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arbor-agent-merge-eval

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Merge and evaluation discipline for Arbor. Use for TreeSetMeta metadata, B_dev/B_test separation, eval command templates, score parsing, GitMergeBranch behavior, protected paths, required outputs, metric_direction, trunk/test score updates, medal detection, and final evaluation before stopping.

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Source SKILL.md: https://github.com/RUC-NLPIR/Arbor/blob/HEAD/skills/arbor-agent-merge-eval/SKILL.md

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Arbor Merge And Eval

Use this whenever scores, metadata, merge decisions, or final validation are involved.

Dataset Discipline

  • B_dev is for routine iteration, executor experiments, score tracking, and idea selection.
  • B_test is for milestone checks only: before merging a branch and at final report time.
  • If B_test diverges from B_dev, do not hand-wave it. Investigate overfitting, noise, data split mismatch, or eval contamination.

Tree Metadata

Persist evaluation metadata early and update it after merges:

  • baseline_score: unmodified B_dev score.
  • trunk_score: current trunk B_dev score.
  • test_baseline_score: unmodified B_test score.
  • test_trunk_score: current trunk B_test score.
  • eval_cmd: B_dev command.
  • eval_cmd_test: B_test command.
  • eval_timeout, eval_retries, eval_retry_base_delay, eval_retry_max_delay.
  • dataset_info: paths and split descriptions.
  • metric_direction: maximize or minimize.
  • trunk_branch: non-protected branch that receives verified merges.
  • submission_path, sample_submission_path.

Use {cwd} and {node_id} placeholders. Example:

cd {cwd} && uv run python run_eval.py --split dev --run-name {node_id}

Score Semantics

  • Tree node score is an absolute B_dev metric value.
  • Merge verification uses B_test.
  • metric_direction controls improvement:
    • maximize: higher is better.
    • minimize: lower is better.
  • Do not compare deltas with absolutes.
  • If output has JSON with score, prefer it. Otherwise extract the primary metric from text (primary_score, score, accuracy, acc, etc.).

Merge Procedure

Native GitMergeBranch:

  1. Refuses target main or master.
  2. Resolves target to configured trunk_branch. main/master are base branches, not merge targets.
  3. Creates an isolated worktree at source_branch.
  4. Runs eval_cmd_test with {cwd} and {node_id} substituted.
  5. Retries transient failures if configured.
  6. Extracts verified B_test score.
  7. Rejects the merge if B_test does not improve over test_trunk_score or test_baseline_score.
  8. Checks plugin protected paths and required outputs.
  9. Merges source into trunk with --no-ff.
  10. Reports the verified test score and instructs the coordinator to update tree metadata and node status.

After success:

  • TreeSetMeta(test_trunk_score=<verified score>).
  • If needed, re-run B_dev on trunk and TreeSetMeta(trunk_score=<dev score>).
  • TreeUpdateNode(node_id=<id>, status="merged").

Protected Paths And Required Outputs

For plugins such as MLE/Kaggle:

  • Reject branches modifying protected globs such as data/**, private/**, or evaluation/**.
  • Reject merge if required outputs such as submission.csv do not exist on the branch.
  • Snapshot outputs in the workspace so finalization can recover the best one.

Merge Threshold

merge_threshold is a soft coordinator guideline, not a substitute for B_test. A small improvement can merge when performance-first mode says every gain counts and B_test verifies it. A large B_dev improvement must still be rejected if B_test fails.

Final Stop

Before stopping:

  1. Ensure the best available branch is either merged or explicitly rejected.
  2. Run final B_test on trunk only if it is available, contract-authorized, and the run is not smoke-only.
  3. Record test_trunk_score.
  4. If test_baseline_score is missing and a baseline test run is feasible, record it.
  5. Hand off to arbor-agent-resume-report.

For smoke/forward tests, do not run B_test or merge verification unless the user explicitly requested a real run. Record test_trunk_score as unavailable, state that no separate B_test was used, run arbor_state.py check, and hand off to report generation.

Manual Emulation

If native GitMergeBranch is unavailable, use arbor-agent-tools:

python <tools>/arbor_state.py eval --cwd <project> --run-name <run> \
  --split dev --cmd "<eval_cmd>" --set-meta baseline

python <tools>/arbor_state.py meta --cwd <project> --run-name <run> \
  --set "trunk_branch=<trunk_branch>"

python <tools>/arbor_state.py merge --cwd <project> --run-name <run> \
  --source-branch <branch> --node-id <id>

Pass --target-branch <trunk_branch> explicitly only when metadata is not set. If a manual merge would touch live work, prefer --dry-run first.