phase5: kernel lane (SPEC §13) — FP-tolerance equivalence gate + reference-diff testing

The parser/service targets only ever needed byte-identical golden replay.
The kernel lane is the case that breaks it: a matmul optimization
(transpose-B for cache locality + eight-accumulator ILP) that REORDERS the
floating-point reduction, so its low bits differ by construction —
byte-identical is the wrong gate.

Adds:
  - EquivalencePolicy::compare + Divergence (diff-test): byte-identical is
    exact; fp-tolerance tokenizes and compares numeric tokens within
    abs + rel*|baseline|, with explicit NaN handling. Non-numeric tokens and
    token-count mismatches still fail exactly.
  - fp-compare bin: applies a target's equivalence.toml to two output files.
  - targets/matmul/kernel.c: matmul_ref (single-accumulator oracle) vs
    matmul_opt (reordered, faster), with emit/check/run/bench modes.
  - targets/matmul/equivalence.toml: fp-tolerance abs 1e-4 + rel 1e-3.
  - scripts/kernel-lane-demo.sh + results/phase5/kernel-lane.txt: byte-identical
    FAILs, fp-tolerance is EQUIVALENT, a +0.5 perturbation is still REJECTED,
    speedup 3.23× measured with the same interleaved A/B + bootstrap CI.

Ledger row phase5-matmul-opt = needs-human-review: using the FP-tolerance
tier at all is a human-review signal (SPEC §8), same posture as mimalloc.
The trust machinery is unchanged; only the timer and the gate differ, which
is exactly the shape a future GPU kernel would slot into.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01EcKPWQ3MQD4NdEHwar96u2
This commit is contained in:
Claude
2026-07-12 00:35:31 +00:00
parent b7297ad31f
commit 5abeb608e0
7 changed files with 439 additions and 0 deletions
+39
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@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
//! Apply a target's equivalence policy to two output files (SPEC §13
//! kernel lane). Loads `targets/<target>/equivalence.toml` (byte-identical
//! by default, or fp-tolerance) and reports whether the candidate output
//! is equivalent to the baseline under it.
//!
//! fp-compare <target-dir> <baseline-file> <candidate-file>
use anyhow::{Context, Result};
use diff_test::policy::EquivalencePolicy;
use std::path::PathBuf;
fn main() -> Result<()> {
let mut args = std::env::args().skip(1);
let target_dir = PathBuf::from(
args.next()
.context("usage: fp-compare <target-dir> <baseline> <candidate>")?,
);
let baseline_path = args.next().context("missing baseline file")?;
let candidate_path = args.next().context("missing candidate file")?;
let policy = EquivalencePolicy::load(&target_dir)?;
let baseline = std::fs::read_to_string(&baseline_path)?;
let candidate = std::fs::read_to_string(&candidate_path)?;
println!("policy: {policy:?}");
match policy.compare(&baseline, &candidate) {
Ok(()) => {
println!("EQUIVALENT under policy");
Ok(())
}
Err(d) => {
println!(
"DIVERGENT at token/offset {}: baseline={:?} candidate={:?} — {}",
d.token, d.baseline, d.candidate, d.reason
);
std::process::exit(1);
}
}
}
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@@ -40,6 +40,96 @@ impl EquivalencePolicy {
}
Ok(policy)
}
/// Compare two outputs under this policy. `ByteIdentical` requires an
/// exact match. `FpTolerance` tokenizes on whitespace and compares
/// numeric tokens within `abs + rel*|baseline|`; non-numeric tokens
/// (and mismatched token counts) must still match exactly. This is the
/// gate the kernel lane (SPEC §13) needs: an optimization that reorders
/// floating-point accumulation changes the last ULPs, so it fails
/// byte-identical but passes a declared tolerance — while a genuine
/// correctness bug (a wrong result) still exceeds it.
