item 28 scored: distillation succeeded (cos 0.113→0.044), function didn't follow — 30.1 matched / 29.7 ablated, easy damaged to 48.3; state-side supervision 2x2 complete and uniformly null; read-side clamp is item 29 candidate

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

results-loop/PROTOCOL_UNIFIED.md

@@ -827,3 +827,24 @@ the 2x2 (verbal/full-state x tape/no-tape).
     computation-carrying content lives OUTSIDE the verbalizable
     subspace; if none move, the read-side clamp test (item 29
     candidate) decides. Job: scripts/jobs/zzz_sa_rungb_ts.sh.
+
+--- Outcome, item 28 (scored 2026-07-17 ~06:20). k=0 sanity clean.
+Distillation SUCCEEDED geometrically: cos-dist 0.113 -> 0.044 (burst
+endpoint lands ~60% closer to the teacher state), with the lowest
+output-CE tax of any supervised arm (vals 0.384/0.376). Function did
+NOT follow: matched 2:0 = 30.1, ablation (burst off) = 29.7 — burst
+contribution nil; hard 34.6 indistinguishable from the pack; and the
+state-forcing DAMAGED easy (48.3 vs 62.1 in every other d=1 arm —
+the forced endpoint displaces something easy handling needed).
+Verdict: null, below reference. The 2x2 (items 25/27/28 + 22 as the
+unsupervised corner) is complete and uniform: no state-side
+supervision — verbal shadow or full teacher state, tape or burst —
+makes the loop compute the deleted step. Combined with items 22-24
+(capacity/time/positions/expressivity all null), the write-side is
+exhausted end to end. The one untested link is READ-side: whether the
+suffix computation consumes the workspace at all when the right state
+is present — the clamp test (write the teacher state into the anchor
+at inference via the lens/embedding-basis machinery, no training, and
+measure) is item 29's natural content and would assign blame causally.
+Nils's morning decision: clamp test vs pivot to the hybrid/A2 line
+(where the 57.4 and the drop-bucket reach already live).