Replace the out=128 / scale=0.5 ablation substrate with a paper-faithful one:
- Use the trace's real output_length (drop completion_tokens_override=128). The
0-8k chat window has p50=531 / p99=2436 / max=35168 output tokens, so decode
(TPOT) becomes the dominant bottleneck instead of an artificial 128-token cap.
- replay_time_scale=0.8775, chosen by criterion-A: binary-search the smallest
scale whose A-family L-C-A similarity to the real (scale=1.0) arrivals stays
>= tau (0.90). The old scale=0.5 had sim_A=0.56, distorting the arrival axis
far below the tau bar used everywhere else. New calibrator:
scripts/calibrate_time_scale.py.
- Per-probe Stop-A-consistent drain deadline (worker._probe_drain_deadline): the
wall-clock a *feasible* config needs to drain the LCA-admitted set
(last_arrival + worst-case TTFT + p99_out * TPOT budget + margin). With real
outputs decode dominates wall-clock, so the old fixed 320s cap would truncate
the Stop-A offered window mid-decode. early_stop_max_elapsed_s (1000s) is now a
hard ceiling; the per-probe deadline governs. The lag cap still cuts overload.
12-iter paired driver (both arms on dash1, removes the dash0/dash1 host confound):
scripts/run_ablation_pair_d1.sh. 115 tests pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Gahow Wang
0c23285f39