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Optimization Backlog — open improvement items

Tier 2 changes (per Rules) — proposed by the daily optimization run, awaiting user review or evidence accumulation. Items get closed when implemented (moved to Closed/) or when evidence shows they're not needed.

Mission-anchoring test for every entry below: does this materially improve our ability to find, evaluate, or act on durable equity mispricings? See 00-mission. If an item cannot answer that in one sentence, it does not belong on this list.

Priority: P1 (clear gap, high-frequency need) · P2 (real gap, moderate frequency) · P3 (nice-to-have)

P1 — Activity Boost Package (STAGED, awaiting 3-day test verdict)

  • Proposal file: activity-boost-package
  • What: Four scheduled-task-layer changes that take the pipeline from ~1-2 theses/week to ~7/week without modifying any soul file, framework standard, vault structure, or artifact template. (1) Thesis-builder fallback to graduate shelved first-reads + pull from a Coverage queue. (2) Builder cron extended from Mon-Fri to daily. (3) AM scan first-read cap raised 3→5 and MoS evaluation moved from Tier-1 gate to first-read body. (4) New ## Coverage queue section in this Backlog file.
  • Why staged: User wants a 3-day test (2026-05-26 through 2026-05-28) of the current pipeline first. If the test returns pass per the rubric in the proposal file §1, this package stays staged. If soft-pass or fail, execute the package as-specified.
  • Test verdict due: 2026-05-29 morning.
  • Execution scope: Tier 2 (modifies scheduled-task prompts + cron + this Backlog file). Time to execute when approved: ~10 minutes. Fully reversible in ~5 minutes per §6 of the proposal.
  • Status: STAGED, prepared in full detail. Awaiting user signal.

P2 — Dedicated insider-signal-decoding skill

  • Proposed location: 02-Business-Quality/Management/insider-signal-decoding.md
  • Why: insider Form 4 cluster reads have surfaced in multiple files (FCN first-read 2026-05-25; daily scans referencing the pattern; PLTR thesis insider-selling section). Currently the kit treats insider activity inside incentive-alignment-and-comp.md and governance-red-flags.md in passing. A dedicated skill on cluster reads, 10b5-1 vs open-market discrimination, timing-pattern interpretation, base rates on cluster-buy outcomes would tighten the analysis.
  • Evidence: FCN first-read invokes the pattern but had to substitute incentive-alignment-and-comp as the nearest existing reference. The 2026-05-25 AM scan elevates this as a recurring screen with no dedicated framework file.
  • Status: awaiting approval. Skill creation is Tier 2.

✓ Closed 2026-05-24 — Doctrine recalibration to Greenwald-modified deep value

Both P1 items surfaced via PLTR-consensus-gap (EPV-only default fix, PLTR refresh) were approved and executed on 2026-05-24 as part of a broader doctrine recalibration. Specifics:

This was a soul-level change executed under explicit user approval, not autonomous Tier 1 work. Full audit trail in the calibration event log.

✓ Closed 2026-05-25 — PLTR.md aggregator hub and superseded AI dossier

  • PLTR.md aggregator hub (P2) — implemented. File exists at 09-Theses/PLTR/PLTR.md with canonical "stable wiki target" content; all 12 [PLTR](/theses/PLTR) references resolve. Likely landed as part of the 2026-05-24 doctrine recalibration batch. Closed in-place; no Closed/ snapshot available since the change predates the run that would have produced one.
  • AI infrastructure thematic dossier (P3, formerly under "P3 — Operational improvements") — superseded. Duplicates the newer P1 AI bottleneck (upstream rent) dossier in the "P1 — Themes/ dossier spin-outs" section. The P1 remains awaiting user approval; this closure is de-duplication only.

