You have joined the recommendations team for a music streaming service. The "Made for You" shelf is served by a mature production two-tower model. Its chronological data protocol and indexed serving path are sound, but its offline retrieval quality no longer clears the team's next launch gate.
Your job is to investigate the production model, improve its retrieval quality, and ship a better ranking artifact. Use the implementation and public validation data to form and test your own diagnosis.
The source used to reproduce the production model is included under /task/current_model/. You may copy it into /app/solution/, edit it, add tests, and improve its training objective, but keep the data protocol, two-tower serving contract, and evaluation boundary intact.
Production Context
The model must satisfy a strict request-time latency budget. Item vectors are precomputed offline. At request time, one user vector is computed from observed interaction history and compared with candidate item vectors by a batchable two-tower score. Do not introduce a cross-encoder, per-candidate sequence model, or user-ID lookup table.
The current trainer is a mature baseline with chronological internal validation. Focus your investigation on how its training objective selects and uses negative examples. Diagnose limitations in the current negative-sampling strategy and improve it under the fixed CPU budget. Validate changes with the public backtest. The final approach must still train and rank within the supplied CPU environment while preserving the serving and data boundaries above.
What You Have
All public inputs are under /task/data/. A stage cutoff is the timestamp at which observed history and candidate eligibility are frozen for a ranking. The public validation stage cutoff is 24786800, when train_* ends. A 30-minute gap precedes the seven-day val_* window. For the final submission, that validation window becomes observed history, and another 30-minute gap precedes the hidden seven-day outcome window.
The package includes:
/task/current_model/train_current_model.py: the production training and ranking script. It can reproduce the public validation ranking and produce a hidden-test submission after refitting.
/task/current_model/two_tower_model.py: model primitives used by the production script.
/task/evaluate_public.py: the public validation evaluator for development.
/task/data/validation_eligible_candidates.npz and /task/data/test_eligible_candidates.npz: platform-owned candidate sets for the validation and hidden-test cutoffs.
/task/data/validation_preference_state.parquet and /task/data/test_preference_state.parquet: active explicit preference state at the corresponding cutoffs.
/task/requirements.txt: the exact offline Python distribution inventory.
You can reproduce the production public backtest with:
is_organic=1 means the listener sought out the track; 0 means the action came through a recommendation surface. A listen is a conventional positive at 50% completion. The discovery-quality objective below uses the stronger 80% threshold.
The two public windows have different roles:
For model development and selection, train only from train_* and score the subsequent val_* outcomes.
After selecting an improvement, refit it on train_* + val_*. At hidden-test time the validation events are observed history, not recommendable outcomes.
Do not use val_* events as features when measuring a validation ranking. They may and should be used when refitting the final hidden-test ranker.
Additional files under /task/data/:
candidate_catalog.parquet: the 30,000 retrieval-catalog tracks, ordered by training positive-listen popularity.
target_users.parquet: users with at least 20 positive listens in the 90 days before the training cutoff, selected without future labels.
validation_preference_state.parquet: active explicit state at the training cutoff, for validation ranking.
test_preference_state.parquet: active explicit state after validation, for the final hidden-test ranking. State is liked or disliked; a pair may have both active channels.
validation_eligible_candidates.npz and test_eligible_candidates.npz: cutoff-correct candidate sets for every target user. Each contains aligned arrays uids, item_ids, and packed_eligible. For user row r, recover the Boolean item mask with np.unpackbits(packed_eligible[r], count=len(item_ids), bitorder="little").
Validation candidates exclude all train_* encounters. Test candidates exclude all train_* and val_* encounters. Future test interactions are hidden and used only by the separate Harbor verifier.
Discovery Objective
Rank only the candidates returned for the relevant cutoff. Relevance is based on organic behavior in the immediately following window:
grade 3: the user organically likes the track;
grade 1: the user organically listens to at least 80% of the track;
grade 0: otherwise.
