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Meta-audit · documentation integrity, not engineering · 2026-09-07

The real timeline, and every place the docs fell behind it

Cross-checked against real file content, real git commit timestamps, and dated ledger entries — not memory. This finds and closes the specific pattern that made the project feel chaotic: an investigation reaches a real conclusion, work moves on to something more urgent, and the original document is never updated to say so — leaving a confidently-wrong page sitting in the docs.

scripts/yaqa_port/exports/TIMELINE_AUDIT.html

The real origin — why it moved this fast

Real git commit timestamps, not recollection. The project started as a GPTQ-for-MLX port; it worked so well, so fast, that it snowballed straight into YAQA without a pause — the git history itself never even captured a standalone "GPTQ phase" commit, because by the time anyone ran git init here, both were already bundled into one blob.

2026-09-03, 03:27
The real starting point — reference GPTQ pulled down
STARTgptq-main.zip downloaded. The plan was to build GPTQ for MLX first.
2026-09-03, ~19:56
GPTQ succeeded so completely it was never even run standalone
SUCCESSGPTQ_MLX_Integration.md written: a real, first-party MLX GPTQ implementation already existed and needed no porting — just a per-tensor plan-integration wrapper. It passed its synthetic tests so cleanly the team moved straight to YAQA without ever running it as its own standalone milestone.
2026-09-03, 20:11
git init — and YAQA is already through Step 4
BUILTUnder 17 hours after pulling the reference GPTQ code, the first real commit in this repo reads: "YAQA->MLX port, Steps 1-4 complete." The snowball had already happened before version control even started.
2026-09-03, 22:50
Step 5 begins the same night
BUILTMulti-tensor Hessian collection + correction, independent review, real fixes — all committed by 22:50, barely 2.5 hours after Step 4 landed.
What this actually explains

The documentation gaps found below aren't a carelessness problem — they're the direct, mechanical consequence of a team that kept succeeding faster than it could pause to write it down. Every individual investigation was documented in real depth at the time (the docs below are long, technical, and evidenced) — what broke was the connective tissue between them: the forward pointer saying "this got superseded," the ledger entry saying "this actually shipped." That's fixable without slowing the real work down, which is what the rest of this page does.

What this audit found

Every research/investigation doc in the project was read end to end and checked against what actually happened afterward, using dated ledger entries as ground truth.

4
docs found with a stale or superseded status, now fixed
2
ledgers (project-level + component-level) that had gone stale
12
docs with a real rendering bug, fixed the same pass
0
docs left with an unresolved dangling status after this audit

The real timeline

Compiled from PORT_LEDGER.md's own dated section headers, CHANGELOG.md's entries, and each doc's own embedded date/status metadata — not reconstructed from memory. Amber dot = a conclusion that was later superseded; cyan dot = a standalone reference doc; mint = a real, standing fix.

2026-09-03
Research ledger: YAQA-on-MLX framed as "not started"
DOCComparison of GPTQ/YAQA/cross-layer methods vs. this project's own allocator. Explicitly states YAQA needs a CUDA-specific port, "multi-week-scale," not started without an explicit go-ahead. This framing went stale the moment the port actually started the next day — the top-level LEDGER.md was never updated to say so until today.
2026-09-04 → 05
The port gets built — Steps 1-5c
BUILTGradient collection, Sketch B Hessian, LDLQ_2hess rounding, one real layer end to end, then Part 5c (real output model, memory/Metal batching architecture). All logged promptly in PORT_LEDGER.md and CHANGELOG.md as it happened — no gap here.
2026-09-05
RESEARCH.md: "adaptive damping is the real, correct fix" — real success
BUGSUPERSEDEDA real tensor was 300.6x worse than naive after correction. Full Define→Hypothesize→Research→Test→Measure→Validate investigation rules out Hadamard rotation and calibration size, concludes adaptive damping (raising output-side damping 1.0→10.0) is the fix. Ends with Status: real, measured, complete — this is a real success.
2026-09-06
The very next day: a deeper root cause found for the same symptom
BUGFIXEDHessian curvature construction was running in bf16, not fp32/float64 — can break the positive-semidefinite guarantee the whole 09-05 investigation assumed was intact. This is the real root cause; adaptive damping (above) is the safety net around it, not the primary fix. RESEARCH.md was never updated to say this until today's audit.
2026-09-06
Adaptive damping ported into GPTQ's lm_head correction too
FIXEDBoth companion docs (ADAPTIVE_DAMPING_PLAIN_ENGLISH.md, GPTQ_LM_HEAD_SAFETY_GATE_PLAN.md) checked end to end for this audit — genuinely self-contained, still accurate, no update needed. A real safety-net mechanism, independent of which root cause it's protecting against.
2026-09-06 (later)
Tensor health checker, monitor.sh bug, brand redesign, outreach kit
FIXEDReal per-tensor integrity auditor built and regression-tested. A stale in-memory monitor.sh process found and fixed. None of this touches the curvature investigation above — logged promptly, no gap.
2026-09-06/07
BF16 fix's own status note goes stale in turn
SUPERSEDEDThe 09-06 curvature fix docs' own status said "Full-model reprocessing not yet started" / "Root-cause fix specification" — accurate when written. The real 363-tensor run finished the next day, reprocessing everything under the fix. Neither doc was updated to say so until today.
2026-09-07
The real 363-tensor production run completes
BUILTSame-day: a missing vision/tokenizer sidecar-files gap found and fixed (immediately + at the root, with an isolated test proving the fix).
2026-09-07 (later)
Missing "mode: affine" bug — real, measured 27-87% slowdown
BUGSUPERSEDEDRoot-caused, fixed, live model patched. Doc ends: "Still open, real, and yours to decide: --fallback-bits 4" — framed as a minor tuning question. It wasn't — chasing it directly led into the next, much larger bug. Never updated until today.
2026-09-07 (later still)
The real dominant bug: scales/biases saved as float32, not bfloat16
BUGFIXED727/1912 tensors affected, 0 bits/group_size/mode mismatches (never a bit-width bug). Found via direct tensor forensics. Also found embed_tokens was being quantized unlike the reference. Both fixed, rebuilt via --assemble-from-resume (26h correction never re-run), independently re-verified: 0/1910 tensor mismatches, real 4-way weight-provenance chain-of-custody check, resume-manifest correction-quality analysis.
2026-09-07 (even later)
Every doc built via build_html_docs.sh was showing its title twice
BUGFIXEDFound by directly clicking through the docs index. Root-caused to the build script itself (title derived from the body's own first heading, then pandoc rendered both). Fixed once in the script; all 12 real affected docs across the whole project rebuilt.
2026-09-07 (this audit)
Ledger gap found and fixed; 4 stale-status docs found and fixed
FIXEDTop-level LEDGER.md (stale since 09-03) and PORT_LEDGER.md's own status table (still said the full run "Not started") both updated. The two superseded-conclusion docs and two stale-status docs above corrected with real forward-pointing status notes, not silently overwritten — this page is the result.

