33. Training

In plain words: Design rule 33: Model training

Designed 6 min read 17 glossary terms 16 connected pages
The short version written for the Snayu team

Defines the Model Trainer (Soulforge): only explicitly admitted data can become a training corpus, training runs in isolation, and the resulting model must pass independent evaluation and an explicit promotion decision before serving.

Why read it: Read this before building fine-tuning, dataset collection or model promotion features.
  1. 1Runtime traces are never harvested for training by default; corpus admission is explicit.
  2. 2Training never changes serving weights in place; trainer loss is not promotion evidence.
  3. 3Adapters need exact base-model compatibility, and rollback must stay possible.

Designed No training package, corpus service or trainer exists.

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Context

Retained material can shape later acts through ContextBriefing Pack and RecallMemory Seed; training changes model parameters. SoulforgeModel Trainer governs which nominated evidence may enter that training, how a candidate is formed, and what must reach independent judgment. A useful trace still needs corpus admission; trainer loss cannot authorize promotion; an adapter needs exact base-model compatibility. The Soulforge guide follows the passage from corpus admission to candidate handoff.

Decision

SoulforgeModel Trainer carries admitted material from corpus admission and dataset compilation into a training-job contract, candidate lineage, and handoff for independent evaluation/promotion. It must never harvest runtime traces by default or treat KarmaLessons Learned, consent, repetition, or a positive DriftEvaluator verdict as corpus admission. It cannot mutate serving weights in place, use trainer telemetry as promotion evidence, select production routing, or turn Trial SuiteApp Bundle feedback into gradients or automatic repair.

nominated evidence → admitted immutable corpus → compiled dataset + sealed holdout
→ isolated Training Run → frozen Candidate Bundle → independent Drift evaluation
→ explicit promotion decision → versioned serving observation

Every arrow is attributable and may refuse; there is no ambient online self-training.

Delivery boundary

SoulforgeModel Trainer is Designed. No training package, corpus service, compiler, trainer plane, candidate registry, evaluation integration, or AltarControl Panel route is installed. The karma table is not a corpus. State of Work owns delivery.

Training discernment from work

The discernment training passage applies this law to nominated SDLC traces and human corrections. Preserve the distinction that changed a decision, its evidence and conditions, and a counterexample to the superficial rule. Preference, fact, authorization, measured result and evaluator judgment remain distinguishable. First test whether ContextBriefing Pack or a versioned procedural correction solves the limitation; changing weights requires a separate objective and transfer claim. Meeting capture, retained history, accepted work and evaluation consent do not imply training admission. The passage participates in Ouroboros through settled records, with no ambient harvesting or self-certified promotion.

Records

Record Required content
Training IntentRequest Pins Principal, purpose, target capability, base digest, allowed data classes, resources, and promotion authority.
Corpus Admission Freezes members and exclusions, provenance, transforms, privacy, consent/license, splits, objective, and approval.
Dataset Manifest Pins examples, lineage groups, split digests, compiler, schema, statistics, and contamination checks.
Recipe Pins trainer, dependencies, method, hyperparameters, randomness, precision, budgets, stops, and expected change.
Training RunJob Record Pins exact inputs, environment, resources, logs, checkpoints, terminal state, and artifact digests.
Candidate Bundle Binds base, candidate bytes, tokenizer and configuration changes, corpus/Recipe lineage, receipt, and compatibility.
Promotion Decision Binds independent evidence, capability envelope, serving constraints, approver, rollout, rollback, and retirement.

Names never replace digests. Every repeated execution receives a new Training RunJob Record identity and receipt. Reproducibility must be proved by the execution contract; matching inputs or candidate bytes cannot substitute for the later RunJob Record’s own lineage.

Corpus admission

DriftEvaluator Cases/Outcomes, MirrorPersona Keeper attribution, HitLApproval Step decisions, ArchiveLong-term Memory rows, success, refusal, repetition, storage consent, and database access may nominate material; none grants training rights. Before trainer access, admission proves:

  • source, RunJob Record, artifact, producer, time, and transform lineage;
  • exact purpose, subject, derivative and retention use, and approving Principal;
  • training-specific consent, license, or authority;
  • privacy minimization and retained redaction limits;
  • target relevance and label quality;
  • lineage-aware grouping of duplicates, revisions, sibling trajectories, and generated variants;
  • immutable train, development, and sealed-holdout splits;
  • base target, learning signal, unacceptable change, expected lift, regression limits, and stops.

The sealed holdout is fixed before training-facing generation and withheld from trainer, augmentation, selection, and model judges used to tune. A negative ledger retains rejected, redacted, and duplicate ids so retry/compiler cannot restore them. Missing provenance, authority, privacy clearance/minimization, relevance, safe split, or uncontaminated holdout blocks admission. Runtime data is opt-in: completion is not quality, and a blocked/refused RunJob Record can be useful if objective and evidence support it. Redaction never erases source influence; privatization labels and lineage remain attached through any narrower disclosure separately admitted by Security.