If both positive events occur, grade 3 wins. Ranking quality is measured with graded NDCG@10. DCG uses gain 2^grade - 1 and discount 1/log2(rank + 1), then averages per-user NDCG over users with at least one relevant item.
The public evaluator reports this same objective for development, but its score is not a separate acceptance stage. Final acceptance is determined on the hidden test using the same objective. The Yambda logs contain interactions, not impression propensities; treat the organic objective as a robust offline target, not as a causal estimate of online lift.
Deliverable
Submit one final ranking as /app/solution/submission.parquet or /app/solution/submission.csv. It must be a regular file, not a symbolic link. If both files exist, the verifier evaluates submission.parquet and ignores submission.csv.
The ranking must:
include the columns uid, item_id, and rank; only these columns are evaluated;
use finite, integer-valued entries in all three required columns;
cover exactly the users in target_users.parquet, with no missing or extra users;
contain exactly 100 rows and 100 distinct items for every target user;
contain every integer rank from 1 through 100 exactly once per user; and
use only items present in that user's test_eligible_candidates.npz candidate set.
Also leave the improved implementation used to build the artifact at /app/solution/train_current_model.py, along with any local modules it imports. A concise /app/solution/README.md with the diagnosis, before-and-after public score, model change, and submission command is useful for the experiment record, but it is not an automated acceptance gate.
Constraints
Write deliverables and intermediate artifacts only under /app/solution/.
Treat /task/ and the installed Python environment as read-only.
Do not invoke nested agents or attempt to access verifier files, credentials, other trials, or host paths.
Do not install packages or use network access except for the model-provider connection managed by Harbor.
Do not alter cutoff definitions, target users, candidate eligibility, or relevance labels.
Improve the production pipeline in place. Do not substitute an unrelated model family or evade the indexed two-tower serving constraint.
The environment includes CPU PyTorch 2.8.0. No accelerator is available.
You have up to 60 minutes. Prioritize measured validation improvements, a correct final refit, and a valid submission over broad architecture search.
Keep the best valid submission saved throughout the attempt so it survives the deadline.
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Harness context skill listing
{
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Load before authoring a script for a workflow the user already opted into; it does not itself authorize running one.\n- run: Launch and drive this project's app to see a change working. Use when asked to run, start, or screenshot the app, or to confirm a change works in the real app (not just tests). First looks for a project skill that already covers launching the app; otherwise falls back to built-in patterns per project type (CLI, server, TUI, Electron, browser-driven, library).\n- init: Initialize a new CLAUDE.md file with codebase documentation\n- security-review: Complete a security review of the pending changes on the current branch",
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1 #!/usr/bin/env python3
2 """Score a validation-stage ranking against public discovery labels.
3
4 ``build_task.py`` publishes this module with the solver-visible task files. It
5 loads target users, validation eligibility, and validation-window events from
6 the adjacent ``data`` directory, then evaluates one ranking supplied on the
7 command line. Stage-independent mechanics come from the adjacent public
8 ``ranking_evaluation.py`` module. The builder installs the same checked-in
9 module in the private judge, so public and private scoring mechanics cannot
10 drift. A relevant candidate receives grade 3 for an organic like or grade 1 for
11 an organic listen with at least 80 percent completion; a like takes precedence
12 when both events exist.
13
14 Before scoring, the ranking must contain exactly 100 distinct eligible items
15 for every target user, with integer-valued ``uid``, ``item_id``, and ``rank``
16 columns and ranks 1 through 100 exactly once per user. Extra columns are
17 ignored. Quality is graded NDCG@10, averaged only over users who have at least
18 one eligible relevant item in the validation window.
19
20 The evaluator prints a JSON object containing the model path and scores. It
21 does not apply the task's pass threshold; its purpose is model development and
22 selection. The private judge applies the threshold to the final submission.
