re: initial focus is TUTORIAL x3 / NEW GAME x3, and never anything else

Two more data points for the Q5 instability, from today s drives. A run that
pressed A with no d-pad movement ended in a tutorial mission, correlating +0.960
with the committed capture, so that boot opened on TUTORIAL. A later boot read
NEW GAME from a focus detector on the first menu frame.

Six boots on the same harness now: TUTORIAL three times, NEW GAME three times,
and no other item ever observed. The distribution is not uniform over the five
buttons -- only these two occur -- which is a real constraint on whatever selects
initial focus and something an explanation will have to account for.

Also records in METHOD a bug that cost a seven-minute driven boot: a value was
clamped for readability BEFORE the comparison that used it. A focus detector
printed a degenerate margin, so it was capped at 999; the cap ran before the
vote-sorting step, two different votes compared equal, the stable sort kept the
wrong one, and a correct NEW GAME became an out-of-range index and a refusal. The
measurement was right throughout -- a cosmetic fix changed a decision. Clamp at
the point of display, never upstream of a comparison.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QsEPXWVaEpyfudtR6re1Pd

tools/re-capture/focus_from_capture.py

@@ -86,10 +86,13 @@ def classify(shot, A, B, ra, pitch):
     for ref, ref_idx in ((A, IDX_A), (B, IDX_B)):
         prof = row_profile(shot, ref)
         r, peak, med = peak_row(prof)
-        # A zero median makes this explode -- floor it at a level that is
-        # small but real, so a degenerate comparison reads as "huge" rather
-        # than 1e10, and cap it so the printed number stays meaningful.
-        margin = min(peak / max(med, 1.0), 999.0)
+        # A zero median makes this explode, so floor it. 🔴 Do NOT cap here:
+        # an earlier version capped at 999 to keep the printed number readable,
+        # which made two different votes compare EQUAL, and the stable sort then
+        # kept the wrong one -- turning a correct NEW GAME into an out-of-range
+        # index and a refusal. Cap at the point of DISPLAY, never before a
+        # comparison that depends on the value.
+        margin = peak / max(med, 1.0)
         idx = int(round((r - ra) / pitch))
         votes.append((idx, margin, ref_idx))
     # If the shot IS one of the references, that comparison is degenerate (all
@@ -131,9 +134,10 @@ def main():
     got, margin = classify(shot, A, B, ra, pitch)
     ok = got is not None and margin >= MIN_MARGIN
     if as_json:
-        print(json.dumps({"button": got, "margin": round(margin, 3), "decided": ok}))
+        print(json.dumps({"button": got, "margin": round(min(margin, 999.0), 3),
+                          "decided": ok}))
     else:
-        print(f"{got if ok else 'UNDECIDED'} margin={margin:.2f}")
+        print(f"{got if ok else 'UNDECIDED'} margin={min(margin, 999.0):.2f}")
     return 0 if ok else 1
 
 if __name__ == "__main__":