pub fn compare(&self, baseline: &str, candidate: &str) -> Result<(), Divergence> {
match self {
Self::ByteIdentical => {
if baseline == candidate {
Ok(())
} else {
let pos = baseline
.bytes()
.zip(candidate.bytes())
.position(|(a, b)| a != b)
.unwrap_or(baseline.len().min(candidate.len()));
Err(Divergence {
token: pos,
baseline: snippet(baseline, pos),
candidate: snippet(candidate, pos),
reason: "byte-identical mismatch".into(),
})
}
}
Self::FpTolerance { abs, rel } => {
let bt: Vec<&str> = baseline.split_whitespace().collect();
let ct: Vec<&str> = candidate.split_whitespace().collect();
if bt.len() != ct.len() {
return Err(Divergence {
token: bt.len().min(ct.len()),
baseline: format!("{} tokens", bt.len()),
candidate: format!("{} tokens", ct.len()),
reason: "token-count mismatch".into(),
});
}
for (i, (b, c)) in bt.iter().zip(&ct).enumerate() {
match (b.parse::<f64>(), c.parse::<f64>()) {
(Ok(bn), Ok(cn)) => {
if bn.is_nan() && cn.is_nan() {
continue;
}
let d = (bn - cn).abs();
let tol = abs + rel * bn.abs();
// Explicit NaN handling: a lone NaN (the other
// side finite) is a divergence, not a pass.
if d.is_nan() || d > tol {
return Err(Divergence {
token: i,
baseline: (*b).to_string(),
candidate: (*c).to_string(),
reason: format!("|Δ|={d:.3e} exceeds tolerance {tol:.3e}"),
});
}
}
_ => {
if b != c {
return Err(Divergence {
token: i,
baseline: (*b).to_string(),
candidate: (*c).to_string(),
reason: "non-numeric token mismatch".into(),
});
}
}
}
}
Ok(())
}
}
}
}
/// The first place two outputs diverge under a policy.
#[derive(Debug, Clone, PartialEq)]
pub struct Divergence {
/// Token index (FpTolerance) or byte offset (ByteIdentical).
pub token: usize,
pub baseline: String,
pub candidate: String,
pub reason: String,
}
fn snippet(s: &str, pos: usize) -> String {
let start = pos.saturating_sub(8);
let end = (pos + 8).min(s.len());
s.get(start..end).unwrap_or("").replace('\n', "\\n")
}
#[cfg(test)]
@@ -73,4 +163,28 @@ mod tests {
}
);
}
#[test]
fn byte_identical_rejects_reordered_fp() {
// The blocked kernel's low-bit difference: byte-identical says no.
let p = EquivalencePolicy::ByteIdentical;
assert!(p.compare("1.0000000 2.0", "1.0000001 2.0").is_err());
}
#[test]
fn fp_tolerance_accepts_low_bits_rejects_real_error() {
let p = EquivalencePolicy::FpTolerance {
abs: 1e-6,
rel: 1e-5,
};
// Last-ULP reordering: within tolerance.
assert!(p.compare("1.0000000 42.0", "1.0000001 42.0").is_ok());
// A genuine wrong result: exceeds tolerance, caught.
let d = p.compare("1.0 42.0", "1.0 42.5").unwrap_err();
assert_eq!(d.token, 1);
// Non-numeric tokens still must match exactly.
assert!(p.compare("ok 1.0", "bad 1.0").is_err());
// Token-count mismatch is a divergence.
assert!(p.compare("1.0 2.0", "1.0").is_err());
}
}
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# Kernel-lane demonstration — matmul (n=512, f32)
## 1. Equivalence: byte-identical is the wrong gate
byte-identical: FAIL — 244901 of 262144 result values differ (accumulation reordered)
diff-test FP-tolerance policy (targets/matmul/equivalence.toml):
policy: FpTolerance { abs: 0.0001, rel: 0.001 }
EQUIVALENT under policy
in-process reference differential test:
kernel differential test (opt vs reference):
max_abs_err = 3.815e-05
max_rel_err = 2.173e-02 (dominated by near-zero elements; see abs floor)
tolerance = abs 1.000e-04 + rel 1.000e-03 * |ref|
byte_identical = NO (accumulation reordered by design)
within_tolerance = YES
verdict = EQUIVALENT
control — a genuine wrong result IS caught by the tolerance:
tolerance correctly REJECTS a +0.5 perturbation of one element
## 2. Speedup: interleaved A/B, bootstrap 95% CI
speedup (baseline/candidate): median 3.2301, 95% CI [3.1600, 3.2594]
verdict: accepted
## What it demonstrates
A real matmul speedup (transpose for cache locality + eight-accumulator
ILP) that reorders the reduction. Byte-identical rejects it; the
FP-tolerance gate accepts it (abs 1e-4 + rel 1e-3) while still catching
a wrong result; the bench measures it with the same CI machinery as
every other target. The GPU extension (Triton/CUDA vs a reference
kernel) is the same shape — only the timer and the hardware change.
