ablation-design

Testing & Quality

Design ablation studies to isolate component contributions in ML systems

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Strategy: Ablation Design

Question: What does each component contribute?

Methodology

Systematic Ablation (Newell 1974): Remove one component at a time, measure degradation.
Replacement Ablation: Replace component with simpler alternative to isolate contribution.
Combinatorial Ablation (ABLATOR): Test component subsets to detect interaction effects.
Conditional Ablation: Ablate components under specific data conditions to find context-dependent contributions.

Execution Flow

ablation-component-mapping → Map system architecture to ablatable units
baseline-selection → Select full-system and minimal-system anchors
metric-specification → Define metrics that capture component contribution
sample-size-estimation → Determine runs needed for reliable delta estimation
statistical-method-selection (tactic) → Choose appropriate significance tests for deltas

Budget Gate

Ablation Type	Components (N)	Min Runs	When to Use
Systematic (leave-one-out)	3-8	N + 2	Standard component analysis
Replacement	3-8	2N + 2	Need to distinguish "removal" vs "simplification"
Combinatorial (selected)	4-6	~2N	Suspected interactions between components
Combinatorial (full)	3-4	2^N	Small systems, need complete picture
Conditional	3-6	N * conditions	Context-dependent contributions

Available Tactics

Optional, no fixed order; the final leaf is always a sop.

Tactic	When to use
statistical-method-selection	Select appropriate statistical methods for experiment analysis

Available SOPs

Optional, no fixed order; the final leaf is always a sop.

SOP	When to use
ablation-component-mapping	Map system architecture to ablatable units for ablation studies
baseline-selection	Select appropriate baselines for experimental comparison
metric-specification	Define experiment metrics and significance standards
sample-size-estimation	SOP: power analysis and required experiment count estimation