fix(quant): a tap is only a tap when its rig is running

Four gates, all bought with the 2026-10-29 incident: the rig's calibration boot died of an OOM,
the chain's health loop expired without failing, and the pusher fed four rounds of 10M tokens
(86 minutes of prefill) into RESTORED PRODUCTION, recording nothing.

- run-qwen38-bf16.sh: --ngram-placement becomes a knob whose calib default is `disk` (the 95.37
  GiB table pin is what starved that boot: 230.22 GiB pinned of 246, 8.06 GiB available) while
  kldref and score keep `ram`. calib writes .rig-boot into the tap dir and retires it on a
  non-zero exit, so a dead boot cannot leave the tap looking rig-authorized.
- calib-push.py: refuses before the first prompt unless the marker exists, names this container,
  and that container is running. With the driver's existing tap-progress gate, a push can no
  longer spend hours feeding an endpoint that is not the rig.
- qwen38-calib-window.sh: the calibration window as a gated chain — stop on a failed phase
  instead of falling through the health wait, bank the 336 GiB reference container into trash
  only when both phases exit 0 and the tap holds grams, and print the whole plan on --dry-run.
- kld-gate-qwen38.sh: two-report mode (candidate vs the served payload) for the disk where the
  172.8 GiB FP8 anchor cannot live, plus the laws the report always carried and the gate never
  read: a p99.9 tail ceiling and every by_source slice passing mean, tail and top-1.
- frank-archon.md: the pipeline laws (marker, n-gram tier, three-metric acceptance) and a Files
  section that names the live campaign instead of the retired swift15 era.

Tests: 587/0 — 13 new behavioral cases (dry-run argv, marker refusals, two-report gate math).

scripts/calib-push.py

@@ -25,6 +25,11 @@ Mechanics notes:
 - a round that seals no tap bytes is a FAILURE, not a retry: the engine
   answering 200 while the tap directory is wrong, full or read-only is
   how a corpus gets pushed four times for nothing.
+- before any prompt, the tap must carry the rig's own marker
+  (`--tap-marker`, written by run-qwen38-bf16.sh calib) naming THIS
+  container, and that container must be running. Measured 2026-10-29:
+  with neither check, four rounds of 10M tokens went into restored
+  production after the rig's boot had died, and recorded nothing.
 
 Usage: calib-push.py [--port 7770] [--parallel 64] [--container arbench]
        [--corpus /home/dank/corpora/out/calib.jsonl] [--max-rounds 4]
@@ -107,6 +112,40 @@ def tap_bytes(path):
     return total
 
