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