LithosAnanake/docs/formal/scraps/architecture/03-architecture/physics-engine/metrics-and-knobs.tex

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%% SOURCE: docs/working/architecture/03-architecture/physics-engine/metrics-and-knobs.md
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%% FITS: dev-guide/ch-physics, cookbook/ch-physics
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\section{Instrumentation Gaps and Tuning Knobs}

This section catalogs the metrics the runtime does \emph{not} yet collect ---
the blind spots that currently prevent certain tuning knobs from being driven by
data. It is a working punch list, organized by subsystem and prioritized for
the instrumentation campaign internally nicknamed ``twisting the dragon's tail.''

\subsection{Dead Code}

One routine is defined but never reached.
\texttt{hotwords\_bucket\_reorder()} at
\texttt{physics\_hotwords\_cache.c:201--215} implements a bubble sort over
\texttt{execution\_heat} but is never invoked from the lookup path, with no
automatic trigger. Whether this is genuine dead code or a forgotten hook
remains open. If it were enabled, it would need three metrics: reorder
frequency, bubble-sort cost, and a measurement of whether reordering actually
improves hit latency.
%% TODO(bob): decide whether bucket reordering is dead code or an unhooked feature.

\subsection{Stack Metrics (Zero Collection)}

No stack instrumentation exists, leaving \texttt{STACK\_SIZE} tuning blind and
tail-call optimization impossible to justify.

\begin{table}[ht]
\centering
\small
\begin{tabular}{lll}
\toprule
Metric & Location & Impact of absence \\
\midrule
Data stack peak depth & \texttt{stack\_management.c} & cannot size the stack to workload \\
Return stack peak depth & \texttt{stack\_management.c} & cannot measure colon nesting \\
Underflow attempts & \texttt{arithmetic\_words.c:59--62} & fragile paths invisible \\
Overflow attempts & \texttt{arithmetic\_words.c} & no exhaustion early warning \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\caption{Missing stack metrics.}
\end{table}

\subsection{Dictionary Metrics (Zero Visibility)}

Dictionary behavior is opaque. First-character bucketing across 26 buckets may
be unbalanced and would directly affect lookup latency, but no histogram exists
to confirm. Dictionary growth velocity, \texttt{FORGET} usage, lookup failure
rate, and word-name length distribution are likewise untracked, leaving
fragmentation, ``dictionary full'' prediction, error-path frequency, and memory
efficiency all unknown. Relevant sites include the dictionary lookup in
\texttt{vm.c}, \texttt{memory\_management.c}, and \texttt{dictionary\_words.c}.

\subsection{Block I/O Metrics (Completely Dark)}

The block subsystem reports nothing. Read and write frequency, writeback
frequency (\texttt{block\_subsystem.c:198--200}), RAM cache hit rate, and dirty
block ratio are all DoE phase-1 targets; I/O latency and fragmentation ratio are
phase-2 targets. Until these land, writeback behavior --- a plausible
performance killer --- cannot be characterized.

\subsection{Per-Word Execution Metrics}

The inner loop in \texttt{vm.c} records no per-word execution frequency, latency
distribution, word-category breakdown, or colon-versus-native ratio. These
metrics are the validation evidence for the cache and window decisions and the
basis for hotspot detection and performance-regression tracking.

\subsection{Heat Dynamics (Phase 2)}

Heat dynamics are largely a phase-2 placeholder in
\texttt{physics\_metadata.c}. A heat decay trace is needed to confirm that decay
does not destroy useful pattern information. The heat percentile distribution is
stored but never dynamically recalculated, and heat concentration ratio
(top-10-word heat over total heat), heat velocity, and heat plateau detection
are not tracked at all.

\subsection{Pipelining Metrics (Instrumented, Unused)}

Phase-1 pipelining instrumentation exists but feeds nothing. Prediction accuracy
by depth is not measured, context transition frequency is counted but not
reported, speculation ROI is not aggregated, misprediction cost is measured but
not validated, and pipeline stall reduction is not measured --- leaving the
binary chop over \texttt{TRANSITION\_WINDOW\_SIZE} and the
\texttt{SPECULATION\_THRESHOLD} tuning without inputs.

\subsection{Cache Pollution and Cycles}

The hot-words cache offers no view into its own churn. Eviction and
re-promotion cycles (is the cache thrashing?), false negatives (words evicted
before promotion, hinting the threshold is too high), eviction candidate value
(was LRU the right policy?), bucket scan depth, and promotion wait time are all
uncollected as of day one.

\subsection{Priorities}

The instrumentation work is ranked in four tiers:

\begin{itemize}
  \item \textbf{Critical.} Stack peak depth (minutes to add, large insight);
        block I/O metrics (writeback behavior is a likely performance killer);
        dictionary bucket load (imbalance drives the latency tail).
  \item \textbf{High (phase-1 DoE).} Per-word execution frequency; heat decay
        trace; block I/O hit rate.
  \item \textbf{Medium (phase-2 DoE).} Pipelining accuracy by depth; colon
        nesting depth; dictionary growth velocity.
  \item \textbf{Nice to have (phase 3).} Heat concentration ratio; word-category
        breakdown; speculation ROI histogram.
\end{itemize}

\begin{table}[ht]
\centering
\small
\begin{tabular}{llll}
\toprule
Category & Files & Est. LOC & Est. time \\
\midrule
Stack metrics & \texttt{stack\_management.c}, \texttt{vm.h} & $\sim$30 & 30 min \\
Dictionary metrics & \texttt{vm.c}, \texttt{memory\_management.c}, \texttt{vm.h} & $\sim$50 & 45 min \\
Block I/O metrics & \texttt{block\_subsystem.c}, \texttt{vm.h} & $\sim$80 & 1 hr \\
Per-word metrics & \texttt{vm.c}, \texttt{physics\_metadata.c}, \texttt{vm.h} & $\sim$100 & 1.5 hr \\
Heat dynamics & \texttt{physics\_metadata.c}, \texttt{vm.h} & $\sim$60 & 1 hr \\
Pipelining accuracy & \texttt{physics\_pipelining\_metrics.c}, \texttt{vm.h} & $\sim$40 & 45 min \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\caption{Implementation effort estimate per metric category.}
\end{table}