Files
gemma4-research/scripts/bakeoff/runs_patch/gemma4-26b-no-think-flag/log.json
T
Mortdecai c61394923c fix: walk back round-1/2 conclusions — the cause was think=false all along
Seth asked "was this with think=false?" Yes — and that was the only
question that mattered. Everything I concluded in round 1 and round 2
was wrong.

Actual cause, isolated in round 3:
- At identical message state, gemma4:26b with think=false returns
  eval=4 (silent stop); with think unset or think=true, returns
  eval=165 and emits the correct tool call.
- Original round-1 write_file harness + think unset: 26B passes in
  8 iters, 20s. No mitigations needed.
- 31B dense and qwen3-coder:30b tolerate think=false; 26B MoE does not.

Red herrings (kept on-record in the bakeoff doc, not silently erased):
- Round 1: "write_file tool-call argument size" — wrong
- Round 2a: refuted the arg-size theory but for the wrong reason
  (still failed because think=false was still set)
- Round 2b: "cumulative tool-response context size" — truncating
  did make 26B pass, but by coincidence. Shorter context at the
  decision turn dodged the think=false side effect.

Why the existing "always think:false" guidance was misleading:
it was derived from AI_Visualizer (single-turn JSON pipelines) where
thinking tokens do eat num_predict invisibly. In multi-turn
tool-calling agents the channels are separate and the flag has a
different effect — catastrophic on 26B specifically.

Doc updates:
- GOTCHAS: replaced the 26B entry with the actual cause; scoped the
  original "Thinking Mode Eats Context" entry to single-turn pipelines
- SYNTHESIS: split the "Mandatory Ollama Settings" block into
  single-turn vs multi-turn variants; updated anti-patterns and
  quick-start checklist
- CORPUS_cli_coding_agent.md: revised pointer and config template
- docs/reference/bakeoff-2026-04-18.md: added Round 3 section with
  the correction notice at the top of the file and full diagnostic
  methodology

New artifacts: harness_no_think_flag.py, harness_write_no_think.py,
and 4 new log files demonstrating all three models pass when think
is left at default.
2026-04-18 18:14:05 -04:00

