QA Gauntlet Stress — Orthogonal Axes

Authority runbook: tools/qa-gauntlet/README-stress-axes.md
Catalog: production/qa/gauntlet/corpus/stress-axes.yaml

Tiers own mission/platform complexity. Axes own pressure and compose with any tier.

Axes (do not invent modes)

Axis	Proof	Control sibling	Notes
weapons	differential-token (NO_AMMO)	Required	Proven only on strict increase vs control (baseline already has many NO_AMMO)
ew	differential-aggregate (Detected)	Required	Aggregate across seeds; never per-seed alone
logistics	config-only (GAP-13)	—	Never report as proven

Procedure

1. Plan (report estimatedRuns / dropped before execute):

python3 - <<'PY'
import sys, json
from pathlib import Path
sys.path.insert(0, "tools/qa-gauntlet")
from stress_axes import load_axes
from plan_stress_matrix import plan_matrix
axes = load_axes(Path("production/qa/gauntlet/corpus/stress-axes.yaml"))
plan = plan_matrix(axes, tiers=[1,2,3,4,5], seeds=3, max_configs=24)
print(json.dumps(plan, indent=2))
PY

Budget anchors (do not conflate): default ladder 60 runs; corpus regression ~117–126; matrix at max_configs=24 ≈ 105. Ceiling = corpus cost; lower max_configs if exceeded.

2. Derive stressed + control policies via apply_stress_axes (see runbook). Batch at tier ticks (T1=6 … T5=40), never CI 10-tick smoke as authority.

3. Proof gate (hard-fail non-config-only unproven). Scope to claimed axes only via repeatable --axis (default without flags verifies the full catalog and will hard-fail missing EW/weapons evidence even for a weapons-only candidate):

# Full catalog (all non-config-only must be proven)
python3 tools/qa-gauntlet/gate_stress_proof.py --evidence path/to/evidence.json \
  --out production/qa/gauntlet/<RUN_ID>/stress-proof-report.json

# Claimed-axis only (forge / single-recipe candidates)
python3 tools/qa-gauntlet/gate_stress_proof.py --evidence path/to/evidence.json \
  --axis weapons --out production/qa/gauntlet/<RUN_ID>/stress-proof-report.json
# multi-claim: --axis weapons --axis ew
# or STRESS_PROOF_EVIDENCE=… tools/qa-gauntlet/run-gauntlet.sh --run-id <id>

Forge integration

When forge candidates claim stress dims, recipes stress-weapons-*, stress-ew-*, stress-logistics-config-only in corpus/recipes/recipe-catalog.yaml apply. post-oracle: if axes claimed, require stress-proof report path in forge/promote-log.md. Logistics promote must state config-only / unproven.

Never

• Downgrade weapons to presence-only check.
• Claim logistics proven.
• Silent EW without detection targets (raise, do not derive inert scenarios).

See also

• /team-qa-gauntlet --mode stress
• /qa-gauntlet-forge — stress-* recipes
• /qa-gauntlet-mission-thread — concurrent threads (not an axis)
• /qa-gauntlet-agentic-resilience — quarantine contract (not an axis)
• /qa-gauntlet-combat-ui — combat presentation (not an axis)