replicatedomnisim-evalmeasurementgate-batteryprocess
Before quoting a median or mean, look at the distribution; report suspected-bimodal metrics as mode share plus per-mode ranges, use small-seed smoke runs only to screen trends, and size the seed count for decisions by the share resolution you need (here: 20).
Symptom
Years of "high swing variance" and undecidable 3-seed swing readings turned out to be one fact: the metric was bimodal all along - "历代 swing 高方差与 3-seed 不可判由此定性:一直在测双稳态系统" - and every median reported from it (e.g. 12.1 mm) described a value no seed ever produced.
Context
Concrete instances: s2e_pd-1400's 20 seeds split 2.6-4.9 mm vs 19.3-24.0 mm with zero seeds between; s1e-500 read 3.9 mm on seeds 0-2 but 23.1 mm median over 20 seeds; a 3-seed reading of 19.3 was logged as "double-peak optimism, lesson recurrence #4". The selection re-audit codified the sampling rule: "3-seed 的 swing 读数不可判点, 只能筛带,选点必须 20-seed" - 3 seeds may screen a band, only 20 seeds may pick a point.
Change
Swing (and any suspected multi-modal metric) reported as mode shares plus per-mode ranges instead of a bare median; 3-seed smoke numbers demoted to band-screening; all shipping/selection decisions moved to 20-seed batteries.
Outcome
The "swing debt" bookkeeping was reinterpreted as basin probability (see swing-bistability-damping-switch), and checkpoint selection stopped being whipsawed by which basin the first three seeds happened to fall into.
Mechanism
Central-tendency statistics presuppose unimodality; on a bimodal distribution the median tracks the mode SHARE, not any achievable behavior, and small samples alias the share entirely. Mode-aware reporting (share + per-mode stats) is the only faithful summary, and the needed sample size is set by the share resolution required.
Applies when
a quality metric shows chronic high variance across seeds
3-seed smoke readings contradict 20-seed batteries
reporting swing height, clearance, or any basin-prone metric
“中位数落在空档里,「swing 债 −11mm」实为「50% 概率掉进拖地吸引子」。历代 swing 高方差与 3-seed 不可判由此定性:一直在测双稳态系统。… swing 跨 seed 双峰 (500 在 seed0~2 只读 3.9mm, 20-seed 中位 23.1) —— 3-seed 的 swing 读数不可判点, 只能筛带, 选点必须 20-seed。”
train/README.md § swing 双稳态定性 / s1e 选点重审
A reward on a quantity the actor cannot observe teaches "produce less of it", never "correct it" - closed-loop correction needs an outer loopreward-observability-limit
Mechanism understoodomniobservation-designobservation-honestyreward-shapingcontract-freeze
Before adding a reward, check the actor can observe (or infer) the quantity: unobservable-error rewards buy only average suppression - route correction tasks to an outer loop whose commands stay in distribution, and do not break a frozen contract to add an observation a deploy-side loop can supply.
Symptom
Heading kept drifting despite world-frame yaw rewards, and a reviewer proposed heading-error rewards - raising the question of what yaw shaping can even teach this actor.
Context
The adopted architectural verdict: the actor's 45-dim base observation cannot see accumulated heading at all - projected_gravity is invariant to rotation about the gravity axis, and omega_z is a rate, not an angle. World-frame yaw-rate rewards are therefore privileged shaping that can only teach "少产生旋转" (generate less rotation), never "偏了以后拉回原线" (pull back to the line after drifting) - the policy cannot represent the error it would need to correct. The S1 gate (<=5 deg / 10 s) demands exactly the former, so the stack is right for its gate; active heading correction is assigned to the deployment outer loop (--heading P-loop converting heading error into in-distribution wz commands) plus small-wz training - and the 215-dim contract is explicitly NOT extended with a heading observation ("契约不加 heading 观测,冻结不动"). The reviewer's companion bias hypothesis was adjudicated with data: drift is bimodal - a basin mechanism decides whether you leave (seeds vary +/-16-46 deg vs -385 to -391 deg), and once out, rotation direction is constant (weight chirality; candidate root: the phase clock always swings left first).
Change
Yaw shaping kept as rate-tracking (three-layer stack); heading correction owned by the deploy outer loop; contract frozen; the "which behaviors need an outer loop" question settled by observability analysis rather than reward tuning.
Outcome
Stopped a contract change and a futile reward direction; drift work split correctly into rate-suppression (trainable) and error correction (outer loop), consistent with the earlier measured 10x drift reduction from the deploy-side loop.
Mechanism
A policy can only condition on its observation sigma-algebra; rewards on functions outside it shift the marginal action distribution (open-loop average effects) but cannot create feedback on the unobserved variable. Whether to add an observation, an outer loop, or accept average-shaping is decided by the task's gate: suppression gates need shaping, correction gates need the variable in some loop's view.
Applies when
adding rewards on accumulated/世界-frame quantities (heading, position)
deciding between a new observation, an outer loop, and shaping
a drift symptom persists across reward-weight changes
“actor 的 45 维基座观测不到累计航向(projected_gravity 对绕重力轴旋转不变,ωz 是速率不是角度)——世界系 yaw 奖励是特权塑形,只能教「少产生旋转」,不能教「偏了以后拉回原线」。… 主动纠偏闭环 = S3 把小 wz 进分布 + deploy --heading 外环 … 215 契约不加 heading 观测,冻结不动。”
train/OMNI_V0_SPEC.md § 3. 评审④判决(2026-08-06,S1.3 开训前)
Before training a one-leg stand, the accounts and a probe showed the default gains could not hold it at all - kp 20 needs 0.39 rad of error to carry the static roll moment, more than the whole adduction range - so per-joint gains came first, and thermal limits set the session lengthsingle-support-gain-authority-probe
Mechanism understoodonelegplant-calibrationactuator-modelingplant-calibrationhardware
Before training a posture that loads one joint statically, compute the steady tracking error load/kp and the series stiffness against m*g*h, and prove with a simple hand-written controller that the posture can be held under the deployment gains - change the gains first if it cannot; then size session length from the thermal account.
Symptom
The one-leg line (standing on one foot, the other folded back, no hopping) had to decide whether the existing gain profile could hold single support before any reward was designed.
Context
Hardware accounts (9.792 kg, COM 0.234 m high, 170 x 80 mm feet, legs 80% of the mass): moving the COM over one foot needs 107 mm of shift and the 20 deg hip-roll adduction range gives 131 mm - geometrically enough. The static frontal moment is 7.8-9 N*m, within RS02's 17 N*m - torque is enough. But at kp 20 carrying 7.8 N*m needs 0.39 rad of tracking error, more than the entire adduction range, and the real robot had already shown it: commanded +0.17, actual -0.04 (0.21 rad droop) under load, 0.0008 rad hanging - load, not the motor. A probe (probe_oneleg.py) then showed open-loop PD cannot hold single support on physics grounds, so the criterion became "an equilibrium exists and a hand-written 4-gain COM feedback can hold it": single-support roll stiffness is hip and ankle in series and must exceed m*g*h_com = 22.5 N*m/rad; ankle kp 12 in series with hip kp 80 gives only 10.4 (open loop 16/16 fell), ankle 60 with hip 80 gives 34.3 (52% margin).