 
+def require_rig(a):
+    """Refuse unless the rig that opened this tap is up and serving right now.
+
+    Three facts, in order: the runner wrote its marker into the tap dir, the
+    marker names the container this pusher targets, and that container is
+    running. A marker without a live container is a boot that died; a live
+    container without a marker is some other engine on the port — on 2026-10-29
+    it was restored production, which took four rounds of 10M tokens before the
+    old driver admitted it had recorded nothing.
+    """
+    marker = os.path.join(a.tap_dir, a.tap_marker)
+    if not os.path.isfile(marker):
+        qc.refuse(f"no rig marker at {marker}: this tap was not opened by "
+                  "run-qwen38-bf16.sh calib, so a push here would feed whatever "
+                  "answers the port and record nothing")
+    try:
+        lines = open(marker, encoding="utf-8", errors="replace").read().splitlines()
+    except OSError as exc:
+        qc.refuse(f"cannot read the rig marker {marker}: {exc}")
+    meta = dict(line.split("=", 1) for line in lines if "=" in line)
+    who = meta.get("container", "")
+    if who != a.container:
+        qc.refuse(f"the rig marker names container {who!r} and this pusher targets "
+                  f"{a.container!r} — wrong tap, or a stale marker")
+    try:
+        p = subprocess.run(["podman", "inspect", "-f", "{{.State.Running}}", a.container],
+                           capture_output=True, text=True, timeout=30)
+    except Exception as exc:
+        qc.refuse(f"cannot inspect the rig container {a.container}: {exc}")
+    if p.returncode != 0 or p.stdout.strip() != "true":
+        qc.refuse(f"the rig container {a.container} is not running — whatever is "
+                  "answering the port, it is not the calibration rig")
+
+
 def parse_args():
     ap = argparse.ArgumentParser()
     ap.add_argument("--port", type=int, default=7770)
@@ -114,6 +153,8 @@ def parse_args():
     ap.add_argument("--container", default="arbench")
     ap.add_argument("--model", default="frank-archon")
     ap.add_argument("--tap-dir", default="/home/dank/campaign/qwen38-w5nl64/calib")
+    ap.add_argument("--tap-marker", default=".rig-boot",
+                    help="the file run-qwen38-bf16.sh calib writes into the tap dir; without it the pusher refuses, because an unmarked tap is not a rig")
     ap.add_argument("--corpus", default="/home/dank/corpora/out/calib.jsonl")
     ap.add_argument("--max-rounds", type=int, default=4)
     return ap.parse_args()
@@ -136,6 +177,7 @@ def main():
     a = parse_args()
     url = f"http://127.0.0.1:{a.port}/v1/completions"
     prompts = load_prompts(a)
+    require_rig(a)
     chars = sum(len(p) for p in prompts)
     print(f"corpus: {len(prompts)} prompts, ~{chars // 4} tokens (chars/4)",
           flush=True)

scripts/kld-gate-qwen38.sh

@@ -1,44 +1,53 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
 # kld-gate-qwen38.sh — RUNS ON DANKSERVER (or anywhere the reports are). The campaign's
-# acceptance gate: three KLD reports against ONE reference recording, one verdict.
+# acceptance gate: one verdict from the KLD reports of the containers that ride one reference
+# recording.
 #
 # The reference is the BF16 container built from the vendor checkpoint (run-qwen38-bf16.sh
 # kldref, in the same drained window that records the calibration grams). Every scored
 # container is measured against that one recording, so the KL scale runs from 0 = the
-# checkpoint itself downward in faithfulness. Three containers ride it:
+# checkpoint itself downward in faithfulness.
 #
-#   fp8.json    the published FP8-native release   — the achievable end of the interval
-#   iq4r.json   the payload frank-archon serves    — the bar to beat
-#   cand.json   the arm under test                 — the subject
+# TWO MODES, because the disk decides how many anchors can exist at once:
 #
-# The FP8 number is what makes the interval absolute instead of relative: "half the gap"
-# is half of the distance between the 4-bit payload and the near-lossless release, not half
-# of an invented distance to the checkpoint. That is also why the FP8 payload is FETCHED and
-# scored, never converted: it is a second opinion about what this checkpoint tolerates, not a
-# step of the campaign. It lands LAST (disk sequencing) — by then the 335 GiB bf16 container
-# is gone, so its 172.8 GiB fits.
+#   gate IQ4R.json CAND.json                    candidate vs the served payload
+#   gate FP8.json IQ4R.json CAND.json           the same, inside the absolute interval
 #
-# The law, in order of severity, on the mean KL of one slice (--slice all | a corpus source):
-#   1. KL(fp8) < KL(iq4r)                 the anchors are ordered. If the near-lossless
-#                                         release does NOT sit closer to the checkpoint than
-#                                         the 4-bit payload, the corpus, the tokenizer or the
-#                                         boot shape is wrong and no arm number means anything.
-#   2. KL(fp8) < KL(cand) < KL(iq4r)      the candidate lies strictly inside the interval —
-#                                         outside it, something is mis-measured, not better
-#   3. KL(cand) <= KL(iq4r) - R x gap     it closes at least R (--recover, default 0.5) of the
-#                                         gap = KL(iq4r) - KL(fp8): at least half the way from
-#                                         what is served toward the release (agreed 2026-10-27)
-#   4. top-1(cand) >= top-1(iq4r)         the agreement the harness keys on does not fall
+# iq4r.json is the payload frank-archon serves — the bar to beat. When the FP8-native release
+# (172.8 GiB, fetched last because of the peak-disk law) is on disk, pass its report first:
+# "half the gap" is then half of the distance between the 4-bit payload and the near-lossless
+# release, not half of an invented distance to the checkpoint. Without it the gate still
+# answers the campaign's question — does the candidate beat what is served — and says so.
+#
+# The law, on the summary of one slice (--slice all | a corpus source):
+#
+#   candidate vs served (2 reports)
+#   1. mean KL(cand) < mean KL(iq4r)         the served payload is beaten on the corpus
+#   2. p99.9(cand) <= p99.9(iq4r)            and the tail is no worse — a mean can hide a few
+#                                            positions taking the whole hit
+#   3. top-1(cand) >= top-1(iq4r)            the agreement the harness keys on does not fall
+#   4. every source slice passes 1-3         a win bought by regressing one distribution
+#                                            (code, prose, tools) is not a win
+#
+#   inside the interval (3 reports), laws 1-4 above (1-3 renumbered to the interval and the
+#   recovery fraction, as agreed 2026-10-27) plus:
+#   5. p99.9(cand) <= p99.9(iq4r)            the tail law
+#   6. every source slice passes            the slice law
 #
 # Booting the containers is NOT this script's job: `run-qwen38-bf16.sh score RAD OUT.json`
 # writes the reports and owns the single engine argv (same pin, --tp 2, --kv-cache-dtype fp8,
-# same step size, --deterministic, no speculation) that makes the three numbers comparable.
+# same step size, --deterministic, no speculation) that makes the numbers comparable.
 # This script is arithmetic, so it re-runs against old reports and is testable without a GPU.
 #
-# Usage: kld-gate-qwen38.sh FP8.json IQ4R.json CAND.json [--slice NAME] [--recover F]
+# Usage: kld-gate-qwen38.sh IQ4R.json CAND.json [--slice NAME]
+#        kld-gate-qwen38.sh FP8.json IQ4R.json CAND.json [--slice NAME] [--recover F]
 set -uo pipefail
 
