docs(perf): preserve inconclusive held candidates for combinations

Author: thejustinwalsh

.agents/docs/attestations/2026-10-17-glyph-benchmarks-6a91bad1.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 # Local HELD rope diagnosis — Mac16,10, 16 October 2026
 
-Dense regressions remain **unresolved**. After the user relaxed the materiality floor, a small private transport allocation cleanup was implemented and retained. The original diagnostics and rejected optimizer ablation below remain evidence for their exact artifacts; the latest transport wave is recorded at the end of this report. This is not completed seven-family or release acceptance. [Machine-readable evidence](diagnostics.json) preserves source/artifact/input hashes, exact exits, sampled ancestry, absolute diagnostic p50/p95 and native work counts. The earlier machine’s profiles and archives were neither available nor reconstructed.
+Dense regressions remain **unresolved**. After the user relaxed the materiality floor, a small private transport allocation cleanup was implemented and retained. The original diagnostics and historically rejected optimizer ablation below remain evidence for their exact artifacts; the compiler candidate is now preserved as inconclusive for combination tests under the user’s 17 October direction; the latest transport wave is recorded at the end of this report. This is not completed seven-family or release acceptance. [Machine-readable evidence](diagnostics.json) preserves source/artifact/input hashes, exact exits, sampled ancestry, absolute diagnostic p50/p95 and native work counts. The earlier machine’s profiles and archives were neither available nor reconstructed.
 
 The isolated HELD checkout started at `60d3c26f135b360ab1111131ce274218959d176f`; fetched checkpoint ancestry passed. Real `gh stack checkout` imported stack #293 with merged #291 and open #292 → #301 → #302 → draft #310. Remote main is `4e25a96a57462fef5ad0d19065a822695b480f60`, two commits beyond the integrated base. No rebase, merge, tag, release or demo merge ran.
 
@@ -71,3 +71,7 @@ Times are median-of-block-medians p50 and pooled-retained-sample floor(.95·(N
 The candidate memory artifact's feature-off control byte-matches its shipped Wasm. Eight cycles / 71 phases pass with unchanged archive identity: requested live max 40,345,423 bytes, completed-call requested peak max 40,553,931 bytes and final retained baseline 7,641,016 requested-live bytes /727 Wasm pages. Counters cover that shaper instance only, excluding JS, GPU, separate font decoders, Talc fragmentation and transient physical realloc peaks. The attempt to authenticate memory against the original `60d3c26f` archive failed byte reproduction and produced no accepted memory result; its failed log is preserved. There is no paired predecessor memory claim.
 
 Portless 0.15.8 served fresh Chromium 149 verification without a package dependency. All 16 maintained browser conformance cases and six Dynamic Layout cells (Bitmap/MTSDF/Slug × WebGPU/WebGL2) pass against the candidate; representative WebGPU Bitmap and WebGL2 Slug screenshots were inspected. The six cells authenticate shaper `6f7afa1c…`. These are scoped correctness checks, not paired browser frame-time proof. The owned server/proxy are stopped. The previous ignored ASCII hero source has not been retrieved or authenticated in this checkout, so its historical 15-scene result is not reused. Full hero A/B, cumulative whole-stack API/ABI review, advanced-main integration and final seven-family acceptance remain open. Keep #310 and its stack held and unmerged.
+
+## Inconclusive candidate preservation — 17 October 2026
+
+[Preservation index](experiment-retention.json) authenticates the named local compiler candidate and its source reproducer. The earlier standalone admission failure remains historical evidence; it does not establish zero benefit. The next bounded experiment combines that policy with the retained preparation cleanup. No combined timing result exists yet. Local binary archives are not available from GitHub.

.agents/docs/log/2026-10-17-held-rope-experiment-retention.md

@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+{
+  "name": "held-one-caller-default-inconclusive-2026-10-17",
+  "status": "inconclusive-preserved-for-combination",
+  "localGitRef": "experiments/held-one-caller-default-inconclusive-2026-10-17",
+  "reproducerRevision": "7347b549aeadf963744e77ce873e0ecc470bfc42",
+  "controlSourceRevision": "60d3c26f135b360ab1111131ce274218959d176f",
+  "localArchive": ".cache/held-experiments/held-one-caller-default-inconclusive-2026-10-17",
+  "artifacts": [
+    {
+      "file": "pmndrs-glyph-0.1.0-optimizer-ablation.tgz",
+      "sha256": "e1cfc4b20d65c0065f09bdc61c012aa10feb32cf365c15becd3966e8ae9a19eb",
+      "bytes": 3211102
+    },
+    {
+      "file": "manifest.json",
+      "sha256": "2316dfdb164666f4b150b2212ddabea27ebac9f9a0057f2648f7399474bc6c49",
+      "bytes": 3047
+    },
+    {
+      "file": "named-manifest.json",
+      "sha256": "61903abb2562bde0f9170089b0f8eedb36676ab5b5ce3a94bc00d7e15cf673f8",
+      "bytes": 165315
+    },
+    {
+      "file": "text-shaper.named.wasm",
+      "sha256": "bd9af170937b63b8d977fe284a555cd5da75af3416882341a5be42c1b7c7843e",
+      "bytes": 1690252
+    },
+    {
+      "file": "functions.map",
+      "sha256": "0ee27b00393a301d0b19ac0f8fd9ddf1b0f9454d255e283b93bd3489f3267b44",
+      "bytes": 9384
+    }
+  ],
+  "evidence": "optimizer-ablation.json",
+  "nextCombination": {
+    "retainedChange": "preparation-receipt-cleanup",
+    "sourceRevision": "4b7f55f08105ea48eefd6b0d63eb825e6c81560a",
+    "candidateArchiveSha256": "2a7f0317a49319203aac935a8d7387eafcc9f78443ff6de31c699c4605412627",
+    "status": "not-yet-tested"
+  },
+  "limitations": [
+    "Previous isolated timing was inconclusive; it does not establish zero benefit.",
+    "Original archived compiler package excludes the retained preparation cleanup; do not label it a combined package.",
+    "Local binary archive and branch are not on GitHub; the committed reproducer and hashes preserve identity, not remote availability.",
+    "The shape/flow review produced no implementation to combine."
+  ]
+}