Hiro development journal

High-cadence Daylab now appends fresh evaluations without auto-promotion

2026.07.21 at 15:01:21 America/Los_Angeles Published Machine-readable JSON

Executive summary

This session added Hiro Daylab: a bounded, proposal-only development lane that runs immediately and then every 30 minutes while preserving the canonical nightly lane for readiness evidence.

Every Daylab and scheduled nightly self-improvement execution now supplies a unique evaluation label, creating a distinct append-only evaluation record rather than reusing the same-day record.

The first live Daylab cycle added 16 new public observations with a 100% pass rate and no evaluation failures. It also completed 22 lightweight regression probes, with 21 passes and one deterministic date finding.

Daylab can create evidence, proposals, curiosity items, and regression diagnostics autonomously. Automatic code patches, promotions, merges, configuration changes, and external actions remain disabled or approval-gated.

Work completed

Distinct evaluation identity

Completed

Extended the public-evaluation runner with explicit lane and execution-label inputs.
Preserved backwards-compatible same-day idempotency when no label is supplied, while self-improvement executions now generate a unique label by default.
Recorded each labeled execution under its own immutable run and variant identity so the append-only ledger can retain independent observations safely.
Kept Daylab records separate from nightly records so rapid daytime evidence cannot be miscounted as a completed night.

Daylab worker and recovery

Completed and running

Added a serial Daylab worker with a 30-minute cadence and a 20-minute maximum cycle budget.
Added a Windows launcher that normalizes the child-process search path before starting the worker.
Installed and tested a per-user startup entry that first checks local readiness and then restores the Daylab worker after sign-in.
The worker runs proposal-only cycles and does not overlap cycles.

First live Daylab evidence

Completed

The first Daylab cycle completed in approximately 1.3 minutes and appended 16 new public observations.
The public evaluation passed all 16 observations and reported no evaluation failures.
The regression diagnostic completed all 22 probes: 21 passed and one deterministic date probe failed.
The cycle produced two medium-risk, approval-required proposals and four curiosity items; no proposal was applied.

Decisions and reasoning

Use a separate Daylab prefix and run identity so rapid development evidence is visible without inflating the valid-night readiness count.
Run Daylab serially at 30-minute intervals rather than overlapping cycles, protecting the local model and append-only ledger from concurrent load.
Require a fresh public evaluation for every Daylab or nightly self-improvement execution.
Keep code patches and promotion disabled; Daylab may draft evidence-backed proposals but cannot change Hiro autonomously.

Validation and evidence

Check	Status	Result
Distinct labeled evaluation behavior	passed	Focused tests verified that two labeled Daylab cycles append distinct evaluation records and new observations.
Daylab cadence guardrails	passed	Focused tests verified the worker requests Daylab-labeled evaluations and rejects an unsafe cadence.
Focused test suite	passed	Eight focused Daylab, nightly-evaluation, and scheduler tests passed in an isolated temporary directory.
Python compilation	passed	The modified evaluation runner, self-improvement runner, and Daylab module compiled successfully.
First live Daylab cycle	passed-with-regression-finding	The cycle appended 16 new public observations at 100% pass, then completed 22 probes with 21 passes and one deterministic date finding.
Observatory visibility and startup recovery	passed	The existing read-only Observatory API reported the new Daylab record, and the tested per-user startup entry retained the running worker.

Current state

Daylab is running locally and will begin another bounded cycle every 30 minutes after the prior cycle finishes.
Each Daylab or nightly self-improvement execution now adds a distinct public evaluation record.
The first Daylab record is separate from the nightly history and does not count as an additional valid completed night.
The canonical nightly schedule remains enabled and retains its proposal-only, approval-gated behavior.
A non-fatal Windows output-encoding warning appeared in redirected worker logs; the first Daylab cycle still completed and the worker remained healthy.

Next steps

Observe several Daylab cycles for reliable fresh-evaluation completion and recurring regression patterns.
Treat Daylab results as rapid development evidence while continuing to require independent calendar-night runs for the stated nightly-readiness threshold.
Investigate the deterministic date regression finding with a bounded test before considering a code change.
Review Daylab proposals individually; broaden test diversity and adaptive selection before increasing repetition counts or promotion authority.
Consider a larger weekly deep run after the rapid lane demonstrates reliable completion.