-[ "$#" -ge 3 ] || { echo "usage: kld-gate-qwen38.sh FP8.json IQ4R.json CAND.json [--slice NAME] [--recover F]" >&2; exit 2; }
+if [ "$#" -lt 2 ]; then
+    echo "usage: kld-gate-qwen38.sh IQ4R.json CAND.json [--slice NAME]" >&2
+    echo "       kld-gate-qwen38.sh FP8.json IQ4R.json CAND.json [--slice NAME] [--recover F]" >&2
+    exit 2
+fi
 python3 - "$@" <<'PY'
 import json, sys
 
@@ -52,13 +61,15 @@ while i < len(a):
     else:
         files.append(a[i])
         i += 1
-if len(files) != 3:
-    sys.exit("usage: kld-gate-qwen38.sh FP8.json IQ4R.json CAND.json [--slice NAME] [--recover F]")
+if len(files) not in (2, 3):
+    sys.exit("usage: kld-gate-qwen38.sh IQ4R.json CAND.json [--slice NAME]\n"
+             "       kld-gate-qwen38.sh FP8.json IQ4R.json CAND.json [--slice NAME] [--recover F]")
 o = dict(zip(opts[0::2], opts[1::2]))
 slice_ = o.get("--slice", "all")
 recover = float(o.get("--recover", 0.5))
 if not 0.0 < recover <= 1.0:
     sys.exit(f"--recover must be in (0,1], got {recover}")
+interval = len(files) == 3
 
 
 def die(msg):
@@ -66,11 +77,15 @@ def die(msg):
     raise SystemExit(2)
 