23
24 Usage::
25
26 python evaluate_public.py <validation-ranking.parquet|csv>
27 """
28 from __future__ import annotations
29
30 import json
31 import sys
32 from pathlib import Path
33
34 import pandas as pd
35
36 from ranking_evaluation import (
37 CandidateSet,
38 RankingValidationError,
39 ranked_items,
40 read_ranking,
41 score_rankings,
42 validate_ranking,
43 )
44
45
46 HERE = Path(__file__).resolve().parent
47 DATA = HERE / "data"
48 LISTEN_STRONG = 80
49
50
51 def validation_truth(
52 eligibility: CandidateSet, targets: set[int]
53 ) -> dict[int, dict[int, int]]:
54 """Build cutoff-correct graded relevance from public validation events.
55
56 Only target-user events for eligible candidates are retained. Organic
57 listens completed to at least 80 percent receive grade 1, and organic likes
58 receive grade 3. Repeated user-item events are collapsed, and processing
59 likes second ensures that grade 3 wins over grade 1.
60
61 Args:
62 eligibility: Validation-cutoff candidate membership service.
63 targets: Complete set of target user IDs.
64
65 Returns:
66 A nested ``uid -> item_id -> grade`` mapping. Users without an eligible
67 relevant event are omitted.
68 """
69 listens = pd.read_parquet(DATA / "val_listens.parquet")
70 likes = pd.read_parquet(DATA / "val_likes.parquet")
71 strong = listens[
72 listens.uid.isin(targets)
73 & (listens.is_organic == 1)
74 & (listens.played_ratio_pct >= LISTEN_STRONG)
75 ][["uid", "item_id"]].drop_duplicates()
76 organic_likes = likes[
77 likes.uid.isin(targets) & (likes.is_organic == 1)
78 ][["uid", "item_id"]].drop_duplicates()
79
80 graded: dict[int, dict[int, int]] = {}
81 for raw_uid, raw_item in strong.itertuples(index=False, name=None):
82 uid, item = int(raw_uid), int(raw_item)
83 if eligibility.is_eligible(uid, item):
84 graded.setdefault(uid, {})[item] = 1
85 for raw_uid, raw_item in organic_likes.itertuples(index=False, name=None):
86 uid, item = int(raw_uid), int(raw_item)
87 if eligibility.is_eligible(uid, item):
88 graded.setdefault(uid, {})[item] = 3
89 return graded
90
91
92 def load_submission(
93 path: Path, eligibility: CandidateSet, targets: set[int]
94 ) -> dict[int, list[int]]:
95 """Load and validate a public validation ranking.
96
97 Files ending in ``.parquet`` are read as parquet; every other suffix is
98 read as CSV. The required columns must be integer-valued, cover exactly the
99 target-user set, contain 100 rows and ranks 1 through 100 per user, avoid
100 duplicate user-item pairs, and contain only cutoff-eligible items.
101
102 Args:
103 path: Ranking file to read.
104 eligibility: Validation-cutoff candidate membership service.
105 targets: Exact set of users the ranking must cover.
106
107 Returns:
108 A ``uid -> ranked item IDs`` mapping ordered by ascending rank.
109
110 Raises:
111 ValueError: If the ranking violates the required schema or invariants.
112 """
113 frame = validate_ranking(read_ranking(path), targets)
114 if not all(
115 eligibility.is_eligible(uid, item)
116 for uid, item in frame[["uid", "item_id"]].itertuples(index=False, name=None)
117 ):
118 raise RankingValidationError(
119 "submission contains an item rejected by eligibility service"
120 )
121 return ranked_items(frame)
122
123
124 def score(
125 ranked: dict[int, list[int]],
126 graded: dict[int, dict[int, int]],
127 ) -> dict[str, float | int]:
128 """Aggregate per-user NDCG@10 over users with public relevance labels.
129
130 Args:
131 ranked: Ranked item IDs for every target user.
132 graded: Eligible validation relevance keyed by user and item.
133
134 Returns:
135 The six-decimal ``quality_ndcg@10`` value and number of scored users.
136 """
137 return score_rankings(ranked, graded)
138
139
140 def main() -> None:
141 """Run the public evaluator CLI and print its JSON score report."""
