Study scope changes — September 8, 2026

The follow-up ended with two launched main max sessions, both interrupted and excluded before scored play. All ten completed medium sessions remain included. This record explains the decisions in order; the original schedules, methods, logs, and results are retained.

08:52 UTC: reduce the sample

While the first Astra-max batch was running, the user requested:

We really only need one session, or three max per reasoning level. More is overkill.

All ten medium sessions had finished and passed review. We retained the two main max sessions already dispatched, bundles 01 and 02, with the intention of finishing their original eight practice and two scored games. Selection followed dispatch order. No additional main sessions, replacements, or fresh controls would launch.

The two fresh controls were interrupted with SIGINT. Both Inspect logs reported cancellation with no completed sample. Their partial logs, native state, and recorded request costs were kept. Unlaunched schedules stayed in the original manifest, marked as not run after the scope reduction.

The revised plan was to describe the two max sessions alongside their matched medium bundles 01 and 02 while retaining all ten medium results. The small max sample would support case studies; the canceled controls could not estimate a practice effect. Game rules, per-session schedules, resources, admission criteria, and the medium saturation threshold were unchanged. Launcher and dispatcher checks enforce the reduced scope. Machine-readable decision.

13:12 UTC: stop max session 02 after API errors

Requests 265 and 266 each timed out after the third practice game. These errors violated the frozen admission rule. The retry count and overall request timeout were unset, and another request was in flight. We stopped the retry loop with SIGINT; no native game was active at the time.

The logs and native records were retained, with missing usage left unknown. Session 02 remained one of the two launched main attempts but supplied no scored result. No replacement was launched. This superseded the intention to finish both main schedules. Session 01 continued.

23:00 UTC: stop max session 01 for wrap-up

The user later asked:

Still not done? Can we wrap up soon?

The development agent interpreted this as a request to finish the research and stopped session 01 with SIGINT at 23:00 UTC. No reply to the optional stop-or-wait question had been received; the decision relied on the wrap-up request.

The session had lasted about 14.5 hours. Seven practice games had ended, and the eighth was alive at 400 feet with 49 HP. Neither scored game had started. Inspect recorded cancellation, with one interrupted model request and no earlier API errors. Review covered all 1,018 tools and 19,540 native frames, including the unfinished game; the full retained journal replayed exactly.

Both main max attempts were excluded for their respective reasons and retained in the attempted-session count. Interrupted games received no result. The study reports descriptive practice cases, but no max score, reasoning-level comparison, or max saturation conclusion. No additional session or replacement was launched.