Measured on S71's own wave: wall-clock tracks iteration count, and iteration count
tracks the residual class, not size. A 26-instruction function took 18 min / 31 tool
calls (regalloc, finished NEAR); a 122-instruction one took 80 s / 10. The 20-33 min
runs were all compiler-internal residuals — scheduling ties, birthing boost, register
colouring, LUID order — where every hypothesis costs a compile-and-measure cycle.
arm_for keys on nins alone, so a 47-instruction regalloc wall could not be drawn at
the higher tier and nothing escalates mid-run. arm_from_history() now reads the
function's own journal notes at draw time and returns fable when they name one of
those classes; it never downgrades the size ladder's choice.
R39 control over 3,147 functions with history x 3 bands = 9,441 decisions:
4,020 upgrades (43%), 0 downgrades.
The control's FIRST form passed over an empty set — it keyed on journal rows carrying
a binary, and there are none: the agent verdict schema never had that field, so every
historical note is name-keyed and the same name is a different function in another
overlay (§238). claude_wave_draft.js's VERDICT now requires `binary`, so new rows are
exact. Cookbook §413.
Drew T