142 targets_frame = pd.read_parquet(DATA / "target_users.parquet")
143 targets = set(targets_frame.uid.astype(int))
144 eligibility = CandidateSet(DATA / "validation_eligible_candidates.npz")
145 graded = validation_truth(eligibility, targets)
146
147 if len(sys.argv) != 2:
148 raise SystemExit(
149 "usage: evaluate_public.py <validation-ranking.parquet|csv>"
150 )
151 path = Path(sys.argv[1])
152 ranked = load_submission(path, eligibility, targets)
153 print(json.dumps({"model": str(path), "scores": score(ranked, graded)}, indent=2))
154
155
156 if __name__ == "__main__":
157 main()
158
Tool callBashInspect catalog and target usersReturned
Tool call · Input
cd /app/solution && python -c "
import pandas as pd, numpy as np
c=pd.read_parquet('/task/data/candidate_catalog.parquet'); print(c.head()); print(c.shape)
t=pd.read_parquet('/task/data/target_users.parquet'); print(t.shape, t.columns.tolist())
"
/app/solution/train_current_model.py · Replace one occurrence
Before
raw = F.softplus(logits)
total = config.uniform_negatives + config.inbatch_negatives
result = torch.zeros(len(logits), device=logits.device)
if config.uniform_negatives:
result += config.uniform_negatives * raw[
:, : config.uniform_negatives
].mean(dim=1)
if config.inbatch_negatives:
selected = slice(config.uniform_negatives, total)
weights = correction[:, selected]
result += config.inbatch_negatives * (
(raw[:, selected] * weights).sum(dim=1)
/ weights.sum(dim=1).clamp_min(1.0e-6)
)
return result / total
After
raw = F.softplus(logits)
sampled = config.uniform_negatives + config.popularity_negatives
total = sampled + config.inbatch_negatives
result = torch.zeros(len(logits), device=logits.device)
if sampled:
# Uniform and popularity-tempered draws are both unconditional catalog
# samples and share one unweighted block.
result += sampled * raw[:, :sampled].mean(dim=1)
if config.inbatch_negatives:
selected = slice(sampled, total)
weights = correction[:, selected]
result += config.inbatch_negatives * (
(raw[:, selected] * weights).sum(dim=1)
/ weights.sum(dim=1).clamp_min(1.0e-6)
)
return result / total
Tool response
The file /app/solution/train_current_model.py has been updated successfully. (file state is current in your context — no need to Read it back)
The file /app/solution/train_current_model.py has been updated. All occurrences were successfully replaced. (file state is current in your context — no need to Read it back)
for i in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10; do if [ -f /app/solution/wide_validation.parquet ]; then break; fi; sleep 12; done; python /task/evaluate_public.py /app/solution/wide_validation.parquet; date
Tool response
{
"model": "/app/solution/wide_validation.parquet",
"scores": {
"quality_ndcg@10": 0.020812,
"quality_users": 4263
}
}
Fri Aug 28 21:13:18 UTC 2026
for i in $(seq 1 14); do if [ -f /app/solution/graded_validation.parquet ]; then break; fi; sleep 12; done; python /task/evaluate_public.py /app/solution/graded_validation.parquet; date
Tool response
{
"model": "/app/solution/graded_validation.parquet",
"scores": {
"quality_ndcg@10": 0.023522,
"quality_users": 4263
}
}
Fri Aug 28 21:19:14 UTC 2026
# Made for You — two-tower retrieval improvement
## Public backtest scores (graded NDCG@10, 4,263 scored users)
| Ranking | quality_ndcg@10 |
| --- | --- |
| Popularity-order reference (no model) | 0.010710 |
| **Production baseline (reproduced)** | **0.021280** |
| + popularity-tempered negatives (16 pop^0.75, no in-batch correction) | 0.010696 |
| + wider negative pool (48 uniform + 16 in-batch) | 0.020812 |
| **Shipped: discovery-graded target weighting** | **0.023522** |
Net change: **0.021280 → 0.023522 (+10.5% relative)**.