Change
A per-joint gain profile (rl_oneleg: hip_roll kp 80, ankle_roll kp 60, the rest as rl_default) - which needed per-joint gain support in robot.yaml, the bridge, deploy and the trainer's actuator groups - decided before training. Thermal account: single support makes hip_roll the dominant heat load (about 7.8 N*m against a 7 N*m continuous rating), so acceptance and demos run in segments of at most 60 s with a temperature check.
Outcome
Under rl_oneleg the hand-written feedback held six cells cleanly for 6 s (hip_roll steady torque 2.1-3.4 N*m, half the thermal budget); under rl_default the same feedback on the same cells fell 0/4. The trained V0 policy then passed its 40-cell acceptance.
Mechanism
With PD position control, the steady error needed to carry a static load is load/kp; when that error exceeds the joint's range the posture is unreachable whatever the policy does, and series compliance between joints lowers the effective stiffness below the gravity stiffness that single support demands.
Applies when
single-support, crouched or one-arm-load postures on PD actuators
a joint "droops" under load on hardware but tracks well when hanging
deciding whether a new skill needs its own gain profile
“但 kp=20 时撑住 7.8 N·m 需要 **0.39 rad 跟踪误差 > 整个内收行程**。真机已实测: 命令 +0.17 实际 −0.04（droop 0.21 rad），悬挂时 0.0008 rad——是负载不是电机。 … 单支撑滚转是 hip/ankle **串联**刚度，必须 > m·g·h_com = 22.5 N·m/rad；ankle kp12 串 hip80 只有 10.4（开环 16/16 全摔），60 串 80 = 34.3（裕 52%） … **rl_default 同反馈同格 0/4 全摔**（增益档必要性对照）”
git:Lucen V2@origin/oneleg-line:train/ONELEG_V0_SPEC.md § §1-1 单脚站: 几何可行，卡点是 hip_roll 增益权限 / §2 A 线增益 / §5 probe 定谳
No parameter tuning on the floor - a failing config retries once, then it is out; anomalies go back to simno-field-tuning-protocol
Replicatedomnireal-deployreal-acceptanceprocesscontract-freeze
Hardware time is for executing and measuring the pre-registered matrix, never for tuning: failing configs get one retry then elimination, anomalies get recorded and reproduced in sim, and contract-check bypass flags stay unused.
Symptom
Hardware sessions create pressure to fix problems live - nudge a gain, tweak a scale - which destroys attribution and risks the robot.
Context
The anomaly-handling section of the acceptance sheet is three fixed plays: (1) falls at start -> retry once at the same settings; falls again -> that configuration is eliminated, "不现场调参" (no on-site parameter tuning); (2) limit cycle or motor screech -> stop immediately, record the gain level and the joint, reproduce in sim before any discussion; (3) systematic disagreement with sim -> record it as a finding (hardware outranks sim) rather than adjusting anything to force agreement. Related guardrails elsewhere in the sheet: never pass --allow-unstamped / --allow-plant-drift to bypass manifest checks - if it errors, something real is wrong, stop and look.
Change
Field sessions restricted to executing the pre-written matrix; every fix path routed through sim reproduction and the normal config/rung process.
Outcome
Sessions stayed interpretable (each run matched a documented config) and safety overrides never became habit; anomalies arrived back in sim as reproducible cases instead of half-remembered floor stories.
Mechanism
Field-tuned values are measured under adrenaline on one floor with no logging or baselines - they contaminate the config lineage and are unattributable afterwards; and every bypass flag that skips a contract check converts a designed safety property into an operator promise.
Applies when
a config fails or oscillates during a hardware session
someone reaches for a live gain tweak or a bypass flag
writing the anomaly-handling section of a deployment runbook
“起步即摔 → 换档重试一次, 仍摔则该档出局, 不现场调参。出现极限环/啸叫 → 立刻停, 记录档位与关节, 回 sim 复现再议。… 不要给 --allow-unstamped / --allow-plant-drift —— 三枚 ONNX 都已盖章 … 真要报错说明有别的问题, 停下来看。”
train/REAL_RUN_S2.md § 4. 异常处置
Slowing the gait clock at deployment is out-of-distribution and backfires - lower the commanded speed instead, or train the knobcycle-time-override-is-ood
Mechanism understoodwalkreal-deployreal-acceptanceattributioncontract-freeze
Any deployment override must correspond to a dimension the policy was trained to handle; to make a parameter field-adjustable, randomize it in training and observe it - otherwise use the levers inside the trained envelope (commands) and leave the knob alone.
Symptom
Real-robot feedback "walks very fast and unstable" suggested slowing the gait; a deploy-side --cycle-time override existed, making "just slow the clock" a one-flag temptation.
Context
A sim sweep of the override on walk_v6 @cmd 0.3 showed monotone degradation away from the trained 0.40 s cycle: at 0.50 s tilt jumped 7.9 -> 13.2 deg and landing force 1.52x -> 2.24x; at 0.80 s (half speed) clearance collapsed to 3 mm - dragging again - with 20 deg tilt. Meanwhile the legitimate lever, lowering the commanded speed with the clock untouched, improved everything monotonically: cmd 0.1 gave 104% tracking, 6.7 deg tilt, minimum slip - the most stable operating point. The file distinguishes the two "slows" explicitly: lower command = smaller steps at the same 2.5 Hz rhythm; a slower rhythm itself requires retraining - randomize cycle_time (e.g. 0.40-0.65 s) during training and expose it as an observation, and only then does --cycle-time become a field-adjustable knob.
Change
Deployment guidance: never ship a cycle-time override the policy was not trained under; respond to "too fast/unstable" with lower commands; schedule clock variability as a training-time (contract-level) change if a field knob is wanted.
Outcome
The sweep quantified the trap before hardware paid for it (dragging and 2.2x landing force at slowed clocks); cmd 0.1 documented as the stable demo point.
Mechanism
The policy is a function fitted around the training distribution; a deploy-side override moves an input (phase rate) to values never seen, so behavior degrades unpredictably - the knob LOOKS like a capability because it exists in the code, but capability lives in the training distribution, not the interface.
