feat!: name the unknown key, expose tail probabilities, flag short fits

Three issues from two downstream consumers, all small, all sharing a
theme: the crate had the information and would not hand it over.

#44 — `UnknownKey { team: 0, member: 0 }` did not say which key. A
consumer upgrading 0.1.2 -> 0.4.1 had every one of 5591 predictions
return this error, fell back to a neutral 0.5, and lost its entire
metadata model for a day. Nothing crashed and nothing logged; it was
found by sweeping an unrelated parameter and noticing the output did not
move. The 0.4.0 change that made unknown keys an error was right — the
error was just too anonymous to act on. It now carries the key's `Debug`
rendering, and its `Display` says what to do about it. The precondition
is documented on every prediction entry point, which the reporter said
would alone have saved the day.

#43 — `cdf` was `pub(crate)`, so a consumer asking "is this competitor
below the cutoff" approximated it with a `mu + z * sigma` band and had no
way to say what confidence any `z` bought. Adds
`Gaussian::probability_below` / `probability_above`. The second is
separate on purpose: `1 - cdf` collapses to exactly zero past ~8.3
sigma, and a stopping rule is evaluated precisely there. Both route
through the survival function added in 0.4.1, so this is visibility
rather than new numerics.

#50 — `ConvergenceReport` was not `#[must_use]`, so the one signal that
a fit stopped short was trivially discarded. It now is, and that
immediately found 78 sites doing exactly that — including this crate's
own ATP example, which was capped at 10 sweeps when the history needs
30. The example now reads the report and says so.

`ITERATIONS = 30` is documented as the floor it is, with the three
measurements to hand: 400 events over 100 competitors already stops
there at ~7e-3 against a 1e-6 tolerance, the ATP example needs 30 at a
much looser one, and a consumer's 2000-node model needs 76 to 161.

BREAKING CHANGE: `InferenceError::UnknownKey` gains a `key` field, and
the prediction methods now require `K: Debug` in order to fill it.

Closes #43, #50. Refs #44 — its third ask, an opt-in `UnknownKeys::Skip`
mode, is a live API question and deliberately not answered here.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_011hcFjNDmHXZF8URGLku5zZ
This commit is contained in:
2026-09-07 23:41:03 +02:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5
parent 901f60972e
commit c12bc830a5
21 changed files with 396 additions and 97 deletions
+55 -7
View File
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ fn history_with(names: &[&'static str], p_draw: f64) -> History {
for pair in names.windows(2) {
h.record_winner(&pair[0], &pair[1], 1).unwrap();
}
h.converge().unwrap();
let _ = h.converge().unwrap();
h
}
@@ -20,7 +20,14 @@ fn unknown_keys_are_reported_not_silently_dropped() {
let err = h
.predict_outcome(&[&[&"a"], &[&"ghost"]])
.expect_err("an unknown key must not yield a confident prediction");
assert_eq!(err, InferenceError::UnknownKey { team: 1, member: 0 });
assert_eq!(
err,
InferenceError::UnknownKey {
team: 1,
member: 0,
key: "\"ghost\"".to_owned(),
}
);
// Every prediction entry point, not just one.
assert!(
@@ -35,7 +42,14 @@ fn unknown_keys_are_reported_not_silently_dropped() {
fn an_entirely_unknown_team_is_an_error() {
let h = history_with(&["a", "b"], 0.0);
let err = h.predict_outcome(&[&[&"a"], &[&"x", &"y"]]).unwrap_err();
assert_eq!(err, InferenceError::UnknownKey { team: 1, member: 0 });
assert_eq!(
err,
InferenceError::UnknownKey {
team: 1,
member: 0,
key: "\"x\"".to_owned(),
}
);
}
#[test]
@@ -184,7 +198,7 @@ fn the_stronger_competitor_is_favoured() {
for t in 1..=10 {
h.record_winner(&"strong", &"weak", t).unwrap();
}
h.converge().unwrap();
let _ = h.converge().unwrap();
let p = h.predict_outcome(&[&[&"strong"], &[&"weak"]]).unwrap();
let (best, _) = p.most_likely().expect("a most likely outcome");
@@ -206,7 +220,7 @@ fn team_size_affects_the_prediction() {
.winner(0)
.commit()
.unwrap();
h.converge().unwrap();
let _ = h.converge().unwrap();
let p = h.predict_outcome(&[&[&"a", &"b"], &[&"c"]]).unwrap();
assert!((p.total() - 1.0).abs() < 1e-6, "total = {}", p.total());
@@ -229,7 +243,7 @@ fn information_gain_prefers_the_uncertain_pairing() {
h.record_winner(&"rival", &"known", t + 100).unwrap();
}
h.record_winner(&"known", &"newcomer", 500).unwrap();
h.converge().unwrap();
let _ = h.converge().unwrap();
let settled = h
.expected_information_gain(&[&[&"known"], &[&"rival"]])
@@ -271,7 +285,11 @@ fn information_gain_reports_unknown_keys() {
assert_eq!(
h.expected_information_gain(&[&[&"a"], &[&"ghost"]])
.unwrap_err(),
InferenceError::UnknownKey { team: 1, member: 0 }
InferenceError::UnknownKey {
team: 1,
member: 0,
key: "\"ghost\"".to_owned(),
}
);
}
@@ -289,3 +307,33 @@ fn information_gain_accounts_for_draws() {
let dist = with_draws.predict_outcome(&[&[&"a"], &[&"b"]]).unwrap();
assert!(dist.probability_of(&[0, 0]) > 0.0);
}
/// The defect that cost a consumer a day: `UnknownKey { team: 0, member: 0 }`
/// says nothing about *which* key is unknown, so the natural handling — log it,
/// fall back to a neutral value — converts a total miss into a plausible
/// constant. The key has to be in the error, and in its `Display`.
#[test]
fn unknown_key_names_the_key_it_could_not_find() {
let h = history_with(&["a", "b"], 0.0);
let err = h.predict_outcome(&[&[&"a"], &[&"never_seen"]]).unwrap_err();
match &err {
InferenceError::UnknownKey { key, .. } => {
assert!(
key.contains("never_seen"),
"the error should name the key, got {key}"
);
}
other => panic!("expected UnknownKey, got {other:?}"),
}
let rendered = err.to_string();
assert!(
rendered.contains("never_seen"),
"Display should name the key: {rendered}"
);
assert!(
rendered.contains("pre-filter"),
"Display should say what to do about it: {rendered}"
);
}