fix(activation): prevent boost saturation under rapid queries#8
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The spreading activation accumulation was vulnerable to saturation: any note reachable within 2 hops would hit the 1.0 ceiling after ~11 queries (hop-1) or ~19 queries (hop-2). The 7-day half-life decay couldn't compensate because within-session queries share the same timestamp, so boosts accumulated at full strength. This affects not just machine-speed evaluation runs but any bulk ingestion scenario (conversation logs, note migration, backfills) where many queries arrive faster than the decay timescale. Two complementary fixes: 1. Per-query cap (PER_QUERY_CAP = 0.05): limits how much a single query can contribute to any one note, regardless of RRF score. This makes accumulation rate-independent -- 30 queries in 30 seconds or 30 days contribute the same bounded amount each. 2. Log-scale accumulation: replaces linear `existing + new` with `1 - (1 - existing) * (1 - new)`. Each successive boost has diminishing returns as the value approaches 1.0. After 20 rapid queries, a note reaches ~0.64 instead of saturating. After 100 queries, still under 0.995. The 7-day half-life decay is completely unchanged -- human-pace usage (queries spread across days/weeks) still accumulates meaningfully, and inter-session decay works as before. Math for the chosen cap value (0.05): - 5 queries -> ~0.23 (noticeable but not dominant) - 10 queries -> ~0.40 (a focused research session) - 30 queries -> ~0.79 (heavy use, still not saturated) - 100 queries -> ~0.994 (bulk ingestion, asymptotic)
aayoawoyemi
approved these changes
Mar 21, 2026
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Fixes #7.
Two complementary fixes:
Per-query cap (0.05): limits how much a single query can contribute to any one note, making accumulation rate-independent.
Log-scale accumulation: replaces linear
existing + newwith1 - (1 - existing) * (1 - new). Each successive boost has diminishing returns as the value approaches 1.0.After 20 rapid queries a note reaches ~0.64 instead of saturating at 1.0. The 7-day half-life decay is unchanged, so human-pace usage still accumulates meaningfully.
Includes tests covering per-query cap, diminishing returns, bulk ingestion, and human-pace accumulation.