# 07 — Run log

Results per run. Source of truth is the game's own history file:

```
~/Library/Application Support/SlayTheSpire2/steam/<steamid>/modded/profile1/saves/history/<ts>.run
```

That file records `win`, `killed_by_encounter`, `seed`, `run_time`, `build_id`,
`ascension`, `was_abandoned`, and the full deck. **It is the evaluation
harness.** Read it rather than instrumenting the bot.

---

## Run 001 — Ironclad, standard, ascension 0

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Outcome | **Loss** |
| Killed by | `ENCOUNTER.VANTOM_BOSS` (Act 1 boss) |
| Floor reached | 16 |
| Seed | `JUS59Z32HF` |
| Run time | 2017 s (33 min) |
| Game build | `v0.107.1` |
| Abandoned | no |

### Progress

- Cleared 15 floors.
- Beat an elite: **Byrdonis**, 81 HP, 17-damage attack, `Territorial` (+1
  Strength each turn).
- Fought Nibbits, Twig Slimes, Leaf Slimes, Shrinker Beetle, Inklings, Mawler,
  Ruby Raiders (3-enemy fight), Vantom.
- Healed at rest sites at 43% and 24% HP.

### Final deck (19 cards, 1 upgraded)

`5× Strike` (one at upgrade level 1), `4× Defend`, `Bash`, `Setup Strike`,
`Inflame`, `Iron Wave`, `Rage`, `Stomp`, `Bludgeon`, `Battle Trance`,
`Second Wind`, `Bloodletting`.

### Relics (3)

`Burning Blood` (floor 1), `Gorget` (floor 10), `Vajra` (floor 11).

### Potions held at death — all three

```
POTION.EXPLOSIVE_AMPOULE   slot 0
POTION.STRENGTH_POTION     slot 1
POTION.ENERGY_POTION       slot 2
```

**This is the headline finding.** The combat brain had no potion logic, so the
bot died holding an Explosive Ampoule, a Strength Potion, and an Energy Potion.
The STS2MCP strategy notes state the principle directly: *"Don't hoard potions.
Dying with full potions is the worst outcome."*

The run was lost on tactics, not on deck quality. The deck was reasonable for
floor 16 and the relic set was functional.

### Decision sources

| Source | Count |
|---|---|
| `code` | 141 |
| `jev` | 70 |
| `fallback` | 35 |
| Lethal lines executed by code | 33 |

Aggregate across 759 loop steps in 5 sessions.

### Notable Jev calls

| Situation | Jev chose | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| Combat, 5 cards | Bash over Defend | 0.85 |
| Card reward | Inflame | 0.28 |
| Card reward | Rage | 0.40 |
| Card reward | Setup Strike | 0.33 |
| Map, 2 options | Shop | 0.97 |
| Map, 2 options | RestSite | 0.88 |
| Boss fight | Battle Trance, Bloodletting, Second Wind | 0.62–1.00 |

Several card-reward margins were thin enough that the gate fell back to "take
the first". Card reward is the weakest Jev decision in the current design.

### Bugs this run exposed

Eight infinite loops or stalls, all now fixed. See
[05-failure-modes.md](05-failure-modes.md). The most expensive were the
right-to-left reward indexing and the silently-dropped potion reward.

---

## Baseline to beat

| Metric | Run 001 |
|---|---|
| Win | no |
| Floor | 16 |
| Act 1 boss reached | yes |
| Act 1 boss killed | no |

Run 002 should be measured against this. The first question is not "does it
win" but "does it get past Vantom, and does it die holding potions again".

## Characters unlocked

| Character | Status |
|---|---|
| The Ironclad | unlocked |
| The Silent | unlocked (after the `NEOW_EPOCH` reveal) |
| The Regent | locked |
| The Necrobinder | locked |
| The Defect | locked |

`progress.save` recorded `pending_character_unlock: "CHARACTER.SILENT"` before
the reveal, then Silent became selectable.

## Seeded runs

Standard singleplayer exposes **no seed**, and `run` state carries no seed
field. The seed is visible only in the history file, after the run.

Seeded modes exist but were not available until the first epoch unlock:

| Mode | Seeded |
|---|---|
| `standard` | no |
| `daily` | yes (fixed per day) |
| `custom` | yes |

For a reproducible evaluation harness, `custom` is the likely path. This needs
verification — the mode screen appeared once and was not captured.

---

# Session 2 — potions, shops, treasure, events

## Scoreboard

| # | Win | Killed by | Seed | Time | Potions at end | Act reached |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 001 | no | `VANTOM_BOSS` | `JUS59Z32HF` | 2017 s | **3** | 1 boss |
| 002 | no | `BYRDONIS_ELITE` | `MJ4J25A3BH` | 688 s | 0 | 1 |
| 003 | no | `SNAPPING_JAXFRUIT_NORMAL` | `HKLFARJJJQ` | 186 s | 0 | 1 |
| 004 | no | **`THE_INSATIABLE_BOSS`** | `MLQ4KBZQWV` | 2235 s | 2 | **2 boss** |

Run 004 reached the Act 2 boss with 11 relics and a 29-card deck. That is the
best result so far and the first time the bot cleared an act.

