Finding faster implementations, with every speedup traced to one change
Optimization is a search over the space of implementation choices. Portent spawns sub-agents that generate candidates, filters them through a cascaded gate, evolves the survivors with a diversity-preserving search, and cross-checks answers across models, all under a strict one-variable-per-change rule.
Each implementation choice is a dimension
Block size, warps per block, tile shape, pipeline depth, algorithm choice: each is a dimension. A configuration is a path across all of them. The engine searches this space instead of hand-guessing a single point in it. The highlighted path is a current best; the faint ones are candidates still in play.
A diversity archive keeps the search broad
Candidates are bred and filtered across multiple islands. A MAP-Elites archive keeps the best candidate found in each behavioral niche, so the search preserves diversity and keeps exploring instead of collapsing onto one local optimum. Each cell is a niche; the brightest is that niche's best.
Cheap checks before expensive ones
A candidate has to pass parse, then compile, then a correctness check before it is ever benchmarked. The expensive measurement runs only on the few that get that far, so anything measured is already known to be correct.
illustrative funnel · proportions, not a specific run
Models cross-check before an answer counts
Frontier models answer independently and cross-check each other. A synthesizer resolves disagreements into a single answer, and that answer still has to clear the deterministic gate before it counts. No single model's guess is trusted on its own.
Effort shifts toward what's working
A multi-armed bandit tracks which strategy is producing improvements and shifts more of the budget toward it, while still spending some on the others so a strategy that pays off later isn't cut off early.
Every change touches exactly one layer, so every speedup is attributable
A run that bundles three edits tells you nothing about which one helped. Portent changes one variable at a time and re-measures. A gain is credited to a single layer, backed by a before/after on the same harness. A speedup is never credited to a bundle of changes made at once.
one variable changed, one number measured
Every result ships with its provenance
A co-design result takes this shape: a value plus the exact commit, image, command, and timestamp behind it. Until a live run lands, the value reads as a dash and the card is marked a placeholder.
- commit
- 0000000
- image
- substrate/codesign@sha256:…
- cmd
- substrate codesign --layer L0 --reps 30
- at
- pending first live run
- note
- placeholder · not a real run
- cmd
- substrate codesign --report
- note
- placeholder · populated by a real search
- cmd
- substrate codesign --enforce-one-variable
- note
- invariant, not a measurement; enforced by the harness