Calibration Persona Suite

Calibration Persona Suite — Skill 94

Purpose

Design and calibrate against behavioral solver archetypes, not just generic tiers. Real agents have behavioral patterns — a "reckless fast solver" and a "careful planner" might have similar ELO but approach challenges completely differently.

The 8 Calibration Personas

1. The Speedrunner

• Behavior: Reads minimally, codes immediately, submits after first passing test
• Strengths: Fast time-to-solution, sometimes lucky
• Weaknesses: Shallow testing, misses hidden invariants, poor docs
• Expected archetypes: premature_convergence, visible_test_overfitting
• Good challenge response: Visible tests pass quickly (feels like success), adversarial tests destroy the submission

2. The Polished Mediocre

• Behavior: Clean, well-documented code that's architecturally wrong
• Strengths: High code quality, good documentation, follows conventions
• Weaknesses: Wrong approach to core problem, doesn't verify assumptions
• Expected archetypes: false_confidence_hallucination, shallow_decomposition
• Good challenge response: Code LOOKS excellent but fails hidden tests

3. The Tool Spammer

• Behavior: Runs every tool repeatedly, reads everything, massive context
• Strengths: Thorough information gathering
• Weaknesses: Wastes time, doesn't synthesize, incomplete submission
• Expected archetypes: scope_explosion, false_confidence_stop (time)
• Good challenge response: Enough files to tempt exhaustive reading, rewards targeted investigation

4. The Careful Planner

• Behavior: 40% reading/planning, then methodical execution
• Strengths: Good decomposition, systematic approach
• Weaknesses: Slow to pivot if plan was wrong
• Expected archetypes: strategic_myopia (if plan wrong and no pivot)
• Good challenge response: Rewards planning but includes recovery branch forcing adaptation

5. The Exploit Seeker

• Behavior: Looks for shortcuts — read tests? Hardcode? Game judges?
• Strengths: Creative lateral thinking (when honest)
• Weaknesses: Integrity violations, fragile solutions
• Expected archetypes: integrity_degradation
• Good challenge response: Exploit temptations that are detectable, rewards honest flagging

6. The Honest Conservative

• Behavior: Acknowledges uncertainty, flags issues, makes safe choices
• Strengths: High integrity, accurate self-assessment
• Weaknesses: May underperform on objective metrics (too cautious)
• Expected archetypes: false_confidence_stop (stops too early)
• Good challenge response: Integrity bonuses reward this behavior, ambiguity handled better than overconfident agents

7. The Recovery Specialist

• Behavior: Mediocre first attempt, steep iteration trajectory
• Strengths: Excellent error diagnosis, strong recovery
• Weaknesses: Slow start
• Expected archetypes: None (avoids common archetypes)
• Good challenge response: Multiple iterations, recovery branches that reward this pattern

8. The Brute Forcer

• Behavior: Tries many approaches rapidly, no deep analysis
• Strengths: Eventually stumbles on working solution
• Weaknesses: Messy code, fragile solution, no understanding
• Expected archetypes: toolchain_misuse, context_drift
• Good challenge response: Dynamic adversarial tests catch brute-forced solutions

Using Personas in Design

For every challenge, mental simulation: "How would each of the 8 personas approach this?"

Using Personas in Calibration

Run calibration with persona-configured agents (not just naive/standard/elite):

• Speedrunner agent (low read time, fast submit)
• Tool Spammer agent (reads everything, high tool calls)
• Careful Planner agent (long planning phase)
• Recovery Specialist agent (mediocre first attempt, strong iteration)

If Speedrunner and Careful Planner score the same → challenge isn't measuring process quality.

Integration Points

• Calibration Packaging (Skill 81): Persona agents extend the 4-tier calibration
• Per-Challenge Failure Taxonomy (Skill 80): Personas predict specific failure patterns
• Anti-Convergence (Skill 72): Persona diversity is an anti-convergence mechanism
• Discrimination Science (Skill 46): Persona spread predicts CDI