## Diagnosis
The brief pointed at negative sampling, so that is where the investigation
started. The production sampler draws 24 uniform negatives over the 30,000-item
catalog plus 8 in-batch negatives whose loss is down-weighted by an
inverse-propensity factor `((1/N)/p_i)^0.5` clipped to `[0.25, 4]`. The obvious
textbook complaint is that uniform draws over a heavy-tailed catalog are
trivially separable, while the one source of hard negatives has its hardest
(most popular) members suppressed up to 16x relative to its easiest ones.
**That complaint does not survive measurement here.** Two experiments:
1. Replacing 16 of the 24 uniform draws with popularity-tempered draws
(`p_i ∝ count_i^0.75`, which concentrates 17.8% of sampling mass on the top
1,000 items) and removing the in-batch down-weighting *halved* the score, to
0.010696 — statistically indistinguishable from ranking every user by raw
catalog popularity (0.010710). Under an independent-BCE objective,
over-sampling popular items as negatives injects an uncorrected
anti-popularity bias into the item tower and destroys the personalization
the baseline had.
2. Simply widening the pool (48 uniform + 16 in-batch, 2x the negative compute)
moved nothing: 0.020812, inside run-to-run noise of the baseline.
The conclusion is that the production negative sampler is **not** the binding
constraint. It is already well matched to its job: the full-training-history
false-negative filter removes every item the user has ever encountered from the
negative pool, so the negatives are drawn from the same "items this user has not
seen" population that the eligible candidate set is built from. The
inverse-propensity correction on the in-batch block is what keeps the model from
acquiring exactly the anti-popularity bias that experiment 1 demonstrates.
The binding constraint is on the **positive** side of the objective, and it is a
train/serve mismatch:
- Training targets are every adjacent next-item transition in the user's listen
sequence. Music listening is overwhelmingly repeat listening, so most targets
are tracks the user already knows.
- The evaluation candidate set **excludes every item the user encountered before
the cutoff**. Repeat listens are, by construction, unrankable at serving time.
- So the majority of the training signal optimizes a re-listen predictor, while
the launch gate measures first-encounter discovery, with organic likes
(gain `2^3-1 = 7`) worth seven times a strong organic listen.
Under the shipped `organic-strong` weighting, repeats and first encounters are
weighted identically whenever both are organic and ≥80% complete.
## Change
Switch the target weighting from `organic-strong` to the `discovery-graded`
scheme, which reweights each training target by what it would be worth under the
serving objective:
- weight 3.0 — a **first encounter** with a track the user organically likes
within the following 7 days (the grade-3 outcome);
- weight 1.0 — an organic listen completed to ≥80% (the grade-1 outcome);
- weight 0.25 — everything else, including *every repeat listen*, which cannot
be an eligible discovery outcome at any cutoff.
Repeats stay in the sequence as inputs and stay in the loss with a nonzero
weight, so the data protocol, the chronological split, and the BPTT structure
are untouched; only the per-target weight changes. Mean target weight drops from
0.575 to 0.310, and 46,417 first-encounter targets are promoted to grade-3
weight. The negative sampler is left at its production setting (24 uniform + 8
propensity-corrected in-batch), which the experiments above show is already the
right choice.
Serving contract is unchanged: one user vector from observed history, dot
product against precomputed item vectors, no cross-encoder, no per-candidate
sequence model, no user-ID table.
The popularity-tempered sampler from experiment 1 is left in the code behind
`--popularity-negatives` (default 0) with the measured negative result recorded
at its definition, so the experiment is reproducible rather than repeated.