Dataset compilation

Dataset compilation begins from one admitted corpus snapshot and produces an immutable Dataset Manifest. Every resulting field must trace to a source or versioned deterministic transform. The compiler preserves:

  • role, tool, workflow and authority context;
  • the distinction between observations, human labels, evaluator judgments and augmentations;
  • truthful non-completion and split or lineage-group membership;
  • filtering, redaction, truncation, normalization and sampling decisions; and
  • audit statistics for balance, concentration, length, duplication and exclusion.

Schema-valid generation still requires evidence for its claims. Holdout answers, benchmark solutions, evaluator rationales and downstream targets must remain outside prompts, retrieval, augmentation, preference construction, trainer metadata and selection. A benchmark used to choose the corpus must be disclosed and needs an untouched control before it can support independent promotion. Only the admitted Manifest crosses to training.

Training execution

The execution boundary receives one immutable Manifest, the exact base-model, tokenizer and configuration digests, the Training IntentRequest and Recipe, admitted secrets and network access, and fresh Run-owned output locations. Its resource request names exact accelerators, memory, storage, network and duration requirements together with the declared conflict domains it may affect. OrchestratorStage Manager resolves the affected set and owns readiness, affected-lease drain, conflict resolution and restoration. Corpus meaning and trainer success remain with their owners. Training has no universal priority: unused devices stay undisturbed, and policy may postpone or refuse the request.

Filesystem, credential, network, process and resource controls must enforce the execution boundary and leave receipts. A container or CovenModel Group label alone establishes none of these controls. Local work has no privacy exemption. Remote work additionally records egress, provider custody and retention, secret and network handling, returned artifacts and receipts. The trainer receives no authority to enlarge its corpus with live traces, replace serving, widen resources or promote its own result.

LoRA, QLoRA, full tuning, preference optimization, distillation and later methods remain replaceable Recipe ports. Each adapter pins its base digest and runtime compatibility.

Failure or cancellation preserves terminal truth, logs, checkpoints and quarantined partials for diagnosis. A completed checkpoint may be evaluated only as pinned candidate material through the same independent handoff; it never becomes serving state by surviving the job. A partial is never a Candidate Bundle. Retrying creates a new Training RunJob Record and receipt.

Independent evaluation

A frozen Bundle enters Drift as an exact, immutable subject. DriftEvaluator may neither alter the candidate nor change its corpus, Recipe or lineage. Its evidence must include:

  • the sealed target holdout and matched Outcomes from the base or currently promoted baseline;
  • named regression Trial SuitesApp Bundles and adversarial or authority-boundary Cases; and
  • quality, latency, memory and cost measured in a compatible serving Environment.

Errors, exclusions, uncertainty and evaluator calibration accompany those results. Loss, development improvement, trainer-authored examples and self-grading remain diagnostics. A visible Trial SuiteApp Bundle establishes only the capability and safety claims its Environment can support.

Promotion, serving, and rollback

A passing DriftEvaluator result makes the candidate eligible for a promotion decision. Owning policy and MagusYou, the Operator/HitLApproval Step still decide whether to promote. That decision binds the exact Bundle and Outcomes, admitted capabilities and denied uses, compatible engine and base relation, rollout observations and stops, fallback and rollback, and retention, quarantine, and retirement rules.

DispatcherTraffic Controller consumes a registered capability; files alone cannot create one. Revisions remain immutable, and supersession requires a new Bundle and decision. Rollback routes new work to an earlier digest and quarantines the suspect candidate while preserving completed effects.

A later privacy, authority, license, contamination or leakage failure must be traced through the exact Dataset, RunJob Record, Bundle, claims and promotion descendants. Policy may block serving or reuse, quarantine or delete controlled artifacts, invalidate affected claims, and require clean admission and rebuilding. Source deletion cannot untrain produced weights.

Retrieval remains appropriate for current, mutable, attributable knowledge. Exporting all history to a provider, or allowing a trainer to select, evaluate and deploy itself, collapses the separate authority this contract requires.

Consequences

Accepted

Corpus and weights gain auditable lineage; observation cannot silently become model bias; trainer and serving remain replaceable; holdouts/regressions separate optimization from release.

Cost

Review, grouping, sealed holdouts, large artifact custody, representative evaluation, and reproducibility consume substantial operator, hardware, and storage capacity; weight influence cannot be reliably removed by source deletion.

Acceptance evidence

SoulforgeModel Trainer remains Designed until one bounded recipe proves admissions/exclusions, lineage-safe splits, sealed holdout, isolated immutable-input execution, candidate custody, independent DriftEvaluator evaluation, explicit promotion, compatible serving, and rollback to a prior revision. State of WorkWhat Actually Works records the transition.