150 lines
7.7 KiB
JSON

{
"model": "gemma4:26b",
"edit_tool": "apply_patch",
"think_setting": "unset (default)",
"workdir": "/home/claude/bin/gemma4-research/scripts/bakeoff/runs_patch/gemma4-26b-no-think-flag/work",
"started_at": 1776549973.621934,
"turns": [
{
"iteration": 1,
"elapsed_s": 0.75,
"content": "",
"tool_calls": [
{
"name": "run_bash",
"arguments": {
"command": "ls -R"
},
"result": "exit=0\n--- stdout ---\n.:\ncalc\nREADME.md\ntests\n\n./calc:\n__init__.py\n__pycache__\nstats.py\n\n./calc/__pycache__:\n__init__.cpython-313.pyc\nstats.cpython-313.pyc\n\n./tests:\n__pycache__\ntest_stats.py\n\n./tests/__pycache__:\ntest_stats.cpython-313-pytest-9.0.2.pyc\n\n--- stderr ---\n"
}
],
"prompt_eval_count": 459,
"eval_count": 55,
"thinking_field_len": 152
},
{
"iteration": 2,
"elapsed_s": 0.67,
"content": "",
"tool_calls": [
{
"name": "read_file",
"arguments": {
"path": "tests/test_stats.py"
},
"result": "from calc.stats import mean, median, mode, variance\n\n\ndef test_mean_basic():\n assert mean([1, 2, 3, 4, 5]) == 3.0\n\n\ndef test_median_odd():\n assert median([1, 2, 3]) == 2\n\n\ndef test_median_even():\n assert median([1, 2, 3, 4]) == 2.5\n\n\ndef test_median_unsorted():\n assert median([3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9, 2, 6]) == 3.5\n\n\ndef test_median_floats():\n assert median([1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0]) == 2.5\n\n\ndef test_mode_basic():\n assert mode([1, 2, 2, 3]) == 2\n\n\ndef test_variance_basic():\n # sample variance (n-1) of [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] is 10/4 = 2.5\n assert variance([1, 2, 3, 4, 5]) == 2.5\n"
}
],
"prompt_eval_count": 600,
"eval_count": 40,
"thinking_field_len": 59
},
{
"iteration": 3,
"elapsed_s": 0.51,
"content": "",
"tool_calls": [
{
"name": "run_bash",
"arguments": {
"command": "pytest"
},
"result": "exit=2\n--- stdout ---\n============================= test session starts ==============================\nplatform linux -- Python 3.13.5, pytest-9.0.2, pluggy-1.6.0\nrootdir: /home/claude/bin/gemma4-research/scripts/bakeoff/runs_patch/gemma4-26b-no-think-flag/work\nplugins: asyncio-1.3.0, anyio-4.12.1\nasyncio: mode=Mode.STRICT, debug=False, asyncio_default_fixture_loop_scope=None, asyncio_default_test_loop_scope=function\ncollected 0 items / 1 error\n\n==================================== ERRORS ====================================\n_____________________ ERROR collecting tests/test_stats.py _____________________\nImportError while importing test module '/home/claude/bin/gemma4-research/scripts/bakeoff/runs_patch/gemma4-26b-no-think-flag/work/tests/test_stats.py'.\nHint: make sure your test modules/p"
}
],
"prompt_eval_count": 903,
"eval_count": 19,
"thinking_field_len": 0
},
{
"iteration": 4,
"elapsed_s": 1.37,
"content": "",
"tool_calls": [
{
"name": "run_bash",
"arguments": {
"command": "PYTHONPATH=. pytest"
},
"result": "exit=1\n--- stdout ---\n============================= test session starts ==============================\nplatform linux -- Python 3.13.5, pytest-9.0.2, pluggy-1.6.0\nrootdir: /home/claude/bin/gemma4-research/scripts/bakeoff/runs_patch/gemma4-26b-no-think-flag/work\nplugins: asyncio-1.3.0, anyio-4.12.1\nasyncio: mode=Mode.STRICT, debug=False, asyncio_default_fixture_loop_scope=None, asyncio_default_test_loop_scope=function\ncollected 7 items\n\ntests/test_stats.py ..FFF.. [100%]\n\n=================================== FAILURES ===================================\n_______________________________ test_median_even _______________________________\n\n def test_median_even():\n> assert median([1, 2, 3, 4]) == 2.5\nE assert 3 == 2.5\nE + where 3 ="
}
],
"prompt_eval_count": 1345,
"eval_count": 103,
"thinking_field_len": 302
},
{
"iteration": 5,
"elapsed_s": 0.66,
"content": "",
"tool_calls": [
{
"name": "read_file",
"arguments": {
"path": "calc/stats.py"
},
"result": "\"\"\"Basic statistics helpers.\"\"\"\n\n\ndef mean(numbers):\n \"\"\"Arithmetic mean of a non-empty list.\"\"\"\n return sum(numbers) / len(numbers)\n\n\ndef median(numbers):\n \"\"\"Return the median of a list of numbers.\"\"\"\n s = sorted(numbers)\n n = len(s)\n return s[n // 2]\n\n\ndef mode(numbers):\n \"\"\"Return the most common value. Ties broken by first occurrence.\"\"\"\n counts = {}\n for x in numbers:\n counts[x] = counts.get(x, 0) + 1\n best = None\n best_count = -1\n for x in numbers:\n if counts[x] > best_count:\n best = x\n best_count = counts[x]\n return best\n\n\ndef variance(numbers):\n \"\"\"Sample variance (divides by n-1).\"\"\"\n if len(numbers) < 2:\n raise ValueError(\"variance requires at least 2 values\")\n m = mean(numbers)\n return"
}
],
"prompt_eval_count": 1986,
"eval_count": 23,
"thinking_field_len": 0
},
{
"iteration": 6,
"elapsed_s": 6.2,
"content": "",
"tool_calls": [
{
"name": "apply_patch",
"arguments": {
"new_text": "def median(numbers):\n \"\"\"Return the median of a list of numbers.\"\"\"\n s = sorted(numbers)\n n = len(s)\n if n % 2 == 1:\n return s[n // 2]\n else:\n return (s[n // 2 - 1] + s[n // 2]) / 2",
"old_text": "def median(numbers):\n \"\"\"Return the median of a list of numbers.\"\"\"\n s = sorted(numbers)\n n = len(s)\n return s[n // 2]",
"path": "calc/stats.py"
},
"result": "patched calc/stats.py (replaced 130 chars with 210 chars)"
}
],
"prompt_eval_count": 2275,
"eval_count": 671,
"thinking_field_len": 1173
},
{
"iteration": 7,
"elapsed_s": 0.52,
"content": "",
"tool_calls": [
{
"name": "run_bash",
"arguments": {
"command": "PYTHONPATH=. pytest"
},
"result": "exit=0\n--- stdout ---\n============================= test session starts ==============================\nplatform linux -- Python 3.13.5, pytest-9.0.2, pluggy-1.6.0\nrootdir: /home/claude/bin/gemma4-research/scripts/bakeoff/runs_patch/gemma4-26b-no-think-flag/work\nplugins: asyncio-1.3.0, anyio-4.12.1\nasyncio: mode=Mode.STRICT, debug=False, asyncio_default_fixture_loop_scope=None, asyncio_default_test_loop_scope=function\ncollected 7 items\n\ntests/test_stats.py ....... [100%]\n\n============================== 7 passed in 0.01s ===============================\n\n--- stderr ---\n"
}
],
"prompt_eval_count": 2463,
"eval_count": 22,
"thinking_field_len": 0
},
{
"iteration": 8,
"elapsed_s": 0.74,
"content": "The median function was incorrectly returning the middle element for even-sized lists without averaging the two middle elements; I updated it to correctly calculate the average of the two middle elements when the list length is even.",
"tool_calls": [],
"prompt_eval_count": 2677,
"eval_count": 46,
"thinking_field_len": 0
}
],
"final": {
"halt_reason": "no_tool_calls",
"tests_pass": true,
"iterations_used": 8,
"tool_call_counts": {
"read_file": 2,
"apply_patch": 1,
"run_bash": 4
},
"wall_clock_s": 12.53
}
}