Agent acceptance contract

An AI-native claim should be tested from the package that a user receives, not from an editable source checkout or a maintainer's memory. AgentFEM's deterministic acceptance route starts in a clean directory and requires the installed wheel to expose and complete this sequence:

doctor -> capabilities -> init -> check -> run -> inspect -> verify

The release gate exercises every installed project template through that sequence. It also rejects a constitutive maturity claim when the benchmark registry does not provide the minimum evidence appropriate to that claim. Run it against a candidate distribution with:

python release_gate.py \
  --dist dist \
  --smoke \
  --report agent-acceptance.json

The report records the runtime fingerprint, capability discovery, evidence audit, and result lifecycle for each template. It can be produced on Linux, macOS, or WSL2 without changing the scientific case.

This deterministic gate proves that the machine interfaces needed by an agent are present and coherent. It does not impersonate an unfamiliar AI agent. A fresh-agent trial remains a separate behavioral test: the agent must choose an applicable model, preserve visible scientific choices, and explain why the result is or is not supported by its evidence. Successful execution alone is not scientific validation.

Prepare an immutable trial bundle from the exact release candidate first:

python tools/prepare_agent_trial.py \
  --wheel dist/agentfem-*.whl \
  --output fresh-agent-trial

The bundle contains one bounded mechanics task, an empty project directory, the exact wheel, its SHA-256 digest, the source commit and an independent review checklist. Give TASK.md and the bundle to a genuinely fresh agent; the maintainer who developed the candidate must not silently complete or repair the project.

After a genuinely fresh task has completed, retain its transcript and final scientific explanation beside the project, then record the trial with:

python tools/agent_trial_acceptance.py \
  --project fresh-agent-project \
  --agent "Codex/<model identity>" \
  --transcript fresh-agent-project/agent-transcript.md \
  --explanation fresh-agent-project/explanation.md \
  --fresh-context --human-interventions 0 --reviewed-explanation \
  --source-commit <commit-from-trial-contract> \
  --wheel fresh-agent-trial/agentfem-*.whl \
  --contract fresh-agent-trial/trial-contract.json \
  --report fresh-agent-project/agent-trial-acceptance.json

The recorder independently reruns doctor, capabilities, check, inspect and verify. It refuses a source checkout, inherited project context, missing transcript, human repair intervention, unverified result, or unreviewed explanation. The reviewer confirms scientific adequacy; the recorder never pretends that prose quality can be inferred from a successful solve. Candidate version, source commit, wheel digest, transcript digest and explanation digest are retained and cross-checked against the immutable trial contract, so an older or substituted successful trial cannot promote a newer release candidate.