Spec17 Curriculum Blueprint

spec17 is planned as the bounded intent bridge after the frozen spec16 shared-bundle winner. It is not another narrow raw repair rung. The goal is to move from explicit layout/style prompts to bounded [topic] + [goal] + [audience] planning while keeping the output contract the same: one clean shared [bundle], deterministic lowerers, deterministic compiler, and external content.json.

Why this exists: the run history from spec02 through spec16 shows a stable pattern. Better contracts and better full curricula create the real progress. Post-hoc raw repair rungs, especially warning-language fixes around wrappers and stop markers, regress more often than they help once a strong winner already exists.

Hard Boundary

Prompt Contract

Primary prompt:

[task:svg] [topic:<topic_id>] [goal:<goal_id>] [audience:<audience_id>] [OUT]

Controlled hints may add [emphasis], [constraint], or [content_pack].

Do not give the model explicit layout, form, theme, tone, density, background, or topology counts.

Output Contract

Emit exactly one shared [bundle] only.

Do not emit raw SVG, free-written prose, topic ids, asset ids, or family-specific lowerer syntax.

Visible facts, copy, and numbers remain in external content.json.

Repair Boundary

Allowed deterministic repair is narrow:

truncate at the first valid [/bundle]
strip copied prompt/control tags outside the bundle
dedupe singleton tags when family and form already match
fill missing prompt-controlled fields only when family and form already match

Repair must never invent a new family, form, or style bundle.

Founding Families

Family	Forms	Topology fields	Intent profiles
`memory_map`	`typed_regions`, `arena_sections`, `layer_stack`	`segments`, `brackets`, `cards`	`memory_layout_map`, `allocator_regions`, `arena_guard_flow`
`timeline`	`milestone_chain`, `stage_sequence`	`stages`, `arrows`, `footer`	`ir_evolution_timeline`, `why_pipeline_timeline`, `operator_changeover_timeline`
`system_diagram`	`linear_pipeline`, `build_path`, `selection_path`	`stages`, `links`, `terminal`, `footer`	`pipeline_overview_flow`, `build_pipeline_flow`, `registry_selection_flow`

Stage Mix

The curriculum is designed to teach the predictable failure frontiers from the beginning rather than patching them later. All rows must stay compiler-valid and bundle-canonical. No warning-language repair rows are allowed.

Stage A

Surface	Weight	Teaching purpose
`explicit_bundle_anchor`	`35%`	Preserve the frozen `spec16` bundle grammar and anchor non-regression.
`clean_stop_anchor`	`10%`	Teach one clean bundle and stop without introducing wrapper-warning prose.
`intent_family_bridge`	`20%`	Teach `topic + goal + audience` to family/form routing.
`form_disambiguation_contrast`	`10%`	Separate sibling forms before the line defaults to one favorite form.
`style_bundle_inference`	`10%`	Teach theme/tone/density/background inference from audience and emphasis.
`topology_budget_bridge`	`10%`	Teach topology and density changes from compact/balanced/dense constraints.
`family_confusion_contrast`	`5%`	Keep the three-family boundary visible from the first stage.

Stage B

Surface	Weight	Teaching purpose
`explicit_bundle_anchor`	`20%`	Keep the shared bundle grammar frozen while the prompt contract weakens.
`clean_stop_anchor`	`5%`	Preserve decode hygiene with positive clean-stop coverage.
`intent_family_bridge`	`20%`	Make bounded intent prompts a first-class path, not a rare ablation.
`topic_goal_recombination`	`15%`	Test whether the model recombines seen topics and seen goals instead of memorizing pairs.
`form_disambiguation_contrast`	`10%`	Continue pressure on sibling-form choice under weaker prompts.
`style_bundle_inference`	`10%`	Keep style inference from collapsing to the dominant bundle.
`topology_budget_bridge`	`10%`	Keep count and density planning inside the bounded contract.
`paraphrase_bridge`	`5%`	Teach wording robustness without changing the underlying task.
`family_confusion_contrast`	`5%`	Block hidden family imbalance before promotion.

Predicted Failure Frontiers

Failure frontier	Why it is predictable	How the curriculum teaches it up front
default family attractor	Shared-family lines often collapse to the most familiar family when the prompt weakens.	`intent_family_bridge`, `topic_goal_recombination`, `family_confusion_contrast`
default form attractor	Sibling forms inside one family are easy to blur together under CE pressure.	`intent_family_bridge`, `form_disambiguation_contrast`
default style attractor	Theme/tone/background often drift to the training-dominant bundle.	`style_bundle_inference`
topology/count drift	Counts often default to familiar values when the prompt only gives high-level intent.	`topology_budget_bridge`
topic leakage into output	Once topic and goal enter the prompt, the model may try to serialize them into the bundle.	`explicit_bundle_anchor`, `clean_stop_anchor`
paraphrase brittleness	Minor wording shifts can change the chosen bundle if the prompt surface is under-trained.	`paraphrase_bridge`
hidden family imbalance	One family can improve on visible probes while another silently collapses on hidden probes.	`family_confusion_contrast`, balanced hidden splits

Holdouts And Promotion

Visible probes must stay balanced across all three families and cover family routing, form choice, style inference, and topology budgeting.
Hidden probes must stay balanced across all three families and include paraphrase and topic-goal recombination surfaces.
Raw exact and repaired exact must always be reported separately.
No family may regress on hidden probes while another improves.
If the remaining errors are mostly deterministic near-misses, stay on decode/repair instead of reopening raw repair churn.

Before Training Starts

Audit the blueprint for form coverage, failure-frontier coverage, and stage-mix integrity.
Keep the shared scene_bundle.v1 contract frozen from spec16.
Keep compiler parity, tokenizer coverage, and token-budget checks as hard gates.
Only materialize spec17 after the blueprint and audit pass. Do not start from another speculative repair rung.

Source of truth in the repo: version/v7/reports/spec17_curriculum_blueprint.json, version/v7/scripts/audit_curriculum_blueprint_v7.py, and the generated audit report under version/v7/reports/.