AGENTS.md

Entry point

Start with program.md. It is the general research-org entry point for the agent. Then read the active task profile. If the human does not specify one, use tasks/cifar10/profile.md.

Use the active task's mutation_schema.yaml only when program.md or the active task profile directs you to the hard mutation bounds, or when choosing a mutation axis. If anything here conflicts with program.md, follow program.md unless a human explicitly overrides it. If a task profile conflicts with generic program.md text on task budget, environment, metric, or edit surface, follow the task profile.

Mission

Improve this Auto-FL NVFlare harness without breaking the federated contract.

Files you may edit

Preferred mutation files:

• task-local client.py
• shared tasks/shared/custom_aggregators.py
• task-local job.py
• task-local model.py for registered architecture variants under the active parameter cap

Do not change unless explicitly requested:

• shared data/* or task-local data bridge files

Hard invariants

You must preserve all of the following unless a human explicitly asks for a protocol upgrade:

• flare.init()
• while flare.is_running():
• input_model = flare.receive()
• flare.send(output_model)
• model.load_state_dict(input_model.params, strict=True)
• compute_model_diff(...)
• output_model.params_type == ParamsType.DIFF
• output_model.meta["NUM_STEPS_CURRENT_ROUND"]
• the optional if flare.is_evaluate(): branch
• the same selected model_arch must be instantiated on server and clients for a run
• model_arch and max_model_params are fixed budget fields unless the campaign is explicitly labeled as an architecture subcampaign

Required workflow after every edit

1. Run the active task profile's validation command, with TASK_DIR set to the active task.
2. Run the active task profile's smoke command. For non-CIFAR tasks, pass the task-specific SMOKE_ARGS or run bash scripts/run_iteration.sh ... with the active task budget.
3. Record the mutation in results.tsv
4. Summarize the mutation in templates/mutation_report.md