 
-def read(path):
+def load(path):
     try:
-        d = json.load(open(path))
+        return json.load(open(path))
     except Exception as e:
         die(f"cannot read the KLD report {path}: {e}")
+
+
+def summary(path, d):
+    """The slice this gate grades: 'all', or one corpus source."""
     if slice_ == "all":
         g = d.get("all")
     else:
@@ -80,23 +95,25 @@ def read(path):
                 f"{', '.join(sorted(d.get('by_source') or {})) or '(none)'}")
     if g is None or "kld" not in g or "top1_agreement" not in g:
         die(f"{path} has no {slice_!r} summary — wrong report version?")
-    return d, g
+    return g
 
 
+docs = {label: load(path) for label, path in
+        zip(("fp8", "iq4r", "cand") if interval else ("iq4r", "cand"), files)}
 rows = []
-for label, path in zip(("fp8", "iq4r", "cand"), files):
-    d, g = read(path)
-    rows.append((label, path, d.get("model", "?"), g["kld"]["mean"], g["kld"]["p99_9"],
-                 g["top1_agreement"], g["positions"]))
+for label, path in zip(("fp8", "iq4r", "cand") if interval else ("iq4r", "cand"), files):
+    g = summary(path, docs[label])
+    rows.append((label, path, docs[label].get("model", "?"), g["kld"]["mean"],
+                 g["kld"]["p99_9"], g["top1_agreement"], g["positions"]))
 
-print(f"reference: BF16 container; slice: {slice_}")
+print(f"reference: BF16 container; slice: {slice_}; "
+      + ("inside the FP8 interval" if interval else "candidate vs served (no FP8 anchor)"))
 print(f"{'':6} {'model':38} {'KL mean':>10} {'KL p99.9':>10} {'top-1':>8}  positions")
 for label, path, model, kl, p999, top1, n in rows:
     print(f"{label:6} {str(model)[:38]:38} {kl:10.6f} {p999:10.4f} {100*top1:7.2f}%  {n}")
-r = {label: (kl, top1) for label, _p, _m, kl, _q, top1, _n in rows}
-kl_fp8, kl_iq4r, kl_cand = r["fp8"][0], r["iq4r"][0], r["cand"][0]
-t_iq4r, t_cand = r["iq4r"][1], r["cand"][1]
-gap = kl_iq4r - kl_fp8
+r = {label: (kl, p999, top1) for label, _p, _m, kl, p999, top1, _n in rows}
+kl_cand, p_cand, t_cand = r["cand"]
+kl_iq4r, p_iq4r, t_iq4r = r["iq4r"]
 ok = True
 
 
@@ -106,17 +123,64 @@ def law(n, text, passed):
     print(f"  [{'PASS' if passed else 'FAIL'}] {n}. {text}")
 