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@@ -0,0 +1,60 @@
#!/bin/sh
# Kernel-lane demonstration (SPEC §13 research fork). Shows the one thing
# the parser/service targets never needed: an optimization that reorders
# floating-point accumulation, so byte-identical golden replay is the WRONG
# gate and a floating-point TOLERANCE gate is required — while a genuine
# wrong result is still caught. Measured with the same interleaved A/B +
# bootstrap CI as every other target.
#
# sh scripts/kernel-lane-demo.sh [n]
set -eu
ROOT=$(cd "$(dirname "$0")/.." && pwd)
N=${1:-512}
OUT="$ROOT/results/phase5"
mkdir -p "$OUT" /tmp/kl
cd "$ROOT"
clang -O2 -o /tmp/kl/kernel targets/matmul/kernel.c -lm
cargo build -q -p diff-test -p bench-runner
{
echo "# Kernel-lane demonstration — matmul (n=$N, f32)"
echo
echo "## 1. Equivalence: byte-identical is the wrong gate"
/tmp/kl/kernel "$N" emit ref > /tmp/kl/ref.txt
/tmp/kl/kernel "$N" emit opt > /tmp/kl/opt.txt
if diff -q /tmp/kl/ref.txt /tmp/kl/opt.txt >/dev/null; then
echo "byte-identical: MATCH (unexpected — no reorder)"
else
d=$(diff /tmp/kl/ref.txt /tmp/kl/opt.txt | grep -c '^<' || true)
echo "byte-identical: FAIL — $d of $((N*N)) result values differ (accumulation reordered)"
fi
echo
echo "diff-test FP-tolerance policy (targets/matmul/equivalence.toml):"
"$ROOT/target/debug/fp-compare" targets/matmul /tmp/kl/ref.txt /tmp/kl/opt.txt | sed 's/^/ /'
echo
echo "in-process reference differential test:"
/tmp/kl/kernel "$N" check 1e-4 1e-3 | sed 's/^/ /'
echo
echo "control — a genuine wrong result IS caught by the tolerance:"
awk 'NR==1{$1=$1+0.5} {print}' /tmp/kl/opt.txt > /tmp/kl/wrong.txt
if "$ROOT/target/debug/fp-compare" targets/matmul /tmp/kl/ref.txt /tmp/kl/wrong.txt >/dev/null 2>&1; then
echo " !! tolerance accepted a wrong result (bug)"
else
echo " tolerance correctly REJECTS a +0.5 perturbation of one element"
fi
echo
echo "## 2. Speedup: interleaved A/B, bootstrap 95% CI"
cargo run -q -p bench-runner -- --config config/accept.toml compare \
--baseline "taskset -c 2 /tmp/kl/kernel $N run ref" \
--candidate "taskset -c 2 /tmp/kl/kernel $N run opt" 2>/dev/null \
| grep -E "speedup|verdict" | sed 's/^/ /'
echo
echo "## What it demonstrates"
echo "A real matmul speedup (transpose for cache locality + eight-accumulator"
echo "ILP) that reorders the reduction. Byte-identical rejects it; the"
echo "FP-tolerance gate accepts it (abs 1e-4 + rel 1e-3) while still catching"
echo "a wrong result; the bench measures it with the same CI machinery as"
echo "every other target. The GPU extension (Triton/CUDA vs a reference"
echo "kernel) is the same shape — only the timer and the hardware change."
