Seed the rewrite: profile, calibration, and repo scaffolding
Ground-up replacement for news_triage, whose signal quality failed because it had no representation of what its user likes -- three keywords fed to BM25 plus a two-term substring blocklist. profile/ holds the taste model as prose and TOML: 11 interest blocks, 3 veto blocks, 5 importance blocks, each a set of probe sentences to be embedded. The [scoring] constants are fitted, not guessed. CALIBRATION.md records the measurements against all 3,885 items in the v0.2 database and 40 real feedback labels, including two findings that changed the design: - compare blocks by z-score within block, never raw cosine; raw cosine let geopolitics win 78% of items and buried known-liked items at median rank 1246 of 3885 (293 after normalizing) - veto needs a margin over the interest signal, not a threshold; a plain 0.55 cutoff falsely killed "Belgian mayor blocks club from hosting Israeli opponent in Europa League", which the old substring blocklist also killed
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# Machine-readable form of profile.md. Every `probes` string is embedded into a
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# vector; an item's score for a block is the MAX cosine over that block's probes,
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# never the mean. Probes are written as prose resembling article text, because
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# that is what they are compared against.
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#
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# Weights multiply the similarity. Feedback moves these vectors over time; the
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# text here is the cold-start seed.
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schema_version = 1
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# ---------------------------------------------------------------- interests --
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[[interest]]
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id = "geopolitics"
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weight = 1.0
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probes = [
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"Escalation in the Middle East as strikes continue and diplomatic efforts stall.",
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"China expands its influence abroad through investment, diplomacy and security agreements.",
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"US foreign policy shifts as the administration reconsiders its posture toward an ally.",
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"The United Nations Security Council debates sanctions and an arms embargo.",
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"Ceasefire negotiations falter amid disputes over withdrawal and prisoner exchange.",
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]
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[[interest]]
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id = "tech-science-policy"
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weight = 0.9
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probes = [
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"Regulators propose new rules governing artificial intelligence development and deployment.",
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"A court ruling reshapes platform liability and online speech regulation.",
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"Government surveillance powers and encryption policy face legal challenge.",
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"Public research funding is cut, reshaping the scientific workforce.",
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"Antitrust enforcement targets dominant technology firms.",
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]
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[[interest]]
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id = "labor-inequality"
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weight = 0.9
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probes = [
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"Workers vote to unionize after a long organizing campaign; the employer contests the result.",
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"A strike over wages and staffing shuts down operations across the sector.",
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"New research documents widening wealth inequality and stagnant real wages.",
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"Lawmakers debate expanding public healthcare, childcare and paid leave.",
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"Tenants organize against rising rents as an eviction wave builds.",
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]
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[[interest]]
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id = "software-systems"
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weight = 0.9
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push_eligible = true
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probes = [
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"A new release of the systems programming language brings major changes to the compiler and toolchain.",
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"Running large language models locally on consumer hardware: quantization, throughput and memory bandwidth.",
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"Self-hosting a service stack with containers, reverse proxies and automated deployment.",
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"A widely used open source project announces a breaking change, a license change, or a governance dispute.",
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"WebAssembly gains new capabilities for running compiled code in the browser.",
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"A serious vulnerability is disclosed in widely deployed infrastructure software.",
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]
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[[interest]]
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id = "urbanism"
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weight = 0.8
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probes = [
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"The city council votes to reform zoning rules and allow denser housing near transit.",
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"A new bus rapid transit and light rail line reshapes how residents move through the city.",
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"Planners redesign streets to reduce traffic deaths and reclaim space from cars.",
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"A downtown redevelopment project raises questions about displacement and public space.",
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]
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[[interest]]
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id = "energy-climate"
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weight = 0.6
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probes = [
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"Grid operators struggle to connect new renewable generation as storage capacity lags demand.",
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"A national climate policy sets emissions targets and restructures energy subsidies.",
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"Conservation rules protecting endangered species and public land are rolled back.",
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]
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# Confirmed by Connor 2026-09-08: wanted, at a level that keeps him up to date
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# rather than saturating the feed. Also supported by three of eighteen starred
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# items (Uber exiting Nigeria and Uganda, India's grid crunch, the Bolivian base
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# explosions).
