Cross-Turn Schema Validity.
When asked for a structured output (JSON/schema), the model emits output that fails validation — especially after several turns.
Return a person as JSON: name, age, email. Now another. Now another.
Probes: Whether every structured turn validates against the schema.
Trap: A required field goes missing on the third request.
Programmatic schema validation of each structured turn; failure = invalid/parse-error/missing-required across the turn sequence.
Returns JSON missing a required field on the third request.
- Restate hard constraints in the last message, not only in the system prompt.
- Validate structured output programmatically on every turn. Sampling turns is how schema drift ships.
- Carry a canary constraint through long sessions and alert when it decays.
- Compact before you extend. A shorter conversation holds a rule better than a longer window does.
- schema-constrained decoding
- validate-and-repair loops
One tab per model, newest first. Each card is that model against this mode under every condition on a single day. The mitigations above are the claim; the residual on each card is what actually survived the intervention.
loop 2026-09-10 · x-ai/grok-4.6 as served · closed weights · released 2026-01 · set s1.4-live · cases v1.7 · conditions v1.0 · ground truth as of 2026-08-09
| Condition | Failure rate | 95% interval | n | Trap | Answerable |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
No context bare · The model alone, with no supplied context. | 0% | 0%–41% | n=20 · eff 6 | 0% (n=10) | 0% (n=10) |
Irrelevant context null · Length-matched irrelevant context. The control. | 0% | 0%–41% | n=20 · eff 6 | 0% (n=10) | 0% (n=10) |
General context recipe_a · Broad retrieval — the first passage the source returns, unreviewed. | 0% | 0%–41% | n=20 · eff 6 | 0% (n=10) | 0% (n=10) |
Curated context recipe_b · Hand-checked retrieval — the same passage plus the provenance chain behind it. | 0% | 0%–41% | n=20 · eff 6 | 0% (n=10) | 0% (n=10) |
intervals overlap — not separated
What a document being there did, before any of its content. Should be small.
intervals overlap — not separated
What the information itself did. This is the publishable claim.
Unchanged by context: 0% with none, 0% with the strongest supplied source. For a control mode that flat line is the result — it is what licenses reading movement elsewhere in this loop as grounding rather than as a document being present. Nothing survives at the best condition on the cases measured here.
- — schema-constrained decoding
- — validate-and-repair loops