Applies when
a deploy tool exposes overrides (clock, scale, gains) beyond the training distribution
hardware feels "too fast/aggressive" and a quick knob exists
deciding between a deploy-side tweak and a retrain
“0.80s | 1.25Hz | 0.165 | 3mm(拖地) | 20.0° … 慢一半直接崩 … 策略按 0.40 训练, 别的周期属分布外。… 降指令速度才是有效杠杆 … cmd 0.1 是最稳的工作点。… 要节奏本身变慢必须重训 —— 训练期把 cycle_time 随机化(如 0.40~0.65s)并作为观测的一维, 部署时 --cycle-time 就成了现场可调的旋钮。”
train/WALK_DIAGNOSIS.md § 2026-08-01 追加: 调慢步态时钟(--cycle-time)在仿真里是反效果
Two machines, one configuration - every gain, offset and torque limit changes only in robot.yaml, whoever edits pushes at once, both checkouts show the same commit before the robot moves, and a pulled policy file is size-checked and synced before power-offtwo-machine-config-discipline
Observed onceinfrareal-deployprocesshardwarecontract-freeze
Treat the robot's configuration as a versioned artifact with one source of truth, push every change immediately, verify identical commits on every machine before a hardware session, keep hardware limits in the repo and the firmware in sync in both directions, and verify transferred model files (size, digest) before running them.
Symptom
The robot's onboard computer runs the bridge and deploy scripts from its own checkout while training and analysis happen on other machines; a hot fix left on one side, or a half-written file, silently makes the robot run something other than what was evaluated.
Context
The operator runbook's "wall version" of the two-machine discipline: configuration changes only in robot.yaml (calibration offset/sign, gains, torque limits), committed and pushed from the Mac, pulled on the robot, bridge restarted; code is not edited on the robot, and if it is, it is committed and pushed on the spot - nothing unpushed overnight; 30 seconds before every real-robot session both checkouts must show a clean status and the same last commit hash; changing tau_max requires writing the motor's limit_torque too (and the reverse); re-zeroed motors require re-measuring offsets. The recovery line added: after pulling on the robot, check the ONNX is not zero bytes (a lesson from a corruption incident on 08-12) and sync before cutting power; the recovery and main lines are separate worktrees, each pulled with --ff-only.
Change
Operating rules, pinned on the wall and repeated in the hanging checklists ("git pull, both machines on the same commit").
Outcome
The sources record the rules and the incident that produced the size check; they do not record a count of sessions the rules caught.
Mechanism
A policy is evaluated against one configuration; any divergence between the machines, or a truncated file, turns a hardware result into a result about an unknown configuration.
Applies when
a robot's onboard computer and a workstation both hold the configuration
someone hot-fixes code or gains on the robot
model files are copied or pulled to the robot before a session
“改配置只改 robot.yaml(标定 offset/sign、增益、限扭全在里面)→ Mac git commit + push → NX git pull → 重启桥。 … 谁改完谁立刻推,永远不留未推送的改动过夜。 … 每次上真机前 30 秒检查:两边 git status 干净、git log -1 哈希一致。 … 铁律不变:改 tau_max 必须同步写电机 limit_torque(反之亦然);电机重新标零后 offset 必须重测回填 yaml。”
RL系统/FOLLOW THIS copy 2.md § ② 双机维护纪律(贴墙版)
Two simulators disagreed 1.8x on one policy's torque demand - four explanations were eliminated with numbers, the surviving suspect was never tested, and neither reading was allowed to cancel the othertorque-disagreement-between-simulators-unresolved
Hypothesisrecoverysim2sim-gatesim2simactuator-modelingattribution
When two simulators disagree on a safety-relevant quantity, eliminate the measurement explanations one at a time with numbers, name the survivor as a hypothesis, keep the pessimistic reading binding, and run the direct test (replay one action sequence open-loop through both plants) before the quantity is used to pass a gate for hardware.
Symptom
For R3.0, Isaac read hip_pitch torque demand at 75-80% of the limit (PASS); MuJoCo read the same policy at 148-152% (1.5x over the limit).
Context
Candidates were eliminated one by one: PD gains (identical, RS06 kp 30 / kd 1.5), the settle window (both skip the first 0.5 s), the statistic (worse-of-two-legs vs per-joint - explains ~15%), self-collision (the no-contact subset still read 152%), sampling (500 Hz peak vs 50 Hz sample - ~9%). About 1.8x remained. The prime suspect - Isaac's implicit actuator (PD solved inside the PhysX integration, chosen to mimic kHz firmware PD) against MuJoCo's 500 Hz explicit PD - was named but untested.
Change
The Isaac PASS was recorded as valid for the Isaac plant only; the prescribed decider was an open-loop replay of one action sequence through both plants, compared step by step, needing no training. It was upgraded to a precondition of R3.1.
Outcome
R3.1 ran in parallel with, not after, the replay, and the replay never appears as done. By §40 it was "the oldest open account" on the line, to be fed by real-robot logs - which the spec also never records. Meanwhile the 50 Hz sample under-read the peak by 34% as smoothing narrowed the spikes, so Isaac-side readings grew more optimistic exactly when the comparison mattered more.
Mechanism
Each measurement artifact explained a slice of the gap; what remained is a plant difference, and an untested plant hypothesis cannot license discarding the pessimistic simulator on a safety-relevant quantity.
Conflicts
The spec prescribes the open-loop replay (§23), upgrades it to an R3.1 precondition, then records that R3.1 ran in parallel without it (§24), and lists it as the oldest open account before hardware (§40); nothing through §50 (2026-08-14) records a result. Every later "torque gate PASS" on this line is an Isaac-plant reading plus a MuJoCo check, never a reconciled one.
Applies when
Isaac and MuJoCo (or sim and hardware) report different torques, contacts or slips
implicit vs explicit actuator models are in play
a gate passes on one simulator only
“**同一个策略,一侧判 PASS 一侧判超限 1.5 倍。** … 口径项全部扣掉后仍剩 **~1.8×** 没有解释。 … 但**这条没有验证,不能拿它当结论去抵消 MuJoCo 的读数**。 … (做法:拿同一条动作序列在两边开环回放,逐拍比 τ —— 不需要重训)”
git:Lucen-recovery@origin/recovery:train/RECOVERY_V0_SPEC.md § §23 MuJoCo 复核门:成功率更稳,但 τ 与 Isaac 差 ~1.8× 没收敛
A joint-velocity penalty meant to slow the get-up cut joint speed 16% and left the get-up time unchanged - the knob never moved the variable, so the idea it was meant to test stayed untesteddof-vel-penalty-is-not-a-pacing-knob
Mechanism understoodrecoveryreward-shapingreward-shapingattribution
Before reading a result as a test of an idea, check that the knob actually moved the independent variable; velocity regularizers smooth a schedule they do not set, and a schedule driven by per-step task income moves only when that income's time structure does.
