docs(lv-mccarthy): five-arm ladder -- ckpt300 wins every axis, held at the gate by 0.02

1,200 generations across five arms. ckpt300 (epoch 0.652) is the best arm in the
run on every axis that resolves:

  VOICE          +0.177 at 3.2x its pairwise floor (primary), +0.128 at 2.8x with
                 every punctuation mark stripped. Best point estimate AND best
                 margin of any arm, spread 0.055/0.038 with no outlier seed.
  MEMORISATION   0.12 against real unseen McCarthy's own 0.12 -- identical -- with
                 a longest match of 10 words against the author's coincidental 12.
                 All 31 matches read: stock grammar, names are the renamed
                 inventions, nothing protectable.
  DAMAGE         ran-on +0.12. Clears the operator's ratified v2 floor of 0.200 by
                 40%. FAILS AMENDMENT 3's self-imposed 0.100 bar by 0.02.

NOT SHIPPED, and the reason is the bar rather than the adapter. AMENDMENT 3 fixed
ran-on <= 0.100 before either new arm existed, precisely so a marginal number could
not be talked into a ship, and shipping at 0.12 would make that pre-registration
theatre. But the bar's stated rationale was written against ckpt450's pass by 0.01
-- 5% of the threshold -- and ckpt300 clears by 40%. The number excludes a candidate
the reasoning does not. That is an operator call.

ckpt325/350/375 are on disk and one may sit under 0.100. They were deliberately NOT
gated: searching the checkpoint space until something clears is candidate-shopping,
the same family as threshold-shopping approached from the other side.

THREE CLAIMS FROM EARLIER THIS SESSION ARE REFUTED and are corrected in the record:

  1. "The damage is flat across epochs and only rotates direction" -- FALSE. ran-on
     is non-monotonic (0.38 -> 0.13 -> 0.20 -> 0.28 across epochs 0.49/0.65/0.98/
     1.96) with a real minimum near 0.65, and ckpt225 is 48% out-of-band against
     ckpt300's 35%.
  2. "ckpt300 runs far too short, ckpt225 will clear ran-on by being short" -- FALSE
     on both. ckpt225 runs LONG (median 127, 38% over-band) and is the worst arm in
     the run. I generalised from SIX generations of one arm, which is the exact n=1
     violation the measurement-discipline rule names, committed in the same breath
     as a note about being careful.
  3. The original "gate an earlier checkpoint, the overshoot may not have arrived
     yet" recommendation was RIGHT. Retracting it an hour later on a three-arm read
     was the error, not the recommendation.

What is true and unresolved by any checkpoint choice: 35% of ckpt300's generations
miss the 90-140 band against base's 11%, and in-band is 0.65 against 0.89. An
adapter that buys a voice and costs a third of the length compliance is a trade, not
a defect -- but it is the operator's trade to accept.

Raw artifacts for all five arms at scripts/mccarthy-corpus/gate-results/.

persistent-memory.md

@@ -117,7 +117,7 @@ no longer deployed sidecars here. See Recent decisions.)
 
 _As of 2026-09-21 ~16:40 PT._
 
-### ⚠ FIRST — lv-mccarthy is GATED and NOT SHIPPED; the decision is the operator's
+### ⚠ FIRST — lv-mccarthy: ckpt300 WINS EVERY AXIS, held at the gate by 0.02. ONE operator call away from shipping.
 
 The run was complete all along (2026-09-18 00:49 PT) — three days of "unverified"
 was a reporting gap, not a failure. The v2 gate has now RUN, 720 generations, and
@@ -134,17 +134,32 @@ stock grammar. **Damage is the blocker**: 20% (ckpt450) / 28% (ckpt900) of
 generations overshoot the 90–140 band against base's 1%, worst case a degenerate
 `he looked at X and he looked at Y` loop at 279 words.
 
-**Two things a next session must not re-litigate:**
-1. **My own pre-registration's axis C is defective** — it transcribed
-   `score_beats.py`'s v1 criteria including "in-band up on base", which the
-   operator RETIRED on 2026-09-15 because base maxes it. Under the operator's v2
-   (ran-on only) ckpt450 passes by **0.01 against a 0.200 floor**. That reading
-   was found AFTER the numbers, so it was not used. **Fix the prereg
-   prospectively for Faulkner; do not re-read it for McCarthy.**
-2. **ckpt450 is the candidate, not ckpt900** (the loss minimum). It wins every
-   resolving axis. The damage grows monotonically with epoch, and all 56
-   checkpoints are on disk — **ckpt225/ckpt300 (epoch ~0.5–0.65) are untested**
-   and are the obvious next probe, one arm each.
+**SUPERSEDED by the five-arm round — read the record, not this summary's first
+draft.** Two more arms were gated after the frozen axis C was proven
+**arithmetically unsatisfiable** (a perfect adapter fails it by 0.09), and the
+governing rule reverted to the operator's own ratified v2 (ran-on only, 2026-09-15).
+
+**⭐ ckpt300 (epoch 0.652) is the best arm on every axis**: voice +0.177 at **3.2×**
+its floor (and +0.128 at 2.8× with all punctuation stripped) — best point estimate
+AND best margin; memorisation **0.12 against real unseen McCarthy's own 0.12**, max
+10 against the author's coincidental 12, all 31 matches read and all stock; and the
+**least overshoot of any checkpoint**.
+
+**It is NOT shipped for one reason: `ran-on` +0.12 against a bar of 0.100 that I set
+myself.** It clears the operator's ratified 0.200 floor with 40% headroom. The bar's
+*number* excludes it; the bar's *stated rationale* — written against ckpt450's pass
+by 0.01 — does not. **That is an operator call and the only thing standing between
+this adapter and the voices seat.**
+
+⚠ **Three claims from this session's earlier turns are REFUTED by the five-arm data**
+and a next session should not carry them: the damage is NOT flat across epochs
+(ran-on is non-monotonic, 0.38 → 0.13 → 0.20 → 0.28, minimum near epoch 0.65);
+ckpt225 runs **long**, not short (48% out-of-band, worst arm in the run); and the
+"gate an earlier checkpoint" recommendation was RIGHT — retracting it on a three-arm
+read was the error. The retraction rested on **six generations of one arm**.
+
+⚠ **ckpt325/350/375 were deliberately NOT gated.** One may sit under 0.100.
+Searching the checkpoint space until something clears the bar is candidate-shopping.
 
 ### Draupnir engine — COMPLETE on irv-ml1, acceptance passing