Pho Algorithmic Audit

PHO algorithmic-audit solver

These tasks look intimidating but are highly templated. A prompt sets a business question; analysis_request.json registers a cohort/publication spec plus ~6 audit modules and a decision rule; answer_template.json fixes the exact response contract. Your job is to pull evidence from the read-only portal, reconstruct each registered design exactly, and emit one JSON object. There is no oracle to call while solving — you compute everything from the portal and the request.

What you're given (the three inputs)

• prompt.txt — the business framing and the portal base URL placeholder. Narrative only; the real spec is in the JSON payloads.
• payloads/analysis_request.json — the authoritative spec: geography scope, years, outcome/exposure, release & cohort rules, each module's method + ordered features/grids/ seeds + required evidence, and the decision thresholds/precedence.
• payloads/answer_template.json — the output contract: required top-level keys, per-block required keys, array lengths, cardinality/ordering rules, precision, enums.

Workflow

1. Orient on the portal. Fetch /catalog and /methodology (relative to the base URL your task gives you). The catalog self-describes every dataset (columns, filters, CSV export, measure dictionary); methodology states the governing publication rules. Pull the datasets you need as CSV and load them (keep FIPS/ISO3 as text). → references/data_model.md, helper assets/portal.py.

2. Build the foundation — resolve the registered FINAL release per cell (FINAL → highest revision → latest released_at → id), apply availability (drop suppressed / null / task-invalid quality flags; never zero-fill), apply revision notices, then assemble the exact complete-case cohorts (per-year, balanced panel, reference/broad, strict, machine-learning). Join region/division/RUCC from the geography tables. This block is the answer template's first section and every downstream number depends on it — verify its integer counts and complement (excluded-code) sets carefully. → references/release_and_cohorts.md.

3. Reconstruct each module in the exact registered design order, transforms, grids, seeds and inference conventions (HC3 / CR1 SEs; named PRNG implemented bit-exactly; training-only standardization; covariance PCA with deterministic loading signs; deterministic k-means; plus-one bootstrap p-values; leave-group-out CV/conformal; exact Shapley). Emit each module's evidence with the template's array lengths and alignment. → references/module_playbook.md.

4. Derive the gated decision. Turn each module's result into its gate boolean using the declared threshold, count passes, and map to the classification via the declared precedence. This enum is a high-value, self-contained field — get the inequalities and precedence exactly right even if some interior numbers are approximate.

5. Format & self-check against the template: one JSON object, exact keys, array lengths, alignment, complement sets, types/enums, declared precision, null only for mathematically-undefined values, no narrative outside the JSON. Validate programmatically. → references/output_contract.md.

Method priorities (where the points are)

• Foundation first. Cohort/census counts and excluded sets are exactly derivable and anchor everything; a wrong cohort silently corrupts every module. Nail step 2 before fitting anything.
• Shape before magnitude. Satisfy every array length / ordering / cardinality / type / enum rule — the grader scores leaves, so a complete, correctly-shaped answer with right counts and a correctly-derived decision scores even where deep numerics drift.
• Determinism. Every "seed", "initialization", "priority", "order" in the request is there to make the result reproducible — implement each convention exactly and, where the prose under-specifies, choose the most standard textbook definition and make it deterministic.
• Read units & direction from the measure dictionary before asserting a coefficient's sign in a gate.

Reusable assets

• assets/portal.py — portal-agnostic loader + resolve_final (registered FINAL resolution), available (suppression/quality masking), and country label→ISO3 reconciliation. Point it at your task's base URL; it contacts nothing else.
• references/data_model.md — datasets, columns, publication semantics, revisions, labels.
• references/release_and_cohorts.md — release resolution and the cohort archetypes.
• references/module_playbook.md — the recurring module family and exact conventions.
• references/output_contract.md — formatting rules, the gated decision, and a self-check.

Pitfalls

• Resolving before filtering to the requested value_type/source_type/release_status.
• Treating suppressed/missing as zero, or letting a null socio field drop a whole record.
• Hardcoding a division/region map instead of reading it from the geography tables.
• Re-sorting an aligned result array, or emitting a set where an ordered list is required.
• Forgetting a transform (_per_10000, log, first-difference/lag) or the category reference level, so the design matrix is subtly wrong.
• Rounding before computing, or reporting the wrong decimal precision per field.
• Emitting the template's descriptor scaffolding instead of concrete values.