## Reproduce
```sh
# public backtest (0.023522)
python /app/solution/train_current_model.py --stage validation \
--public-dir /task --output /app/solution/graded_validation.parquet
python /task/evaluate_public.py /app/solution/graded_validation.parquet
# final hidden-test artifact, refit on train_* + val_*
python /app/solution/train_current_model.py --stage submission \
--public-dir /task --output /app/solution/submission.parquet
```
`--prepared-cache <path.npz>` caches the ~50s sequence build across runs. The
shipped defaults in `Config` are the configuration used for the submission, so
both commands need no extra flags.
Tool response
File created successfully at: /app/solution/README.md (file state is current in your context — no need to Read it back)
+41:05Tool callBashWait for submission rankingReturned
Tool call · Input
for i in $(seq 1 16); do if [ -f /app/solution/submission_new.parquet ]; then break; fi; sleep 12; done; ls -la /app/solution/submission_new.parquet; date
Tool response
-rw-r--r-- 1 agent agent 1200183 Aug 28 21:25 /app/solution/submission_new.parquet
Fri Aug 28 21:25:07 UTC 2026
+42:47Tool callBashRead config from submission run logReturned
Tool call · Input
python - <<'PY'
import json
s=open('submission.log').read()
i=s.rindex('{\n "baseline"')
cfg=json.loads(s[i:])['config']
print({k:cfg[k] for k in ['uniform_negatives','popularity_negatives','inbatch_negatives','inbatch_correction_power','target_weighting']})
PY
The shipped defaults match the submitted run exactly. Done.
What I found
You pointed me at negative sampling, and I tested that hypothesis first — it turned out not to be the bottleneck.
The obvious complaint about the production sampler (24 uniform draws over a 30k heavy-tailed catalog are trivially separable; the 8 in-batch negatives have their hardest members suppressed up to 16x by the ^0.5 inverse-propensity correction) does not survive measurement:
Ranking
NDCG@10
Popularity-order reference (no model)
0.01071
Production baseline (reproduced)
0.02128
Popularity-tempered negatives (16 × pop^0.75, no in-batch correction)
0.01070
Wider pool (48 uniform + 16 in-batch, 2x negative compute)
0.02081
Shipped: discovery-graded target weighting
0.02352
Harder negatives halved the score, landing indistinguishable from ranking everyone by raw popularity. Under independent BCE, over-sampling popular items as negatives injects an uncorrected anti-popularity bias and destroys the personalization the baseline had — the propensity correction I removed is precisely what was preventing that. Widening the pool moved nothing. The production sampler is already well matched to its job: the full-history false-negative filter means negatives are drawn from the same "unseen by this user" population the candidate set is built from.
What actually moved the metric
A train/serve mismatch on the positive side. Music listening is mostly repeat listening, so most training targets are tracks the user already knows — but the candidate set excludes every pre-cutoff encounter, making repeats unrankable at serving time. The majority of the signal was optimizing a re-listen predictor while the gate measures first-encounter discovery.
Switching to discovery-graded target weighting reweights each target by what it's worth under the serving objective: 3.0 for a first encounter the user organically likes within 7 days, 1.0 for a strong organic listen, 0.25 for everything else including all repeats. Repeats stay in the sequence and keep nonzero weight, so the data protocol, chronological split, BPTT structure, and two-tower serving contract are untouched.
0.02128 → 0.02352 (+10.5% relative).
Deliverables in /app/solution/
submission.parquet — refit on train_* + val_*, regular file, checked against every stated rule: 8,456 users exactly matching target_users.parquet, 100 rows and 100 distinct items each, ranks 1–100 exactly once, all items eligible in test_eligible_candidates.npz.
train_current_model.py + two_tower_model.py — defaults set to the shipped config (verified identical to the submitted run).
README.md — diagnosis, the full experiment table including the two negative-sampling failures, and reproduction commands.
Two caveats worth flagging: the wide-negative result (0.02081) is close enough to baseline that I'd call it noise rather than a regression, and I only had budget for single-seed runs, so the +10.5% is one measurement rather than a seed-averaged estimate. The popularity-tempered sampler is left in the code behind --popularity-negatives (default 0) with its negative result recorded at the definition, so it's reproducible rather than re-litigated.
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