2026-08-21 - Run conditions and the discount on the headline (D181)

A verdict compared two traces without knowing whether they were comparable. Two settings break the comparison and both are one line of TOML: the wall-clock --limit, which means a faster machine reaches further on the same build, and default_return = "ok", which makes every unimplemented function claim success.

The second is a reward hack one line wide. Every number improves at once - the guest stops checking, runs on, reaches imports it never reached - and nothing has been implemented. Anything steering by a call count finds it within a few iterations, not from malice but because it is the cheapest change with the biggest effect.

Recorded rather than forbidden. Answering ok everywhere is a legitimate bisection technique and principle 5 exists to keep that loop cheap; what makes it a hack is doing it unlabelled. Conditions rides on the trace and compare() reports what changed underneath a verdict instead of refusing to render one - the numbers are real, they just are not evidence about the emulator. Build is recorded and deliberately not compared: it would fire on every release and drown the two that matter.

Every run also prints what it stands on now - 787 of 933 calls answered by an implementation, 15% on stubs. A call count is progress only to the extent something real answered.

Demonstrated rather than argued. Same title, same build, one line changed: same / nothing moved became FURTHER / reached imports it could not reach before, with the caveat printed directly under the verdict. The hack still works; it can no longer be read without being told.