Symptom
The get-up took 0.6-0.9 s in Isaac with large torque demand; the user proposed getting up more slowly so less torque would be needed.
Context
The idea had support in the accounts: the acceptance bound is an upper bound of 5 s (5-8x margin), the quasi-static squat path peaks at 25% of the limits, and rolling over needs no momentum. R3.2 raised dof_vel from -1e-3 to -5e-3 as the single variable.
Change
dof_vel -1e-3 -> -5e-3 (child-run from R3.1).
Outcome
Get-up medians moved +0.02-0.04 s (noise); raw joint velocity -16%; torque demand median got worse (hip_pitch 46-48% -> 63-67%) as the new term competed with torque_headroom on the same joints; MuJoCo 98 -> 96%. Verdict FAIL on the knob, not on the idea, and the rung was not adopted. When pace was later attacked through the income's time structure (V2.5/V2.5b), the MuJoCo get-up moved into the 3.5-4.5 s design band.
Mechanism
The pace was set by base_height_progress paying for every step spent high (stand earlier, earn more); a velocity regularizer only smooths motion along the same schedule and does not change when the robot stands up.
Applies when
trying to make a skill slower or gentler with smoothness penalties
an experiment's primary metric did not move and a verdict is being written
two penalties act on the same joints
“**关键判读:`dof_vel` 罚只把关节速度压了 16%,而起身用时一点没变。** 也就是说**这一级根本没有把"慢下来"这个自变量推动起来** —— 所以它**不构成对用户假说的检验** … 起身节奏由 `base_height_progress` 的逐步计酬决定(早站起来就多拿),速度正则只在同一条时间轨迹上把动作抹匀,不改变何时站起来。”
git:Lucen-recovery@origin/recovery:train/RECOVERY_V0_SPEC.md § §25 R3.2(dof_vel −1e-3→−5e-3,慢一点起身)
When the training reset distribution changes, freeze the acceptance distribution separately and pin its seed - the same checkpoint measured twice differed by 3.8 and 10.2 pointsfrozen-acceptance-distribution-and-pinned-seed
Mechanism understoodrecoverysim-evalgate-batterymeasurement
Acceptance distributions are frozen artifacts, decoupled from whatever the training distribution becomes and evaluated with a pinned seed, and every gate row carries its sample size so that a small-n row is never read as a regression.
Symptom
R0.3 added easier roll-arc start states to the training resets, and the acceptance script shared the training category table; separately, the same checkpoint scored side 3.8 points and mid 10.2 points differently on two runs of the same script.
Context
Acceptance ran 512 parallel envs drawn from the fall categories. Had it kept following the training table, 15% of acceptance samples would have landed on states easier than prone - inflated scores and generations that could not be compared. The two same-checkpoint runs had identical per-item height medians, so the ruler had not changed; the spread was reset resampling noise (side n ~ 169, sigma 2.3%; mid n ~ 35, sigma 8.3%). The spec's "20 seeds" had always meant controlled seeds.
Change
accept_recovery.ACCEPT_CATEGORIES pinned to the four R0-R0.2 categories and decoupled from the training FALL_CATEGORIES; --seed 20260809 pinned, after which two consecutive runs were bit-identical. The mid row (n ~ 35) was labelled the bluntest gate.
Outcome
Every later generation (R0.3 through V3.1) was scored on the frozen distribution and seed, which is what let R0.3's intermediate state be read as "no measurable gain" (62.7 -> 62.1%) and R0.2's mid drop be booked as noise rather than a regression.
Mechanism
An acceptance set that follows the training distribution measures a moving target, and an unpinned reset draw adds sampling noise that small-n rows cannot absorb.
Applies when
the training reset or command distribution changes between generations
repeated evaluations of one checkpoint disagree
a small category drives a pass/fail decision
“**分布冻结**:`accept_recovery.ACCEPT_CATEGORIES` 钉死 §5 四类 … 与训练侧 `FALL_CATEGORIES` **解耦**。 … **side 差 3.8 点、mid 差 10.2 点**(h 中位逐项一致,证明不是尺子变了)—— 纯 reset 重采样噪声 … 钉死后两次连跑逐位相同。”
git:Lucen-recovery@origin/recovery:train/RECOVERY_V0_SPEC.md § §14 验收尺子的两处加固(R0.3 起生效,向后兼容)
Before training a one-leg stand the spec named the cheapest cheats - hopping on the support foot, a raised foot resting unloaded, a leg tripod - and gave each a countermeasure and a gate; one still appeared and was caught by exactly those gatesenumerate-cheapest-cheats-before-training
Observed onceonelegreward-shapingreward-shapinggate-battery
Before training, list the cheapest behaviours that would satisfy each reward term without doing the task, give each a countermeasure in the reward and a gate in acceptance, and prove the intended behaviour is reachable with a probe - then treat any gate the policy games as evidence about the reward, not the gate.
Symptom
The literature's single-leg benchmark reports eight state-of-the-art general policies holding a clean one-leg stand 0 times out of 90 - they survive by sneaking steps and hops - so the task's first adversary was the policy's own cheating.
Context
The spec's shape self-check ("what is the zero-cost option?") listed, for the one-foot bucket: the cheapest cheat, a foot resting on the ground without load, countered by a 5 N contact threshold plus positive swing income; the second cheapest, small hops on the support foot to reset balance, countered by a continuous support-air penalty plus a gate of zero support-foot flight segments. The probe that preceded training had already seen a third: early low-lift postures "survived" by pressing the swing foot at 78-95 N, a leg tripod, removed by folding the shank back. The two-foot bucket was checked too: its zero-cost behaviour is ordinary standing, with no odd base state.
Change
Countermeasures and gates written before training: swing-contact and support-air penalties, gate 2 (zero swing-foot contact frames above 5 N), gate 3 (zero support-foot flight segments).
Outcome
The first run still found the unloaded-foot cheat (a binary reward band gave it no gradient to lift) - and it was caught, by the contact gates and the cross-simulator comparison, not discovered on hardware. The retrained V0 passed all gates 40/40, including zero support-foot flight after the flight detector was corrected.
Mechanism
A policy optimizes the reward, not the intent; the cheapest behaviours that satisfy the reward are predictable from the reward's structure, and a gate written for each before training turns a silent cheat into a failed row.
