Completed Pairs Hide Capped Failures: A ReVerPi Case Study of Selective Context Projection
Context projection replaces older tool observations with compact, addressable excerpts, reducing repeated input while potentially adding evidence-retrieval turns. We study this trade-off in ReVerPi, a Pi extension with archived observations and matched full/projected continuations. In an 86-run source-reading campaign with 641 model requests, the 15 completed pairs show identical success: 12/15 per arm. Twelve further boundary runs stop, with the runner suppressing the companion whenever the first arm fails to complete. Restoring all 27 boundary runs bounds projected-minus-full success between $-$9 and +1 tasks. One omitted, selector-chosen projected continuation successfully retrieves archive text yet exhausts twelve requests; its full counterpart answers in three. The eleven jointly correct pairs form a fully observed success stratum within this recorded frame: projection reduces aggregate logical tokens by 25%, while increasing the median pair's tokens by 29% and total suffix requests from 35 to 55. Separating fitting from evaluation changes the selector's apparent tie: outside its four fitting pairs, it incurs one extra failure and 8.6% more logical tokens over thirteen comparable runs. This methodological case study connects stopping rules, known bounded failures, unexecuted companions, and resource aggregation. Its findings concern the recorded campaign, rather than population noninferiority or superiority over unrestricted Pi. Evaluations should retain every intervention boundary, execute both allocated arms independently of the first arm's completion, and report completion alongside interaction and token expenditure.