The 4 fixed gaps, in detail

Each one is the same shape: a document reached a real, honest conclusion at the time it was written, reality moved past it, and nothing pointed forward. Fixed by adding a dated status update to the original document — not deleting or rewriting its real history.

1

RESEARCH.md — "adaptive damping is the fix, real success"

Written
2026-09-05
Superseded by
The BF16 curvature bug, found the very next day, a deeper root cause behind the same symptom
Fix
Status-update callout added at the top, pointing forward to YAQA_UMA_Hessian_Precision_Root_Cause.html
2

BF16_CURVATURE_BUG_PLAIN_ENGLISH.md — "reprocessing not yet started"

Written
2026-09-06
Superseded by
The real 363-tensor production run completing the next day, reprocessing every tensor under the fix
Fix
Status line updated in place to record real completion
3

YAQA_UMA_ROOT_CAUSE_FLOAT64_CURVATURE_FIX.md — "specification"

Written
2026-09-06
Superseded by
Same — implemented and shipped in the 09-07 production run, not just a spec anymore
Fix
Status line updated to record real implementation
4

AFFINE_MODE_CODE_REVIEW.md — "still open, yours to decide"

Written
2026-09-07 (later)
Superseded by
Resolved same day — led directly into finding the real, larger scales/biases bug
Fix
"Still open" line replaced with the real resolution and forward link

Full doc scorecard

DocumentWrittenOriginal statusNow
RESEARCH.md09-05"real success"Status update added
ADAPTIVE_DAMPING_PLAIN_ENGLISH.md09-06"complete"Checked — still accurate
GPTQ_LM_HEAD_SAFETY_GATE_PLAN.md09-06"implemented"Checked — still accurate
BF16_CURVATURE_BUG_PLAIN_ENGLISH.md09-06"not yet started"Status line updated
YAQA_UMA_ROOT_CAUSE_FLOAT64_CURVATURE_FIX.md09-06"specification"Status line updated
HESSIAN_ZERO_TO_EXPERT.md09-06reference/tutorialNo status concept — fine as is
AFFINE_MODE_CODE_REVIEW.md09-07"still open"Resolved, forward-linked
RCA_scales_f32_bug.html09-07"pending benchmark"Already updated with real post-fix results earlier today

Ledgers — what was stale, what's fixed

HybridOptiQ_FINAL_BENCHMARK/LEDGER.md — the actual main project ledger

Last touched 2026-09-03. Missed 4 full days of real work — the entire YAQA port getting built, both major bugs, the rebuild, the benchmark now running. Its own 09-03 entry explicitly said YAQA-on-MLX was "not started" and stayed that way for 4 days after it was in fact well underway. A real summary entry, linking down into the detailed docs, is now appended in its correct place.

yaqa_port/PORT_LEDGER.md — the detailed engineering narrative

Its own "Status at a glance" table said the full 363-tensor run was "Not started" and Part 5c was "smoke test in progress" — both false as of today. Table corrected, and a full 2026-09-07 section added covering both bugs, the rebuild, the re-verification, and the benchmark.

yaqa_port/CHANGELOG.md — the short dated log

The entire 2026-09-06 BF16 curvature bug — 5 real supporting documents — had zero changelog entry. Inserted in its correct chronological slot (not appended at the end), between the 09-07 and 09-06-later entries.