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[[interest]]
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id = "global-south"
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weight = 0.7
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probes = [
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"An international company withdraws from several African markets amid regulatory pressure.",
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"Elections and political upheaval reshape governments across Latin America.",
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"Infrastructure and economic development across South Asia strains under rapid growth.",
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]
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# ---------------------------------------------------------------- geography --
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[[interest]]
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id = "cincinnati"
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weight = 0.9
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local = true
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probes = [
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"Cincinnati city council debates a development, budget or policing decision affecting neighborhoods.",
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"Local news from Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Ohio.",
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]
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[[interest]]
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id = "kentucky-louisville"
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weight = 0.6
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local = true
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probes = [
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"Louisville and Kentucky state politics, legislation and local government decisions.",
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]
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[[interest]]
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id = "us-national"
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weight = 0.8
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probes = [
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"Congress advances major legislation after a contested floor fight.",
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"The Supreme Court issues a ruling with sweeping consequences for federal policy.",
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"Federal agencies are restructured by executive order, prompting legal challenges.",
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]
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[[interest]]
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id = "italy-mexico"
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weight = 0.7
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probes = [
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"Italian politics, government coalitions and social policy in Italy.",
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"Mexican politics, security policy and the relationship with the United States.",
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]
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# ------------------------------------------------------------------- vetoes --
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[[veto]]
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id = "us-big-three-sports"
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threshold = 0.55
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probes = [
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"The team beat their rivals in a game recap with final scores, statistics and player performances.",
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"A player is traded, drafted or signs a contract; the league fines a franchise over salary cap rules.",
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"Playoff standings, betting lines and a schedule of games on television this week.",
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"Morales homers and drives in four as the Nationals top the Braves 9-5; Snell throws six shutout innings.",
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"Box score summary: hits, runs, errors, pitching line and inning-by-inning scoring.",
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]
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[[veto]]
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id = "royal-celebrity-gossip"
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threshold = 0.55
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probes = [
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"The royal family attends an event; speculation continues about the couple's status and future.",
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"Celebrity red carpet appearances, box office returns and influencer controversy.",
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]
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[[veto]]
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id = "listicle-filler"
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threshold = 0.60
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probes = [
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"Horoscopes, quizzes, and a roundup of the best products to buy this week.",
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]
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# ------------------------------------------------------- the importance lane --
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# Independent of interest. Vetoes still apply here -- v0.2's bypass lane ignored
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# relevance entirely (gate.rs:302), which let blocklisted items fire at priority 5.
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[[importance]]
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id = "war-escalation"
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weight = 1.0
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probes = [
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"One state launches military strikes on another, marking a major escalation of the conflict.",
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"Nuclear facilities are targeted or a state signals willingness to use weapons of mass destruction.",
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]
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[[importance]]
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id = "mass-casualty"
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weight = 1.0
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probes = [
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"A powerful earthquake kills hundreds and leaves many missing under collapsed buildings.",
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"A bombing, shooting or industrial disaster causes mass casualties.",
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"A passenger aircraft or train crash kills dozens.",
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]
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[[importance]]
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id = "us-federal-shock"
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weight = 0.9
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probes = [
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"A constitutional crisis unfolds as the administration defies a court order.",
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"The federal government shuts down after Congress fails to pass funding.",
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"The Supreme Court overturns long-standing precedent.",
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]
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[[importance]]
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id = "economic-break"
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weight = 0.9
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probes = [
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"Stock markets plunge in the steepest single-day fall in years as a major bank fails.",
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"A currency collapses and the central bank intervenes with an emergency rate decision.",
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]
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[[importance]]
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id = "us-political-event"
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weight = 0.9
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probes = [
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"A major election is called, delivering a decisive result and a shift in power.",
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"A prominent political figure dies or resigns unexpectedly.",
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]
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# ------------------------------------------------------- calibrated scoring --
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# These constants are not guesses. They were fitted on 2026-09-08 against all
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# 3,885 items in the v0.2 database and Connor's 40 real feedback labels.
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# See profile/CALIBRATION.md for the measurements.
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[scoring]
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# Compare blocks by z-score WITHIN each block, never by raw cosine. Raw cosine
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# is not comparable across blocks -- "geopolitics" averages 0.501 similarity to
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# world-news text while "kentucky-louisville" averages 0.441 -- so a plain max
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# let geopolitics win 78% of all items. Per-block z-scoring drops that to 19%
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# and moves the median rank of a known-liked item from 1246 to 293 of 3885.
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normalize = "zscore-per-block"
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# Veto is deliberately NOT a plain similarity threshold. A story can be
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# genuinely sports-adjacent and still be wanted: "Belgian mayor blocks club from
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# hosting Israeli opponent in Europa League" is Middle East politics, and both a
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# substring blocklist AND a 0.55 cosine threshold falsely killed it.
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#
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# So: veto on unambiguous similarity, OR when the veto signal beats the best
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# interest signal by a margin. Measured at these values: 17/22 of Connor's real
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# rejections caught, 0/18 of his likes lost, ~21% of the corpus vetoed, and all
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# four sports-adjacent news canaries survive.
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veto_absolute = 0.60
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veto_margin_over_interest = 0.3
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