Applies when
designing rewards for balance, contact or "hold still" tasks
benchmark policies are known to cheat the task
writing acceptance gates for a new skill
“文献里 8 个 SOTA 通用策略在单脚站基准上 0/90 干净保持，全靠偷步偷跳活命，这是本任务的第一反作弊对象 … 单脚桶下最便宜的作弊是"脚虚放地上不受力"——接触判定 >5 N 力阈（沿用），配 swing_height_band 正收入拉开。 … 第二便宜是"支撑脚小跳重置"——support_air_penalty 连续罚 + 验收门支撑脚腾空段=0 双保险。”
git:Lucen V2@origin/oneleg-line:train/ONELEG_V0_SPEC.md § §0 目标口径 / §5 形状自检(零成本选项是什么)
A real-robot verdict is (policy x deployment stack) - when the stack changes materially, old verdicts expirestale-verdicts-under-old-stack
Mechanism understoodwalkreal-acceptancereal-acceptanceattributionprocess
Date every hardware verdict with the deployment-stack version it was measured under; after any material stack change, re-test before trusting old condemnations or old praises - with the interpretation of each possible result written down first.
Symptom
walk_v5 stood condemned as "kicks wildly" and walk_v6 as "cannot walk unassisted" - but those verdicts were issued under an earlier deployment stack (--heading did not exist yet, several fixes had just landed); only v7 had ever run under the current unified stack.
Context
New sim evidence sharpened the doubt: a same-harness four-version sweep showed v6 was the HEALTHIEST archive at the real operating point (cmd 0.15: dominant frequency locked at 2.50, steps 35:35 perfectly symmetric, foot distance 203/190 mm best of four, mean tilt 4.2 deg, saturation 15%). A full re-test under the unified stack was scheduled with per-version questions and a pre-filled interpretation table ("判读表(预填假设,回来对号)"): e.g. v6 walks + frequency ~2.5 -> old verdict was the stack's fault, v6 becomes the comparison champion; v6 walks but at ~1.25 -> period-doubling on hardware = confirmed plant gap, actuator fitting promoted to mainline; v5 no longer kicks -> the kicking was an old-stack artifact.
Change
All four versions re-queued on hardware under one stack (same torque limits, slew profile, heading loop, logging), with the version-specific legacy profile pinned; verdicts held provisional until re-issued.
Outcome
The re-test design separated policy properties from stack artifacts before any policy was permanently written off - and turned each outcome into a specific conclusion via the pre-filled table.
Mechanism
A deployed behavior is produced by the policy plus everything between it and the motors (heading loop, slew limits, torque caps, clock); verdicts implicitly condition on that whole stack. Fixing the stack invalidates the conditioning, so old failures may be stack artifacts and old successes may not survive either.
Applies when
deployment tooling (limits, filters, loops) changed since a policy was last judged
deciding which historical policy is the rightful baseline
a sim sweep contradicts an old hardware verdict
“只有 v7 在完整的今日部署栈下上过真机 … v5"左右乱踢"、v6"未能自主"的判决全部来自更早的栈(--heading 尚不存在, 部分修复刚落地)——判决已过期。且 2026-08-02 四代同机仿真横测翻出了新证据:v6 在真机工况(cmd 0.15)下是四代里最健康的仿真档案”
train/REAL_SWEEP_V5_V8.md § 0. 为什么重测
Set torque limits per joint from measured gait peaks - a uniform percentage is the wrong shape, and training must use the deployed numberstorque-limit-shape-by-measured-peaks
Mechanism understoodwalkactuator-modelingactuator-modelinghardwareplant-calibration
Measure per-joint torque peaks in the actual gait and set each limit as measured-peak x margin capped at rating; then propagate the same numbers into training and add an automated deploy-time consistency check - never derate by a uniform percentage, never let training assume torque deployment will not grant.
Symptom
A uniform 50% torque derating (18/8.5/7) had piled safety margin on the joints that never use it while cutting the busiest joint below half its measured demand.
Context
Per-joint gait peaks were measured (walk_v5 at cmd 0.3/0.6): RS06 (hip_pitch/knee) uses 5.5-5.9 N*m = 15-16% of its 36 N*m rating - cutting it to 12 is a free safety win; RS02's ankle_pitch runs at 16.2 N*m = 95% of its 17 N*m rating - "它是速度的硬件瓶颈", no room to cut; RS00 measured 36-44%, capped at 11. The resulting shape 12/17/11 replaced the uniform percentage. Sweeps across several limit sets (rated / 50% / 14-17-11 / 12-17-11) produced identical speed, lift, and landing force - within this range the limits do not shape the gait; what matters is consistency: "关键是训练和硬件必须是同一个数", because the exporter fills effort_limit from tau_limit, and a policy trained at rated 36/17/14 "会假设有三倍力矩可用" while deployed at 12/17/11 (exactly the v5 cross-generation inconsistency later suspected in its wild kicking).
Change
robot.yaml tau_limit set to the measured-shape 12/17/11, firmware written to match, and train/isaac_values.py regenerated so training sees the same limits; the deploy tool self-checks limits against robot.yaml on every run.
Outcome
Free safety margin captured where demand is low, the real bottleneck joint left at rating, and the train/deploy torque worlds unified with an automated consistency check.
Mechanism
Torque demand is grossly unequal across joints in a gait (15% vs 95% of rating here); a uniform percentage misallocates the safety budget by construction. And since the trainer treats effort_limit as a plant truth, any train/deploy mismatch is an invisible plant gap of exactly the mismatch ratio.
Applies when
choosing safety torque limits for a legged platform
training-vs-deployment actuator limit audit
one joint runs near rating while others idle
“曾用统一 50%(18/8.5/7)是错的形状: 把余量堆在用不到的 RS06 上, 却把 ankle_pitch 砍到需求的 52%。… RS02 在 0.6 m/s 已用到额定 95%, 它是速度的硬件瓶颈 … 实测多组限幅 … 完全一致 —— 限幅在这个范围对步态零影响, 关键是训练和硬件必须是同一个数。… 若训练仍按额定 36/17/14, 学出的策略会假设有三倍力矩可用。”
train/WALK_V6_MINIMAL.md § 3. 训练侧必须同步的一件事
Ideal PD is not enough - add a delay buffer and fit armature/friction/delay per jointactuator-delay-buffer-fitting
Observed oncewalkactuator-modelingactuator-modelingplant-calibration
Never ship ideal PD to hardware: add a measured delay (in control steps) and per-joint armature/friction fitted from step and sine responses, and treat remaining actuator mismatch as your standing largest sim2real residual.
Symptom
Standard ideal PD actuator model transfers poorly; sim assumes targets take effect instantly and joints reach arbitrary acceleration.
Context
A developer with a successful on-hardware Isaac Lab biped modified the actuator model in two ways and calibrated it against the real robot: step-response plus sine-sweep tests (positive step, negative step, sine tracking), overlaying sim curves on measured curves and hand-tuning.
Change
(1) Delay buffer: action targets take effect after a uniform 6 time-step delay on all joints; (2) acceleration limiting so the actuator cannot reach arbitrary acceleration; (3) per-joint fit of armature / friction / delay - different joints genuinely needed different values.
Outcome
Hip joints fit worst, knee best; the developer rated the result "not perfect, the best I could do" and still listed actuator-model improvement as next work - i.e. even the fitted model remained the dominant residual.