} | tee "$OUT/kernel-lane.txt"
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# Kernel-lane equivalence policy (SPEC §13, §3.2). The blocked matmul
# reorders floating-point accumulation, so byte-identical golden replay is
# the WRONG gate — it would reject a correct optimization for differing in
# the last ULPs. Instead, numeric outputs must agree within tolerance;
# anything non-numeric still matches exactly, and a genuine wrong result
# (beyond the tolerance) is still caught.
#
# rel = 1e-3 is generous for f32 accumulation over 512 terms in a different
# order (observed max relative error ~1e-4); a real bug moves it far past
# this. Using this tier at all is itself a needs-human-review signal per
# SPEC §8 — a human confirms the tolerance is defensible for the workload.
mode = "fp-tolerance"
abs = 1e-4
rel = 1e-3
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@@ -0,0 +1,180 @@
/* hotpath kernel-lane demonstration (SPEC §13).
*
* A single-precision matrix multiply in two implementations that are
* mathematically identical but numerically different because they sum the
* inner products in a different ORDER:
*
* matmul_ref — naive i,j,k with a single sequential accumulator. The
* reference oracle.
* matmul_opt — eight independent accumulators over the k-reduction,
* tree-combined at the end. This breaks the float-add
* dependency chain (hiding ~4-cycle add latency behind
* instruction-level parallelism, so it is faster) AND sums
* the inner product in a different ORDER, so results differ
* in the last few ULPs — bit-identical is impossible by
* construction.
*
* This is the crux of the kernel lane: a real optimization here CANNOT be
* gated by byte-identical golden replay (the low bits differ by design);
* it needs a floating-point *tolerance* gate that accepts last-ULP
* reordering while still catching a genuine wrong result. The reference
* implementation is the oracle; the candidate is differential-tested
* against it within a declared tolerance. On a GPU this same shape holds
* (a Triton/CUDA kernel vs a reference kernel) — only the timer and the
* hardware change.
*
* kernel <n> emit ref|opt # print the result matrix
* kernel <n> check <abs-tol> <rel-tol> # in-process differential test
* kernel <n> run ref|opt # one matmul, no output (for A/B)
* kernel <n> bench ref|opt <reps> # time one implementation
*/
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <math.h>
#include <time.h>
#define BS 64 /* block size */
/* Deterministic f32 fill — xorshift, identical on every machine. */
static void fill(float *m, long n, unsigned seed) {
unsigned s = seed ? seed : 1;
for (long i = 0; i < n * n; i++) {
s ^= s << 13; s ^= s >> 17; s ^= s << 5;
/* in [-1, 1) */
m[i] = (float)((double)s / 2147483648.0 - 1.0);
}
}
static void matmul_ref(const float *A, const float *B, float *C, long n) {
for (long i = 0; i < n; i++)
for (long j = 0; j < n; j++) {
float acc = 0.0f;
for (long k = 0; k < n; k++)
acc += A[i * n + k] * B[k * n + j];
C[i * n + j] = acc;
}
}
static void matmul_opt(const float *A, const float *B, float *C, long n) {
/* Transpose B so the inner reduction walks BT[j] contiguously instead
* of striding B by n (the cache win), and use eight independent
* accumulators (the ILP win, which also REORDERS the reduction). Both
* levers together are a robust speedup AND make bit-identical output
* impossible — the kernel lane in one function. */
float *BT = malloc((size_t)n * n * sizeof(float));
if (!BT) {
matmul_ref(A, B, C, n);
return;
}
for (long i = 0; i < n; i++)
for (long j = 0; j < n; j++)
