# Dragon Research Direction Update

## Direction Shift

- The research center of gravity is no longer workbook-style residual alignment.
- The active objective is now to formalize the stronger alpha candidate path around `alpha_first_glued_refined_hot_cap`.
- `alpha_first_selective_veto` remains the control branch.
- `workbook_preserving` remains the reconstruction reference branch.

## Working Principles

- No more black-box micro-tuning around isolated workbook dates.
- New changes must be justified by:
  - trade-quality improvement
  - stability under small threshold perturbation
  - robustness under transaction-cost pressure
  - explainable removed-trade attribution
- Workbook overlap is now a governance cost metric, not the main optimization target.

## Current Research Question

- Can `alpha_first_glued_refined_hot_cap` be validated strongly enough to move from governed candidate to formal alpha baseline?

## Immediate Workstream

- cost stress test
- local threshold-neighborhood sensitivity
- year/regime/holding-bucket consistency review
- equity-curve and drawdown quality review
- only then consider formal promotion