P1 — Skill gaps (from kit-debrief-001-PLTR)

Software & SaaS economics skill

  • Proposed location: 02-Business-Quality/Fundamentals/software-and-saas-economics.md
  • Why: PLTR thesis identified this as the highest-priority skill gap. ARR, NRR, gross retention, billings, deferred revenue, ASC 606, Rule of 40, magic number, payback period — none of these are deep-treated in current Fundamentals.
  • Evidence: kit-debrief-001-PLTR Gap 1. Will be needed for any future SaaS, AI infrastructure, or enterprise software thesis.
  • Status: awaiting approval to write

Primary-research workflow skill

  • Proposed location: 02-Business-Quality/Research/primary-research-workflow.md (new subfolder)
  • Why: The soul talks about Tier 1-2 evidence (filings, channel checks, expert calls, ex-employee outreach, the product itself) but the kit has no codified workflow for actually doing this.
  • Evidence: kit-debrief-001-PLTR Gap 2. PLTR thesis acknowledged Tier 3-4 evidence only; would have been weaker as a conviction long without primary research.
  • Status: awaiting approval to write

Reverse-DCF calculator framework

  • Proposed location: 08-Frameworks/reverse-dcf-calculator.md
  • Why: Reverse-DCF is the load-bearing valuation move; currently freehand math.
  • Evidence: kit-debrief-001-PLTR Gap 4. The PLTR thesis used arithmetic that converged with the spreadsheet's later result, but on a more complex name freehand math is error-prone.
  • Status: awaiting approval to write

P2 — Skill gaps (from kit-debrief-001-PLTR)

Short / structural-pessimism module

  • Proposed location: new subfolder under 02-Business-Quality/ or 06-Risk/
  • Why: Kit currently can say "pass" but not "short." For richly-priced names where deep-value lens leans avoid, short framework adds optionality.
  • Evidence: kit-debrief-001-PLTR Gap 3.
  • Status: awaiting approval; less urgent until first short candidate appears in screens

Insider activity reading skill

  • Proposed location: 02-Business-Quality/Management/insider-activity-analysis.md
  • Why: PLTR insider selling pattern was decisive in the thesis but the kit treats it in passing within incentive-alignment-and-comp.md and governance-red-flags.md.
  • Evidence: kit-debrief-001-PLTR Gap 5. Recurring theme.
  • Status: awaiting approval

P3 — Operational improvements

Sourcing / screening framework

  • Proposed location: 08-Frameworks/sourcing-and-screening.md
  • Why: Kit analyzes a name once chosen but doesn't formalize how candidates are found. The daily-scan task improvises.
  • Evidence: kit-debrief-001-PLTR Gap 7. Becomes more important as scan volume grows.
  • Status: queued; will get clearer once a month of daily-scan history accumulates

Calibration scorecard infrastructure

  • Proposed location: 10-Calibration/Scorecard.md (annual + rolling)
  • Why: Calibration loop is mandated by the soul but has no aggregating view across theses yet.
  • Evidence: kit-debrief-001-PLTR Gap 8. Becomes useful at 5+ theses.
  • Status: queued

P2 — Remaining source-audit revisions (from 2026-05-24 audit)

The first pass against sources-policy revised the top-priority skills: philosophy-deep-value, base-rates, capital-cycle, second-level-thinking, variant-perception, EPV-greenwald, quality-of-earnings, position-sizing-kelly (also fixed math error: discrete Kelly was conflated with Markowitz/Merton continuous form), and reconciled intellectual-virtues with the new 4-tier system. The remaining files need a lighter citation pass (Sources block + 5-10 inline tier tags each). Full list and recommended priority order in source-audit-report.

Remaining files needing revision:

  • 03-Valuation/dcf-and-reverse-dcf.md — Mauboussin & Rappaport for reverse-DCF half
  • 03-Valuation/liquidation-and-asset-value.md — Graham + Greenwald + Pratt for haircuts
  • 03-Valuation/margin-of-safety-pricing.md — Klarman + Marks; AS-cal tags on thresholds
  • 02-Business-Quality/Fundamentals/financial-statement-forensics.md — Schilit / Mulford-Comiskey / Penman
  • 02-Business-Quality/Fundamentals/roic-decomposition.md — Koller/McKinsey + Mauboussin "Calculating ROIC"
  • 02-Business-Quality/Moats/moat-taxonomy-and-identification.md — Helmer + Greenwald + Porter
  • 02-Business-Quality/Moats/moat-durability-and-erosion.md — same + remove current-events LLM-threat freehand
  • 02-Business-Quality/Bottlenecks/bottleneck-mapping-framework.md — rewrite AI worked example with citations or hedge
  • 06-Risk/permanent-capital-loss.md — credit-methodology literature
  • 06-Risk/tail-risk-and-fat-tails.md — Taleb, Mandelbrot, tail-risk empirical literature
  • All other skill files: Sources block + occasional inline cite, mechanical pass

Status: queued for next optimization run. Mechanical Sources-block additions are Tier 1; substantive rewrites are Tier 2.