 
-law(1, f"anchors ordered: fp8 {kl_fp8:.6f} < iq4r {kl_iq4r:.6f} (gap {gap:.6f})",
-    gap > 0)
-law(2, f"candidate inside the interval: {kl_fp8:.6f} < {kl_cand:.6f} < {kl_iq4r:.6f}",
-    kl_fp8 < kl_cand < kl_iq4r)
-need = kl_iq4r - recover * gap
-law(3, f"candidate closes {100*max((kl_iq4r - kl_cand)/gap, 0):.1f}% of the "
-       f"{gap:.6f} gap (needs {100*recover:.0f}%, i.e. KL <= {need:.6f})"
-       if gap > 0 else "gap is not positive; cannot score recovery",
-    gap > 0 and kl_cand <= need)
-law(4, f"candidate top-1 {100*t_cand:.2f}% >= served iq4r top-1 {100*t_iq4r:.2f}%",
-    t_cand >= t_iq4r)
+def tail_law(n):
+    law(n, f"candidate KL p99.9 {p_cand:.4f} <= served iq4r {p_iq4r:.4f}",
+        p_cand <= p_iq4r)
+
+
+# --- the slice law: every corpus source must pass the metric laws -------------
+def slice_law(n):
+    """A win that regresses one source class is not a win: check them all."""
+    mine = docs["cand"].get("by_source") or {}
+    theirs = docs["iq4r"].get("by_source") or {}
+    if not mine or not theirs:
+        law(n, "no per-source summaries to check", True)
+        return
+    missing = sorted(set(theirs) - set(mine))
+    extra = sorted(set(mine) - set(theirs))
+    if missing or extra:
+        law(n, "same source slices in both reports"
+            + (f" (missing from cand: {', '.join(missing)})" if missing else "")
+            + (f" (only in cand: {', '.join(extra)})" if extra else ""), False)
+        return
+    bad = []
+    for src in sorted(theirs):
+        c, q = mine[src], theirs[src]
+        worse_mean = c["kld"]["mean"] >= q["kld"]["mean"]
+        worse_tail = c["kld"]["p99_9"] > q["kld"]["p99_9"]
+        worse_top1 = c["top1_agreement"] < q["top1_agreement"]
+        if worse_mean or worse_tail or worse_top1:
+            why = ",".join(m for m, w in (("mean", worse_mean), ("p99.9", worse_tail),
+                                          ("top-1", worse_top1)) if w)
+            bad.append(f"{src} ({why})")
+    law(n, "every source slice passes (mean, p99.9, top-1)"
+        + (f" — regressed: {'; '.join(bad)}" if bad else ""), not bad)
+
+
+if interval:
+    kl_fp8 = r["fp8"][0]
+    gap = kl_iq4r - kl_fp8
+    law(1, f"anchors ordered: fp8 {kl_fp8:.6f} < iq4r {kl_iq4r:.6f} (gap {gap:.6f})",
+        gap > 0)
+    law(2, f"candidate inside the interval: {kl_fp8:.6f} < {kl_cand:.6f} < {kl_iq4r:.6f}",
+        kl_fp8 < kl_cand < kl_iq4r)
+    need = kl_iq4r - recover * gap
+    law(3, f"candidate closes {100*max((kl_iq4r - kl_cand)/gap, 0):.1f}% of the "
+           f"{gap:.6f} gap (needs {100*recover:.0f}%, i.e. KL <= {need:.6f})"
+           if gap > 0 else "gap is not positive; cannot score recovery",
+        gap > 0 and kl_cand <= need)
+    law(4, f"candidate top-1 {100*t_cand:.2f}% >= served iq4r top-1 {100*t_iq4r:.2f}%",
+        t_cand >= t_iq4r)
+    tail_law(5)
+    slice_law(6)
+else:
+    law(1, f"candidate beats the served payload: KL {kl_cand:.6f} < iq4r {kl_iq4r:.6f}",
+        kl_cand < kl_iq4r)
+    tail_law(2)
+    law(3, f"candidate top-1 {100*t_cand:.2f}% >= served iq4r top-1 {100*t_iq4r:.2f}%",
+        t_cand >= t_iq4r)
+    slice_law(4)
+
 print("KLD GATE " + ("PASS" if ok else "FAIL"))
 sys.exit(0 if ok else 1)
 PY