Mechanism
Real actuation is a lagged, bandwidth-limited system; a delay buffer and acceleration cap are the two cheapest structures that reproduce its phase and magnitude response. Per-joint differences come from differing load, wiring, and friction states, so a single global constant underfits.
Applies when
actuator model in sim is ideal PD with no delay
step-response of real joint visibly lags or overshoots the sim's
budgeting which sim2real gap to attack first
“标准 ideal PD actuator 不够用，他改了两处：延迟缓冲：目标不是立即生效，全部关节统一 6 个 time step 延迟 / 加速度曲线：执行器不能瞬间达到任意加速度 … 用 armature / friction / delay 三个参数逐关节拟合，标定方法是阶跃响应 + 正弦扫描 … 髋部关节偏差最大，膝关节最好。”
Experience.md § 执行器建模 —— 最值得抄的一条 (lines 50-59)
Verify changes in the run's resolved config (and checkpoint md5), never in the source you editedresolved-config-is-source-of-truth
Replicatedomniprocessattributionprocesscontract-freeze
Attribution and single-variable claims must be made on the resolved per-run config (and checkpoint hashes), not on source diffs; verify every intended variable landed before burning compute, and verify every rollback byte-level against the historical resolved config.
Symptom
An intended arm-B config change never reached the training run - the run was grid-identical (117/117 cells) to its C2 predecessor - and the burn was only understood afterwards.
Context
The repo's discipline hardened around the logged resolved config (logs/<run>/params/env.yaml) as the only source of truth: (1) the C2 root-cause analysis was performed against the checkpoint's logged env.yaml, not the code ("以真相源 23-19-25/params/env.yaml 核实"); (2) C4 added a pre-flight: grep the landed env.yaml for the new keys, and compare the first checkpoints of the two arms - identical md5 means the variable did not land, stop immediately; (3) the C4 full rollback was accepted only after starting a 1-iter run and byte-comparing its resolved env.yaml against the historical 700-era file (identical except 4 dormant schema fields, each verified to be at its no-op default).
Change
Standing pre-flight and post-change verification: dump/diff the resolved config that the run actually consumed; use checkpoint hash equality as a cheap "variable landed" detector between arms.
Outcome
Caught the not-landed variable class of failure; made the rollback provably equivalent to the historical training state rather than believed-equivalent.
Mechanism
Between edited source and the running experiment sit layered overrides, env-var switches, and registration logic; only the resolved, serialized config reflects their composition. Diffing at that level tests the actual experiment; diffing source tests intent.
Applies when
launching an A/B pair or any single-variable rung
rolling back to a historical training state
a run behaves as if a change was never applied
“开训前先验落盘 cfg（上一轮臂B 的改动没进 run，与 C2 逐格 117/117 相同）：grep -E "base_com|joint_friction|push_robot|track_lin_vel_y_exp" logs/<run>/params/env.yaml 另：两臂第一个 checkpoint 的 md5 若相同 = 变量没进去，立刻停。”
train/C_LADDER_RUN.md § 3d. ⚠️ 开训前先验落盘 cfg / 3l. 回退清单（验证）
Cutting swing amplitude 40% raised yaw-momentum demand 53% - the falsified fix is recorded so nobody walks that road againamplitude-cut-falsified-yaw-fix
Mechanism understoodwalksim-evalmeasurementattributionreward-shaping
Test gait fixes against the quantity the ground must actually supply (torque/force rates vs friction ceilings), not against kinematic proxies; record falsified fixes with their mechanism so the search space shrinks permanently.
Symptom
Support-foot yaw slip stayed at ~223 deg (vs 225 deg) after walk_v6 cut joint swing amplitudes by ~40% (hip_pitch 20.6->10.4 deg, knee 31.3->18.8 deg) - the change built on the theory "smaller swing = less yaw momentum to dump into the ground".
Context
Direct measurement inverted the theory: yaw-momentum amplitude ROSE 16% (+/-0.1000 -> +/-0.1159) and its rate of change rose 53% (1.86 -> 2.84 N*m demanded from the ground), pinned exactly at the foot's supply ceiling (2.8-3.3 N*m at mu 0.6-0.7) - so slip could not drop. The extra demand lives in higher harmonics: v6's crisper foot placement (better clearance 34 mm, lower landing force) shortens the momentum- exchange window, concentrating the same exchange into less time. The verdict was written as a closed road: "下一轮不要再走这个方向". An honest residue was also booked: WHY amplitude down but momentum up 16% remained unresolved, with the named next step (per-rigid-body decomposition of H_z, since per-joint RMS sensitivity ignores phase correlations).
Change
The "reduce amplitude to reduce yaw momentum" lever was removed from the planning space; future yaw-slip work redirected toward the supply side (friction) and momentum-rate mechanics.
Outcome
Slip unchanged (225 -> 223 deg); the falsification and its mechanism became a permanent constraint on the fix search space.
Mechanism
Ground yaw torque demand scales with the rate of change of angular momentum, not its amplitude; kinematic amplitude cuts that also sharpen contact timing can raise dH/dt while lowering range. When demand exceeds the friction-limited supply ceiling, slip is set by the ceiling, so demand-side changes below the ceiling do nothing visible.
Applies when
attacking foot slip or yaw drift via gait shape changes
a fix targets an amplitude while the constraint is a rate
documenting a failed intervention after a version comparison
“walk_v6 | ±0.1159 (+16%) | 2.50 Hz | 2.84 N·m (+53%) … 脚的供给上限 2.8~3.3 N·m(μ 0.6~0.7)—— v6 正好顶在天花板上, 所以滑移一点没降。… 结论: "减小摆动幅度以降低偏航动量"这条被 v6 证伪 —— 砍 39% 幅度, 需求反升 53%。下一轮不要再走这个方向。”
train/WALK_DIAGNOSIS.md § ② 未生效的机理: 减小摆动幅度反而让偏航需求上升
Every new penalty ships with a pre-registered withdrawal clause - if healthy gait must pay above the cap, the term stands downcalibration-threshold-with-withdrawal-clause
Replicatedwalkreward-shapingreward-shapingprocess
Introduce every new penalty with: the zero-cost-option audit, a replay-calibrated weight formula (healthy pays a fixed small fraction of tracking), and a pre-registered withdrawal condition - and let the clause fire without argument when the calibration says the term cannot be afforded.
Symptom
Three same-shaped crashes had established a failure archetype: v4's clearance, v8a's landing window (weight off by 58x uncalibrated), and v6a's bare hip_yaw suppression all combined a zero-cost "don't move" option with a fee on any motion - a reverse barrier that pushes policies toward standing still.