P1 — Themes/ dossier spin-outs (from 2026-05-24 AM research note)

The AM note (and prior PM note) explicitly flagged three themes that have crossed the 3-confirmation threshold the research methodology specified for promotion to a persistent dossier. The agent surfaced these as Tier 2 backlog items in the AM note itself.

Iran MOU binary dossier

  • Proposed location: 13-Research/Themes/iran-mou-binary.md
  • Why: Three consecutive research notes (2026-05-23 PM, 2026-05-24 AM at minimum) have framed the Iran MOU as the dominant macro variable for the next 60 days. The signed/unsigned/signed-then-broken-by-Israel branching belongs in a persistent dossier, not re-derived each note. The 60-day MOU clock itself becomes a tracked calendar item.
  • Evidence: 2026-05-23-PM section "Iran ceasefire as a market binary"; 2026-05-24-AM section "Top of mind" and "Themes emerging" (explicit dossier request).
  • Priority: P1 (dossier needed before Tuesday's open; timeliness is load-bearing)
  • Status: awaiting approval

Critical minerals & rare earths dossier

  • Proposed location: 13-Research/Themes/critical-minerals.md
  • Why: Third confirmation in two weeks (China May 20 statement + Australia divestment order + MP Materials Q1 print). The PM-note methodology specified 3 confirmations as the dossier-spin-out trigger; that threshold is now met. MP Materials is graduating from "watching the theme" to "thesis candidate" — the dossier is the staging ground for that thesis work.
  • Evidence: 2026-05-23-PM section "Critical minerals & rare earths"; 2026-05-24-AM section "Technology & sectors" (explicit dossier request).
  • Priority: P1
  • Status: awaiting approval

AI bottleneck (upstream rent) dossier

  • Proposed location: 13-Research/Themes/ai-bottleneck-upstream.md
  • Why: Four confirming data sets (NVDA Q1 FY27, TSMC Q1 2026 with raised guide, hyperscaler capex, PLTR Q1 as counter-example). This is the cycle's dominant capital-allocation story and will recur in every cycle-positioning note for at least the next 4 quarters. Also serves as the durable home for the AI-infrastructure thematic that was previously queued as a P3 item (see below).
  • Evidence: 2026-05-23-PM sections "AI infrastructure cycle" and "Themes emerging"; 2026-05-24-AM sections "Technology & sectors" and "Themes emerging" (explicit dossier request); cross-reference to existing P3 item "AI infrastructure thematic dossier" — that earlier item is superseded and should be closed in favor of this version.
  • Priority: P1
  • Status: awaiting approval

P2 — Watchlist row propagation for 2026-05-24 PLTR refresh

  • Proposed change: update the PLTR row in Watchlist's master register to reflect the 2026-05-24 doctrine refresh. Specifically: Central value ($) $52 → $85; Trigger ($) $29 → $60; Current ($) $135.00 → $136.88 (verified Friday close per 2026-05-24-AM); Last review 2026-05-23 → 2026-05-24. Verdict and Verdict date remain "pass-with-trigger" / "2026-05-23"; Next checkpoint remains 2026-08-04.
  • Why: the PLTR hub file and PLTR-calibration tracker both carry the refreshed values; the Watchlist row was not propagated. The result is an internally inconsistent vault — the master register is the kit's quick-glance state and currently disagrees with the canonical thesis files.
  • Evidence: PLTR hub shows "Central value $85, Re-engagement trigger $60"; PLTR-calibration thesis snapshot table shows the same; Watchlist row 1 still shows "29.00 | 52.00 | 135.00 | 2026-05-23". The 2026-05-24 methodology-calibration event log confirms the refresh.
  • Priority: P2 (existing cross-reference inconsistency; not blocking but warrants a clean propagation pass)
  • Status: awaiting approval. Queued as Tier 2 rather than autonomous-Tier-1 because Tier 3 discipline ("modify watchlist entries' verdict status — verdicts come from theses") sits adjacent. The numeric fields are verdict-adjacent enough to warrant user approval rather than autonomous edit. A separate companion question for the user: should Transactions also be backfilled with a Status check / verdict refresh entry dated 2026-05-24 (refresh of central $85, trigger $60)? Tier 3 keeps Transactions off-limits to the optimization run, so this needs explicit user or portfolio-task action.