scripts/qwen38-calib-window.sh

@@ -0,0 +1,122 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+# qwen38-calib-window.sh — RUNS ON DANKSERVER. The calibration window, and nothing else:
+# boot the BF16 rig, wait until it is actually serving, push the corpus until the engine says
+# the tap is full, stop the rig, restore frank-archon, and bank the reference container.
+#
+# The reference recording is already taken (kld-ref/kld.json exists), so this window is the
+# calibration tap alone — the one job that needs both cards after it. The kldref phase is NOT
+# re-run here: the chained launcher that used to do that moved the banked kld-ref into trash
+# first, which is how a 16-hour phase gets paid for twice.
+#
+# Every phase is gated on the previous one, because the last time this ran unguarded
+# (2026-10-29) the rig's boot died of an OOM, the health loop quietly fell through, and the
+# pusher fed four rounds of 10M tokens into RESTORED PRODUCTION with nothing recorded:
+#
+#   1. the runner must still be alive and its container must answer /health, or this script
+#      kills it, restores the service and exits non-zero — no push, ever;
+#   2. the pusher refuses on its own unless the rig wrote its marker into the tap dir, the
+#      marker names this container, and the container is running (scripts/calib-push.py
+#      --tap-marker), so a second lock survives a mistake in this file;
+#   3. the reference container is banked into trash only when BOTH the serve and the push
+#      exited 0 and the tap dir holds grams. The checkpoint that reproduces it stays.
+#
+# knobs: Q38_WINDOW_CALIB_CORPUS (calib-7168.jsonl — the re-chunked file the rig's pool can
+#        hold), Q38_WINDOW_HEALTH_TIMEOUT (seconds to wait for /health), Q38_WINDOW_ROUNDS
+#        (pusher rounds; one is 10M tokens), Q38_WINDOW_KEEP_RAD=1 to leave the .rad in place.
+# Usage: scripts/qwen38-calib-window.sh [--dry-run]
+set -uo pipefail
+cd "$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")/.." || exit 9
+
+DRY=0
+[ "${1:-}" = "--dry-run" ] && DRY=1
+say() { printf '%s %s\n' "$(date -Is)" "$*"; }
+
+MODELS="${FRANK_QWEN38_MODELS:-/home/dank/models}"
+CAMPAIGN="${FRANK_QWEN38_CAMPAIGN:-/home/dank/campaign/qwen38-w5nl64}"
+RAD="${FRANK_QWEN38_RAD:-$MODELS/rad/qwen38-bf16.rad}"
+CORPUS="${Q38_WINDOW_CALIB_CORPUS:-/home/dank/corpora/out/calib-7168.jsonl}"
+KLDREF="$CAMPAIGN/kld-ref/kld.json"
+CALIB="$CAMPAIGN/calib"
+HEALTH_TIMEOUT="${Q38_WINDOW_HEALTH_TIMEOUT:-3600}"
+ROUNDS="${Q38_WINDOW_ROUNDS:-6}"
+RIG=qwen38-bf16
+SERVICE=frank-archon
+PY="${PY:-python3}"
+
+# ---- preflight: everything this window needs, before a card is touched -------
+[ -f "$KLDREF" ] || { echo "REFUSED: no reference recording at $KLDREF — record it first (scripts/run-qwen38-bf16.sh kldref); this window only fills the calibration tap" >&2; exit 2; }
+[ -f "$RAD" ]    || { echo "REFUSED: no BF16 reference container at $RAD — nothing to serve; scripts/build-qwen38-bf16-rad.sh" >&2; exit 2; }
+[ -f "$CORPUS" ] || { echo "REFUSED: no calibration corpus at $CORPUS" >&2; exit 2; }
+[ -d "$CALIB" ]  || { echo "REFUSED: no tap dir at $CALIB" >&2; exit 2; }
+[ -w "$CALIB" ]  || { echo "REFUSED: tap dir $CALIB is not writable by $(id -un)" >&2; exit 2; }
