memory: snapshot — overnight arc pushed; operator ruled the +1.7% PPL an acceptable trade (settled)

persistent-memory.md

@@ -109,7 +109,7 @@ no longer deployed sidecars here. See Recent decisions.)
 
 ## Current state / in-flight
 
-_As of 2026-08-15 — **GEN SEAT REQUANTED (mixed NVFP4+FP8, +18% decode) and the char-rp tool-call parser FIXED.** Both were the two open items from the prior session; both are closed, verified, and committed. Nothing queued behind them._
+_As of 2026-08-15 — **GEN SEAT REQUANTED (mixed NVFP4+FP8, +18% decode / prefill ~2×) and the char-rp tool-call parser FIXED.** Both were the two open items from the prior session; both closed, verified, committed, and **PUSHED**. Operator ruled the +1.7% PPL cost acceptable — settled, don't re-litigate. Nothing queued behind them._
 
 - **✅ UNCENSORED GEN SEAT — DONE + LIVE (2026-08-15).** `gen-seat`/`vllm-gen` on ana-ml2 GPU0 `:8015` serves **`qwen3.8-27b-uncensored`** (JonathanColetti/Qwen3.8-27B-Uncensored, Heretic-abliterated, in-house NVFP4 **W4A16** compressed-tensors + grafted bf16 MTP, vision-intact, **262K** ctx, MTP n=3 ~42% accept / ~68 tok/s). Replaced the qwen3.6-35b-a3b-heretic MoE (which had briefly replaced granite/AEON). All 7 aliases repointed live + verified; compose renamed qwen36-27b-aeon→gen-seat, vllm-aeon-gen→vllm-gen, AEON_GEN_*→GEN_*, dead RP service dropped; repo mirrored + docs/memory refreshed; committed eshpfi `680c30e` + dotfiles `1d1970f`. Full arc + the definitive `re:^mtp.*`-ignore fix → Recent decisions `[2026-08-15]` + `persistent-memory.d/2026-08-15-uncensored-gen-seat.md`.
 
@@ -127,10 +127,12 @@ _As of 2026-08-15 — **GEN SEAT REQUANTED (mixed NVFP4+FP8, +18% decode) and th
 
 - **althing monitor** ARMED (handle `infra-ops`). ⚠️ Re-arm ONLY after a real FIRE (rc0), NEVER after a plain operator turn (bounces rc3); spawn `althing-cli monitor` / `althing-wake-listener` as its OWN `run_in_background` task, never chained with `&`.
 
-- **eshpfi push state:** `origin/main` behind — unpushed: `74f596b` (gen-seat mixed requant) + `b8f0f4c` (char-rp tool parser) from the overnight session, `680c30e` (gen-seat), plus the earlier eRP dual-seat arc (`f08b6cb`/`7bd7375`), wgtunnel mirror (`398b58a`), dots.tts + secrets-broker arcs. Dotfiles: `1d1970f` (roster) + `6425cc6` (statusline bell) unpushed. **Push = operator's call.** `graphify-out/GRAPH_REPORT.md` churns every commit (ignore); `stacks/heretic2-charrp-reasoning/` UNTRACKED (pre-existing, superseded).
+- **eshpfi push state: IN SYNC.** `origin/main` == `main` at `930197a` (2026-08-15) — the 38-commit backlog (gen-seat requant, char-rp tool parser, eRP dual-seat, wgtunnel mirror, dots.tts + secrets-broker arcs) is all pushed. ⚠ **Push over the INTERNAL gitea route** — `git push ssh://git@10.250.50.70:222/vh/esh-pfi-infrastructure.git main:main`; `origin` resolves `gitea.phasefinal.com`→38.120.12.44 (the public edge), which fail2bans fleet-host egress. Dotfiles `1d1970f` + `6425cc6` still unpushed (separate repo). `graphify-out/GRAPH_REPORT.md` churns every commit (ignore); `stacks/heretic2-charrp-reasoning/` UNTRACKED (pre-existing, superseded).
 
 ## Recent decisions
 
+- `[2026-08-15]` **Operator ruling: the gen seat's +1.7% perplexity is an acceptable price for the speed — SETTLED, don't re-litigate.** Precise attribution for future reasoning: it is the **activation-quantization** cost (W4A4 MLPs + FP8 attention vs BF16 activations), not an MTP cost — PPL was measured with speculative decoding **off** on both builds, so MTP was not in the loop. Turning MTP off would not recover it; only reverting the quant would (rollback = one `.env` line, old build intact at `…/qwen38-27b-uncensored-nvfp4`).
+
 - `[2026-08-15]` **gen seat requanted to mixed NVFP4+FP8 (+18% decode) + char-rp Gemma-4 tool-calling fixed.** The queued "W4A8" (NVFP4 weights + FP8 activations) is **not servable** — vLLM 0.24 allows NVFP4 weights with only A16 or A4; FP8 activations ValueError at load, and `CompressedTensorsW4A8Fp8` is INT4-weights + sm90-exact (closed on Blackwell twice). FP8 must enter **per-layer-group**. Also: the handoff's "~68 tok/s" baseline didn't reproduce — cache-busted, the incumbent already did **80.12** (≈ the stated W4A8 target), so the premise needed re-measuring before any work. Shortcut: `unsloth/Qwen3.8-27B-NVFP4` was already on-box → served as a probe, measured **+19.1% at identical acceptance**, which both proved the gain was real and handed over the reference recipe. Replicated it on the abliterated weights → **80.12→94.53 tok/s, acceptance unchanged, +1.7% PPL, abliteration 4/4, weights −19%**; surface 6/6 live, 7 aliases routing. char-rp had **no** tool parser at all (every tools request 400'd) → `gemma4` tool + reasoning parser + a **mandatory** `enable_thinking:false` (the parser defaults it True → null `content` for all RP prose; proven byte-identical prompt before deploying). Commits `b8f0f4c`, `74f596b`. Foot-guns banked (llm-compressor prunes unmatched `ignore` entries → the 0%-MTP bug, **fired on this run**; prompt_logprobs uniform under spec-decode; 0600 `.env` silently no-ops compose; GPU0 is zero-sum). → `persistent-memory.d/2026-08-15-gen-seat-mixed-requant.md`
 
 - `[2026-08-15]` **Uncensored gen seat: JonathanColetti/Qwen3.8-27B-Uncensored deployed as `gen-seat`/`vllm-gen` (NVFP4 W4A16 + grafted MTP, 262K); 7 aliases repointed; the definitive `re:^mtp.*`-ignore fix.** 0%-MTP-on-quant (twice) was NOT the abliteration/scheme — the grafted bf16 MTP was missing from `quantization_config.ignore` (vLLM loaded it as quantized → uninitialized). Full arc, the working pipeline, VRAM budget, unsloth speed decomposition, modelopt dead-end. → `persistent-memory.d/2026-08-15-uncensored-gen-seat.md`