P3 — Inline tier-tag pass on existing research notes

  • Proposed change: add inline <span class="tier-t1" title="...">T1</span> / <span class="tier-t2" title="...">T2</span> / <span class="tier-t3" title="...">T3</span> tier tags to load-bearing claims in 2026-05-23-PM.md and 2026-05-24-AM.md per sources-policy.
  • Why: Both notes have a Sources block but no inline tier tags. The policy mandates tier tags on every load-bearing claim. The source-audit-report has flagged skill files for this same gap; research notes inherit the same requirement.
  • Evidence: sources-policy "In research notes" section; the two existing notes have ~60-80 cited claims between them with zero inline tier tags.
  • Priority: P3 (substantive but not blocking; better done in one disciplined pass than piecemeal)
  • Status: queued; recommend pairing with the next quarterly source-audit refresh

Site build failures

2026-05-25 — astro build failed: EPERM on vite cache file

  • Triggering file: AlphaSteve-web/node_modules/.vite/deps/astro___aria-query.js.map
  • Error: EPERM: operation not permitted, unlink '/sessions/.../mnt/Fundamentals/AlphaSteve-web/node_modules/.vite/deps/astro___aria-query.js.map'
  • Context: Vite reported Re-optimizing dependencies because vite config has changed and then failed when trying to delete a stale cache file in node_modules/.vite/deps/. The cache lives on the OneDrive-synced mount, which sometimes refuses unlinks (likely a sync-layer or file-lock contention).
  • Diagnosis: This is an environmental/cache issue rather than a source-code or vault problem. A manual rm -rf node_modules/.vite (or node_modules entirely followed by npm install) on the user's host machine should clear it. The scheduled rebuild did not retry or attempt to clear the cache, per task discipline ("If the build fails, do not attempt to fix it").
  • Action needed: user clears AlphaSteve-web/node_modules/.vite/ and re-runs the build (or lets the next scheduled run try again — if OneDrive releases the lock, it may resolve on its own).

2026-05-24 — astro build failed: truncated src/content/config.ts

  • Triggering file: AlphaSteve-web/src/content/config.ts (2,892 bytes / 76 lines on disk, ends mid-statement)
  • Error: [GenerateContentTypesError] astro sync command failed to generate content collection types: Transform failed with 1 error: src/content/config.ts:77:48: ERROR: Expected identifier but found end of file
  • Last bytes on disk: prior_central_value: z.union([z.number(), z. — the file is cut off mid-z.union call with no closing parens, brackets, remaining schema fields, or collections export.
  • Diagnosis: The file appears to have been truncated (likely an interrupted save from an editor or sync layer). The full file should be ~157 lines and include the remaining prior_* / new_* / buy_date / exit_date schema fields plus the researchCollection, calibrationCollection, soulCollection, frameworksCollection, optimizationCollection definitions and the export const collections = { ... } block. The truncated version is missing all of that.
  • Action needed: restore src/content/config.ts from a recent backup, git history, or rewrite the tail of the file. Once the file is whole, the scheduled rebuild should succeed on its next run.
  • Process note: scheduled rebuild ran cleanly except for this file — npm install worked in /tmp (the OneDrive-synced node_modules had a missing Linux rollup binary, but a clean install in /tmp resolved that). Did not retry per task discipline.

Workflow

When a new gap surfaces (from a thesis debrief, research note, or optimization pass), add it here with:

  1. Proposed location and title
  2. Why (the gap it fills)
  3. Evidence (citations from existing vault content)
  4. Priority (P1 / P2 / P3)
  5. Status

When an item is approved, the optimization run executes it on the next pass and moves the item to Closed/<date>-<item-name>.md with the before/after snapshot.

When evidence shows an item is no longer needed, move to Closed/ with the rationale.

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