+! [[ "$HEALTH_TIMEOUT" =~ ^[0-9]+$ ]] && { echo "REFUSED: Q38_WINDOW_HEALTH_TIMEOUT must be seconds (got: $HEALTH_TIMEOUT)" >&2; exit 2; }
+! [[ "$ROUNDS" =~ ^[0-9]+$ ]] && { echo "REFUSED: Q38_WINDOW_ROUNDS must be a round count (got: $ROUNDS)" >&2; exit 2; }
+
+if [ "$DRY" = 1 ]; then
+    echo "dry run: calib window — the service is left running, nothing is mounted or written"
+    echo "would run: bash scripts/run-qwen38-bf16.sh calib          (rig boots, writes $CALIB/.rig-boot)"
+    echo "would wait: /health up within ${HEALTH_TIMEOUT}s, else kill the rig, restore $SERVICE, exit 1"
+    echo "would run: $PY scripts/calib-push.py --container $RIG --corpus $CORPUS --max-rounds $ROUNDS"
+    echo "would bank: $RAD -> ~/.AGENTTRASH/$(date +%Y%m%d)-qwen38-bf16-rad/  (only if both phases exit 0)"
+    exit 0
+fi
+
+say "calib window start pid=$$ corpus=$CORPUS rounds=$ROUNDS"
+[ -n "$(ls -A "$CALIB" 2>/dev/null)" ] && say "tap dir $CALIB is not empty; the engine's token floor is pooled, so an earlier partial tap still counts"
+
+# ---- phase 1: the rig -------------------------------------------------------
+say "phase=calib serve begin"
+bash scripts/run-qwen38-bf16.sh calib & spid=$!
+
+rig_up() {
+    podman inspect -f '{{.State.Running}}' "$RIG" 2>/dev/null | grep -qx true \
+        && curl -sf --max-time 10 -o /dev/null http://127.0.0.1:7770/health
+}
+
+waited=0
+until rig_up; do
+    if ! kill -0 "$spid" 2>/dev/null; then
+        wait "$spid"; crc=$?
+        say "phase=calib serve end rc=$crc (the rig exited before it ever answered /health)"
+        echo "FAIL: the rig boot died (rc=$crc) — nothing was pushed; read /home/dank/logs/qwen38_bf16_calib.log" >&2
+        exit 1
+    fi
+    if [ "$waited" -ge "$HEALTH_TIMEOUT" ]; then
+        say "phase=calib health never came after ${HEALTH_TIMEOUT}s; killing the rig"
+        podman stop "$RIG" >/dev/null 2>&1 || true
+        wait "$spid"
+        echo "FAIL: the rig never answered /health within ${HEALTH_TIMEOUT}s — nothing was pushed" >&2
+        exit 1
+    fi
+    sleep 15
+    waited=$((waited + 15))
+done
+say "phase=calib health ok waited=${waited}s"
+
+# ---- phase 2: the tap -------------------------------------------------------
+say "phase=calib push begin"
+"$PY" scripts/calib-push.py --port 7770 --parallel 8 --container "$RIG" \
+    --tap-dir "$CALIB" --corpus "$CORPUS" --max-rounds "$ROUNDS"
+prc=$?
+say "phase=calib push end rc=$prc"
+
+podman stop "$RIG" >/dev/null 2>&1 || true
+wait "$spid"; crc=$?
+say "phase=calib serve end rc=$crc"
+
+if [ "$prc" -ne 0 ] || [ "$crc" -ne 0 ]; then
+    echo "FAIL: serve rc=$crc push rc=$prc — the tap is NOT banked and $RAD stays: $(basename "$RAD")" >&2
+    exit 1
+fi
+[ -n "$(ls -A "$CALIB" 2>/dev/null)" ] || { echo "FAIL: both phases exited 0 but the tap dir $CALIB is empty" >&2; exit 1; }
+say "TAP BANKED: $(ls -1 "$CALIB" | wc -l) file(s) in $CALIB"
+
+# ---- phase 3: bank the reference container ----------------------------------
+if [ "${Q38_WINDOW_KEEP_RAD:-0}" = "1" ]; then
+    say "reference .rad kept (Q38_WINDOW_KEEP_RAD=1)"
+else
+    T="$HOME/.AGENTTRASH/$(date +%Y%m%d)-qwen38-bf16-rad"
+    mkdir -p "$T" || { echo "FAIL: cannot create trash dir $T" >&2; exit 1; }
+    mv "$RAD" "$T/" && say "reference .rad banked in $T (the checkpoint that rebuilds it stays)"
+fi
+say "calib window end"