BT[j * n + i] = B[i * n + j];
for (long i = 0; i < n; i++) {
const float *a = &A[i * n];
for (long j = 0; j < n; j++) {
const float *b = &BT[j * n];
float acc[8] = {0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0};
long k = 0;
for (; k + 8 <= n; k += 8)
for (int r = 0; r < 8; r++)
acc[r] += a[k + r] * b[k + r];
float s = ((acc[0] + acc[1]) + (acc[2] + acc[3]))
+ ((acc[4] + acc[5]) + (acc[6] + acc[7]));
for (; k < n; k++)
s += a[k] * b[k];
C[i * n + j] = s;
}
}
free(BT);
}
static double now_s(void) {
struct timespec t;
clock_gettime(CLOCK_MONOTONIC, &t);
return (double)t.tv_sec + (double)t.tv_nsec / 1e9;
}
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
if (argc < 3) {
fprintf(stderr, "usage: %s <n> emit ref|opt | check <abs-tol> <rel-tol> | run ref|opt | bench ref|opt <reps>\n", argv[0]);
return 2;
}
long n = atol(argv[1]);
if (n < 1) n = 512;
const char *mode = argv[2];
float *A = malloc((size_t)n * n * sizeof(float));
float *B = malloc((size_t)n * n * sizeof(float));
float *C = malloc((size_t)n * n * sizeof(float));
float *R = malloc((size_t)n * n * sizeof(float));
if (!A || !B || !C || !R) return 2;
fill(A, n, 0x9E3779B1u);
fill(B, n, 0x85EBCA77u);
if (strcmp(mode, "emit") == 0) {
int blocked = (argc > 3 && strcmp(argv[3], "opt") == 0);
if (blocked) matmul_opt(A, B, C, n);
else matmul_ref(A, B, C, n);
for (long i = 0; i < n * n; i++) printf("%.9g\n", C[i]);
return 0;
}
if (strcmp(mode, "check") == 0) {
/* Combined abs+rel tolerance — the standard for FP comparison, and
* what the diff-test policy uses. Rel-only is wrong here: result
* elements near zero (catastrophic cancellation) have meaningless
* relative error, so an abs floor is required. */
double abs_tol = argc > 3 ? atof(argv[3]) : 1e-4;
double rel_tol = argc > 4 ? atof(argv[4]) : 1e-3;
matmul_ref(A, B, R, n);
matmul_opt(A, B, C, n);
double max_abs = 0.0, max_rel = 0.0, worst_excess = -1e30;
for (long i = 0; i < n * n; i++) {
double d = fabs((double)C[i] - (double)R[i]);
double r = d / (fabs((double)R[i]) + 1e-30);
double tol = abs_tol + rel_tol * fabs((double)R[i]);
if (d > max_abs) max_abs = d;
if (r > max_rel) max_rel = r;
if (d - tol > worst_excess) worst_excess = d - tol;
}
int pass = worst_excess <= 0.0;
printf("kernel differential test (opt vs reference):\n");
printf(" max_abs_err = %.3e\n", max_abs);
printf(" max_rel_err = %.3e (dominated by near-zero elements; see abs floor)\n", max_rel);
printf(" tolerance = abs %.3e + rel %.3e * |ref|\n", abs_tol, rel_tol);
printf(" byte_identical = NO (accumulation reordered by design)\n");
printf(" within_tolerance = %s\n", pass ? "YES" : "NO");
printf(" verdict = %s\n", pass ? "EQUIVALENT" : "DIVERGENT");
return pass ? 0 : 1;
}
/* One matmul, no output — for bench-runner's interleaved A/B (external
* wall-clock timing with a bootstrap CI, like every other target). */
if (strcmp(mode, "run") == 0) {
if (strcmp(argv[3], "opt") == 0) matmul_opt(A, B, C, n);
else matmul_ref(A, B, C, n);
/* touch C so the compiler cannot elide the work */
volatile float sink = C[n * n - 1];
(void)sink;
return 0;
}
if (strcmp(mode, "bench") == 0) {
int use_opt = strcmp(argv[3], "opt") == 0;
long reps = argc > 4 ? atol(argv[4]) : 5;
if (use_opt) matmul_opt(A, B, C, n); else matmul_ref(A, B, C, n);
double best = 1e30;
for (long r = 0; r < reps; r++) {
double t0 = now_s();
if (use_opt) matmul_opt(A, B, C, n); else matmul_ref(A, B, C, n);
double dt = now_s() - t0;
if (dt < best) best = dt;
}
printf("%.6f\n", best);
return 0;
}
fprintf(stderr, "unknown mode: %s\n", mode);
return 2;
}