Online outcome learning: independently audited pilot

Completed the first online graph-learning pilot in code-v91 (commit e601381), following the published code-v89 protocol and code-v90 runtime. The SNN updates its readout directly from executed-graph error without an LLM in the runtime/update loop. The spiking encoder remains fixed.

All 1,440 episodes completed with unchanged source inputs. Independent replay passed, and six corrupted full-bundle copies were rejected after their raw checksums were recomputed. Local validation passed 35 focused tests and all 409 fast tests; no exclusions or skips. The initial audit-fixture failure and its correction are retained. Slow/retry and full discovery were not rerun locally for this additive path.

The result is negative for useful persistent adaptation. At cap 144, persistent SNN accepts 56/144 task-seed attempts versus frozen 67/144, reset SNN 68/144, nonspiking 45/144 and streaming 69/144. All arms accept 144/144 at cap 432. All three preregistered outcome gates fail.

A descriptive secondary observation: task-reset SNN uses 21,560 candidate executions versus streaming 25,128 at full acceptance (14.2% fewer, with the same direction in each seed), but takes 3.41 times the recorded CPU. This is not a total-work, chip-energy or sensing win. The three model seeds repeat one 48-task stream.

The complete result, per-seed/phase summaries, raw evidence, source hashes and reproduction commands are in docs/online-graph-result.md. The supplied paper was read in full; its assessment and exact PDF hash are in docs/online-learning-direction.md.

This closes the implementation/evaluation pilot, including its negative result. #84 tracks the unresolved persistent-learning regression and sensor/hardware feedback contract; #74's broader action/rollback work remains open. No existing negative benchmark conclusion was changed and no weights/databases were committed.

CI for the new code-v90 runtime, run 39160627937, is still pending at publication. The code-v87 authentication acceptance run 39154146448 remains separately scoped to #44, which is not closed by this pilot.