scripts/run-qwen38-bf16.sh

@@ -193,6 +193,25 @@ if ! [[ "$MAX_MODEL_LEN" =~ ^[0-9]+$ ]]; then
     exit 2
 fi
 
+# Where the n-gram table lives. On the bf16 payload it is 95.37 GiB and `ram`
+# PINS it: the calibration boot died at "startup stopped: out of memory" with
+# 230.22 GiB pinned of 246.07 GiB and 8.06 GiB available (measured 2026-10-29),
+# while the reference recording and every score boot had already succeeded with
+# the same pool and slots. The difference that matters is the job: calib only
+# needs the routed weights prefilled, so it reads the table from the container's
+# own file tier and the pin never happens; kldref and score keep production's
+# placement, because their numbers are only comparable when every other term of
+# the shape is identical. FRANK_QWEN38_NGRAM_PLACEMENT overrides either default.
+case "$MODE" in
+    calib) NGRAM_PLACEMENT="${FRANK_QWEN38_NGRAM_PLACEMENT:-disk}" ;;
+    *)     NGRAM_PLACEMENT="${FRANK_QWEN38_NGRAM_PLACEMENT:-ram}" ;;
+esac
+case "$NGRAM_PLACEMENT" in
+    auto|vram|ram|disk) ;;
+    *) echo "REFUSED: FRANK_QWEN38_NGRAM_PLACEMENT must be auto|vram|ram|disk (got: $NGRAM_PLACEMENT)" >&2
+       exit 2 ;;
+esac
+
 # Every container this campaign boots is read through the ro /models mount, so
 # the host path must live under it; the container-side spelling is what goes
 # into the argv. Same rule for the container a score pass opens.
@@ -230,7 +249,7 @@ ARGS=(--tp 2 --placement expert_tiered --weights-disk-tier
       --host-pool-mib "$HOST_POOL_MIB" --gpu-headroom-mib "$GPU_HEADROOM_MIB"
       --deterministic --num-speculative-tokens 0
       --kv-cache-dtype fp8 --max-model-len "$MAX_MODEL_LEN"
-      --ngram-placement ram
+      --ngram-placement "$NGRAM_PLACEMENT"
       --override-chat-template /models/tpl.jinja)
 MOUNTS=(-v "$MODELS:/models:ro")
 TAPENV=()
@@ -289,6 +308,17 @@ case "$MODE" in
     MOUNTS+=(-v "$CALIB_DIR:/data/calib")
     TAPENV=(-e RADIANCE_CALIB_DIR=/data/calib
             -e "RADIANCE_CALIB_TOKENS=${FRANK_QWEN38_CALIB_TOKENS:-12000000}")
+    # The tap's own authorization. A pusher must see this marker before it sends
+    # a prompt (calib-push.py --tap-marker), it names the container so a push
+    # aimed anywhere else refuses, and a boot that fails removes it again below.
+    # Measured 2026-10-29: with no marker, the chain pushed 4 rounds x 10M tokens
+    # into RESTORED PRODUCTION after the rig's boot died, and nothing recorded.
+    if [ "$DRY" = 1 ]; then
+        :
+    else
+        printf 'container=%s\nimage=%s\nmode=calib\nstarted=%s\npid=%s\n' \
+            "$C" "$IMAGE" "$(date -Is)" "$$" > "$CALIB_DIR/.rig-boot"
+    fi
     ;;
 esac
 
@@ -377,5 +407,12 @@ podman rm -f "$C" >/dev/null 2>&1 || true
 
 "${CMD[@]}" 2>&1 | tee "$LOG"
 rc=${PIPESTATUS[0]}
+# A boot that failed must not leave the tap marked as rig-authorized: the marker
+# is what calib-push.py trusts, and the point of it is that a dead rig can never
+# be pushed into again.
+if [ "$MODE" = calib ] && [ "$rc" -ne 0 ] && [ -f "$CALIB_DIR/.rig-boot" ]; then
+    mv -f "$CALIB_DIR/.rig-boot" "$CALIB_DIR/.rig-boot.failed-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S)" 2>/dev/null || true
+    echo "the rig boot failed (rc=$rc): the tap marker is retired, so no pusher can take this tap for a live rig"
+fi
 echo "run-qwen38-bf16 $MODE exited rc=$rc; $SERVICE restored; log: $LOG"
 exit "$rc"