Context
The v11 landing-window penalty was therefore introduced under a calibration-threshold protocol: (1) shape chosen with the window tightened (h_gate 0.03 -> 0.02, because 0.03 equaled the clearance target and priced the entire descent); (2) weight from a FORMULA, not judgment: measure the term's raw value on healthy replays (v5/v10b), set w = -(0.10-0.15 x tracking reward) / raw_healthy; (3) withdrawal clause pre-registered: if healthy gait must pay >15% of tracking no matter the tuning, the term is withdrawn to the next version rather than forced in - "不硬上". The companion hip_yaw quieting term ran the same protocol (calibrate on replays, healthy pays <=5%) and was later retired entirely when a structural fix (zero action scale) made its shaping tax unnecessary.
Change
Penalty introduction protocol: shape audit (what is the zero-cost option?), replay-based weight formula, healthy-pay cap with a written stand-down condition - all before training.
Outcome
The landing term was in fact withdrawn under its clause (v12 records "P5 落地窗口罚已撤 … 维持撤下"), demonstrating the protocol firing as designed instead of the fourth same-type crash.
Mechanism
A penalty's damage mode is mispricing healthy behavior; since the healthy price is measurable in advance on replays, both the weight and the go/no-go decision can be computed rather than discovered by a ruined training run. The withdrawal clause converts "make it work" pressure into a clean deferral.
Applies when
adding any motion-taxing penalty to a working gait
a proposed term's weight has no measurement behind it
a previous same-shaped term crashed training
“权重公式而非拍脑袋:先在 v5/v10b 回放上量 h_gate=0.02 的原始值,w = −(0.10~0.15 × 跟踪奖励) / raw_健康;标定门槛:若健康步态无论如何要付 >15% 跟踪,本项撤下留 v12,不硬上 (v4 clearance/v8a-B/v6a 三次同型翻车的教训:代价为零的"不动"选项 + 一动就收费 = 反向壁垒)。”
train/WALK_V11_SPEC.md § 6. P5 —— 落地窗口罚(三代欠账,标定门槛制)
The walking lines' safety setting, power-scale 0.8, broke the recovery policy's full-range contract - it cut the ends of the joint travel (4/50 could not get up) and left the torque spikes untouched; a kp x 0.9 gain profile inside the trained kp band did the jobpower-derating-cuts-full-range-contract
Observed oncerecoveryreal-deployreal-acceptanceactuator-modelingcontract-freeze
A deployment derating knob means something only relative to the action contract: before reusing a line's "safe setting" on a new skill, check what it does to that skill's reachable range and to the term that makes the spikes, prefer a gain change inside the band the policy was randomized over, verify it in simulation, and re-decide when the contract changes.
Symptom
After the violent first real get-up (2026-08-09), the recovery policy needed a gentler setting for its next hardware test, and the walking and omni lines' standard derating - deploying at power-scale 0.8 - was the obvious candidate.
Context
The V0 recovery contract maps actions to absolute targets over the full joint range: a = +/-1 lands exactly on the URDF limits, and standing puts the knee at the clip. Candidates were compared on R3.1 in MuJoCo (5 categories x 10 seeds) on 2026-08-10 before any hardware time was spent.
Change
A new gain profile, rl_kp090 (kp x 0.9, kd unchanged), recorded in robot.yaml as the recovery hardware-test setting, with power-scale 0.8 explicitly banned for recovery.
Outcome
kp x 0.9: 48/50 got up; median torque demand on hip_pitch/knee fell from 120-125% to 100-104% of the deployment limit; leg-leg contact frames 2,152 -> 1,095; the change sits inside the +/-10% kp randomization the policy trained with. power-scale 0.8: 4/50 could not get up, because under the full-range contract it removes the ends of the travel (the deep squat's tucked legs, the straight standing knee), and the torque spikes (kp x error) did not fall at all. When the line moved to the beta-anchored contract, rl_kp090 was declared a V0-era choice that does not fit (beta is calibrated at kp 30) and deployment returned to rl_default; the deploy switch applies power scaling to the walking side only.
Mechanism
A power scale multiplies the action, which under an absolute full-range mapping shrinks the reachable workspace instead of softening the actuator; the spikes come from the proportional term on large errors, which only a gain change reduces - and a gain change inside the trained randomization band stays in distribution.
Conflicts
The undated operator runbook still carries an R3.1 "B comparison" command at power-scale 0.8 beside the rl_default baseline; the sources do not say whether it was written before the ban or was ever run.
Applies when
reusing a power, torque or action scale from one skill on another
a policy whose actions map to absolute targets over the full joint range
choosing a gentler setting for a first or second hardware trial
“kp×0.9 / kd 不动 —— recovery_r3_1 成功 48/50, τ 需求中位 hip_pitch/knee 120~125% -> 100~104% 部署限, 腿-腿接触 2152 -> 1095 帧; ±10% 在训练 kp DR 带内. ⚠️ power-scale 0.8 对 recovery **禁用**: 全 ROM 契约下 0.8 砍的是行程端点 (深蹲收腿/站直够不到), 实测 4/50 起不来, 且尖峰 (kp·err) 一点不降 —— 它是 walk/omni 的安全档, 不是 recovery 的.”
git:Lucen-recovery@origin/recovery:robot.yaml § gain_profiles 注释: recovery 真机测试安全档 (2026-08-10) / rl_kp090
The restart reward table lists a reason for every term AND a lesson for every exclusion - absent terms are removed, not zero-weightedminimal-reward-table-with-provenance
Mechanism understoodomnireward-shapingreward-shapingprocesscontract-freeze
Maintain the reward table as an evidence ledger: every term cites the episode that justifies it, every excluded term cites the episode that convicted it (including the development stage it is valid at), and retired terms are deleted from the config, never left at weight zero.
Symptom
Seven walk generations had accumulated an entangled reward table where nobody could say which term earned its place; the restart needed a table that could be audited line by line.
Context
The minimal table v2 was built under three written principles: "一项管一件事、结构性反抬脚的项一个不留、塑形只留一套相位逻辑;不在表里的一律不加" (one term per job; zero structurally-anti-lift terms; exactly one phase-shaping logic; nothing outside the table gets added). Every row carries its provenance (e.g. base_height target = standing height cites the v4 crouch lesson; split x/y tracking cites the merged-exp gradient hole; world-frame yaw cites the v1/v3 body-frame lesson). Every EXCLUSION carries its same-type precedent: feet_landing_vel out because it is poison while the gait is unformed (drag pays 0, lifting pays - the v4-clearance / v8a-B "reverse threshold" family) though it was fine in v7 when the gait already existed - term validity depends on developmental stage; feet_air_time out with its measured non-lever evidence (v6 had it at 2.0 and still lifted 4 mm); and replaced terms are REMOVED from the config ("置 None,不是权重 0 挂着") so audits see truth, not dormant weight.