## Run 003 — the catastrophic event

Died to a **normal** encounter at 186 s. The cause was not combat:

```
[102] jev chose Keep Deciphering           conf=0.28
[104] jev chose Lose Everything            conf=0.49
```

The event offered "Keep Deciphering" and "Lose Everything". Jev picked
"Lose Everything", which **set the player's max HP to 1**. Every subsequent
state read then showed:

```
hp=1/1 (healthy)
```

The bot believed it was at full health, walked into a normal fight at 1 HP, and
died. Two separate defects, both now fixed:

1. `_hp_bucket` bucketed by percentage only, so `1/1` was 100% = "healthy".
   Fixed: absolute HP <= 5 is always `critical`.
2. The event gate accepted a run-ending option at 0.49. Fixed with a stricter
   event gate plus a deterministic keyword safety net. See
   [05](05-failure-modes.md) and [02](02-system-one-jev.md).

## Run 004 — what the new decision loops did

| Decision | Count | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| `shop_purchase` | 6 in one shop | Lantern, Feel No Pain, Evil Eye, Salvo, Equilibrium, Headbutt |
| `use_potion` | 2+ | Fire Potion chosen by Jev at conf 1.00; two spent on lethal hits |
| `claim_treasure_relic` | 2 | Lucky Fysh, plus earlier Orichalcum and Bronze Scales |
| `combat_confirm_selection` | 4 | Hand-select now confirms instead of failing |
| event safety net | 1 | "uncertain (0.44); took safest option" |

Gold went from 528 to 130 across Act 2, so the "never buy anything" gap is
closed. Potions at death dropped from 3 (run 001) to 2 (run 004) while the run
went a full act further.

## Still open

- The bot still died holding 2 potions. The hard-need path only fires when the
  incoming hit is *lethal*; it does not yet spend potions on a losing
  attrition fight where HP is dropping every turn.
- Buying 6 items in one shop produced a 29-card deck. `SHOP_BUY_THRESHOLD`
  may be too permissive; deck dilution is a real cost.
- Card reward still falls back to "take the first" fairly often.

## Recurring manual blocker

The Timeline epoch reveal blocked the menu again after run 004, this time with
`IRONCLAD2_EPOCH`. The mod refuses to automate it. A human must reveal it
before the next run can start. Expect this after most runs.

## Comparing two arms requires ONE revision

A run is only comparable with another run collected from the **same revision of
the decision layer**. `brain.py`, `facts.py`, `jev.py` and `run.py` decide how
*both* arms behave, so a change to any of them — the fight-length projection,
the lethal search, the state handed to Jev, the relic fix — invalidates every
run collected before it. The old runs stay as history; they are not a baseline.

`ab_card_skip.sh` now enforces this instead of relying on discipline:

- it hashes the decision layer (`brain.py facts.py jev.py run.py sts2.py`) into
  a 12-character content hash, printed as `code revision: <hash>`;
- the hash is **recomputed before every session**, and the session line records
  it: `--- jev 1/5 (attempt 1) rev=978485b6639a ---`. Taking it once at startup
  would be worse than useless — `$RESULTS` is truncated when the run starts, so
  every row would carry the startup hash by construction and the mixed-revision
  warning could never fire;
- a session whose hash differs from the startup hash **aborts the experiment**
  (`!! ABORT: the decision layer changed mid-experiment`), skips the remaining
  arm, and still prints the report for whatever was collected;
- each attributed run is written as `policy \t run \t hash` in
  `/tmp/ab_results.tsv`, stamped with the revision that actually produced it;
- the report scores **one** revision — the one this invocation collected from —
  and prints a `!! MIXED REVISIONS` block when the file holds more than one,
  with a `!! THIN SAMPLE` warning under five runs per arm. It reads the same
  history directory the shell snapshotted, instead of a second hardcoded copy of
  that path (which silently reported "no runs recorded" for runs that existed).

A content hash, not a commit id: the decision layer is normally edited in place
and uncommitted, so a commit id would not tell two revisions apart.

Verified in a sandbox with a stub `run.py` that edits `brain.py` between
sessions: the abort fires, the remaining arm is skipped, and the collected rows
keep the revision that produced them. A clean two-arm run stamps all four rows
with one hash.

**Rule:** before interpreting any A/B number, re-run BOTH arms from the same
revision. Runs already in `/tmp/ab_results.tsv` from before 2026-09-22 03:2x
are pre-change and must be re-collected.

Note also that `--steps` must stay generous. A session that hits the step cap
while the run is still going produces **no run record at all**, so a small step
budget silently fills the sample with runs that died early.