Change
Reward table rebuilt as ~20 rows each with weight + provenance column; exclusion list maintained alongside with the falsifying episode for each; dormant terms deleted rather than zeroed.
Outcome
Later revisions (S1.2/S1.3) modified the table by citing and updating specific rows' evidence rather than re-arguing the whole design; the table doubled as the lineage's reward-lesson index.
Mechanism
A reward table is a set of standing hypotheses; attaching each row's evidence makes revisions targeted and reversible, and recording why a term is absent prevents the cycle of re-adding known poisons. Deleting vs zero-weighting matters because config audits and DR interactions see the term either way - a zero-weight term is dormant complexity waiting to be flipped on wrongly.
Applies when
designing a reward table for a restart or new task
someone proposes re-adding a previously removed term
auditing which reward rows still earn their place
“原则:一项管一件事、结构性反抬脚的项一个不留、塑形只留一套相位逻辑;不在表里的一律不加 … feet_landing_vel(评审 #4):拖地时代价恒 0、抬脚才收费——与 v4-clearance/v8a-B 同属「反抬脚门槛」家族,步态未成形时是毒;v7④ 加它时步态已存在。… 已从 cfg 移除(置 None),不是权重 0 挂着。”
train/OMNI_V0_SPEC.md § 3. 最小奖励表 v2 / 明确不带
Pre-register the ladder's risks and how each future result will be read - before trainingpreregister-risks-and-fork-readings
Replicatedomniprocessprocess
Before a training ladder or risky rung, write the risks, the stop rules, and how every plausible outcome will be interpreted - then do not edit them after seeing results.
Symptom
Without pre-registration, ladder results get rationalized after the fact; the team had already seen post-hoc reads go wrong and adopted written pre-commitment.
Context
The C-ladder execution sheet opens with three numbered pre-registered risks: (1) S2 plant robustness will not carry into omni - a full S2 redo is budgeted from the start; (2) the s1e recipe has a collapse valley at iter 1500+ (recorded twice), so every rung runs a watch_ckpt --every 100 smoke loop with stop-on-degradation; (3) the root's OOD survival edge may partly be "it is slower / commits less" - with the reading fixed in advance: if C1 training raises tracking while survival drops, the edge was bought with slowness, and root selection reopens. Later rungs went further, pre-registering a full result-to-conclusion table for the A/B arms ("预注册读法（事后不改）") and even pre-registering the author's own doubt that a level would fail and what its failure would prove.
Change
Standing practice: before each rung, write down (a) known risks with their mitigations, (b) the interpretation of each possible outcome, (c) stop criteria - all frozen before the run starts ("开训前写死，事后不许改").
Outcome
When arm-A/arm-B and redo results arrived, conclusions were read off the pre-registered table instead of argued; a predicted-likely-FAIL level (C4-redo3) was still run because its pre-registered value was eliminating the regularization hypothesis - which it did.
Mechanism
Pre-commitment converts each training run into a decisive experiment: outcomes falsify or confirm named hypotheses instead of being absorbed into a story; it also makes negative results valuable (a FAIL that eliminates a hypothesis advances the search).
Applies when
launching a multi-rung training ladder
running an A/B fork whose outcome will drive a fork/root decision
a rung is expected to fail but is run for its diagnostic value
“三条预注册风险 … 若 C1 训后跟踪提上去而存活掉下来，说明这条优势是速度买的、不是通用性 → 那时重开选根。”
train/C_LADDER_RUN.md § 0. 三条预注册风险
A joint frozen at the action clamp pays zero action_rate forever - penalize pre-clip saturation to make the cheat cost moneysaturation-cheating-zero-rate-cost
Mechanism understoodwalkreward-shapingreward-shapingaction-rategate-battery
Whenever actions are clipped and any smoothness/rate penalty exists, add a pre-clip saturation penalty so living at the clamp costs more than oscillating - and audit for frozen-at-clamp joints (action std ~0, |a| at exactly the clip value) as a standing acceptance row.
Symptom
With action_rate_l2 raised to -0.2, walk_v7's hip_pitch actions froze at exactly +/-1.000 (the clamp), reproduced bit-for-bit on hardware (splits frozen at +/-0.35 rad); the gait-shaping term joint_pos_ref collapsed to 0.026-0.035. The repo had died in the same trap once before (walk_v0: four joints pinned at +/-1.0).
Context
Mechanism: a joint pinned at the clamp has action-rate cost exactly zero and forever zero - under a strong smoothness tax, "push to the clamp and freeze" becomes the dominant optimum. Lowering the weight (-0.2 -> -0.1) only reduces temptation; the frozen state still costs nothing, so the structural fix adds action_saturation = sum(relu( |a_raw| - 0.9)) at weight -1.0, computed on the PRE-clip network output - post-clip, |a|=1.01 and |a|=3 punish identically and the out-of-range gradient dies (v0's old disease: mean |a| 1.71 soaked in saturation). Economics: freezing at |a|=1.0 now pays 0.1/joint/step (two hips = 40% of alive) vs ~0.0004/step for the healthy reference oscillation - the cheat flips from free to ~250x negative. Honest limits were recorded: A1 does not forbid freezing at 0.89 (the anti-freeze pressure must come from the oscillation demand of joint_pos_ref), and the alternative "rate on post-clip target" was rejected as 换汤不换药 - a pinned target also has zero rate.
Change
v8-A: add action_saturation (-1.0, thresh 0.9, pre-clip) AND halve action_rate_l2 (-0.2 -> -0.1, still 3.3x the v5 value); success criterion pre-declared (joint_pos_ref telemetry returns to v6 scale).
Outcome
Booked as the structural repair of the v7 freeze; also fixed a config hygiene trap discovered on the way - action_rate was assigned twice in __post_init__ (v5 comment line then v7 line), merged to one assignment "别再留两处赋值给下次审计埋雷".
Mechanism
Clipping creates a zero-gradient, zero-cost absorbing region in action space; any penalty on action derivatives makes that region strictly optimal once entered. Only a penalty on clamp proximity itself (measured pre-clip so depth of violation is visible) restores a slope out of the absorbing region.
Applies when
joints sit at exactly the action clip with near-zero variance
raising a smoothness penalty degrades gait amplitude
shaped-oscillation terms collapse after a rate-weight increase
“钉死在钳位的关节 action_rate 代价精确为零且永远为零;−0.2 之下"推到钳位冻起来"成了压倒性最优 … 本仓第二次栽在同一坑(walk_v0 死于四关节钉死 ±1.0)。回调权重(−0.2→−0.1)只降低诱惑不消除作弊 … 算在 clip 前的原始网络输出上 … 作弊收支从"白赚"变成"倒贴 ~250 倍"。”
train/WALK_V8_SPEC.md § 1. 改动 A — 治饱和作弊