# Talk temperature sweep: Qwen3-1.7B, 4 temperatures × 3 runs

Date: 05-08-2026. Model: Qwen3-1.7B-UD-Q4_K_XL, the resident model, on homesrv.
Harness: `TestTalkTemperatureSweep` (`internal/phraser/eval/temperature_test.go`),
gated on `MAVEN_LLM_URL` + `MAVEN_TEMP_SWEEP`. Fixture: the 36-case talk set.
Wall clock: 3394s for all twelve runs. Vikunja #402.

## What was asked

Whether 0.7 is the right sampling temperature for phrasing, and whether a lower
one buys persona compliance.

## Numbers

| temp | run 1 | run 2 | run 3 | mean | errors |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.70 | 24/36 | 24/36 | 22/36 | 23.3 (64.8%) | 7, 4, 6 |
| 0.40 | 25/36 | 25/36 | 26/36 | 25.3 (70.4%) | 3, 4, 5 |
| 0.20 | 22/36 | 23/36 | 26/36 | 23.7 (65.7%) | 6, 5, 4 |
| 0.05 | 23/36 | 25/36 | 23/36 | 23.7 (65.7%) | 5, 5, 6 |

## What it says

**The sweep does not separate the temperatures.** 0.40 leads by 5.6 points on
the mean. The spread inside a single temperature is 11 points: 0.20 ranges 22 to
26 across three runs of the same setting. Three runs cannot tell a 5.6-point
effect from that noise. Lowering the temperature to 0.05 does not help either.
That is the result that would have been most useful if it had.

**So the default stays 0.7.** `Config.Temperature` is now a config field, so
setting it is a one-line change. No measurement here justifies moving it. Anyone
re-running this needs more runs per setting, not more settings.

## The finding that is not about temperature

Sixty of the failures across twelve runs are one error:
`phraser: model output starts as JSON but does not parse`. The case fails with
an empty string, so it costs a whole case rather than one check.

They are not spread evenly. Every one lands in the `reply` family, and the
distribution is:

| case | runs failed (of 12) |
|---|---|
| reply-reminder-tomorrow | 12 |
| reply-reminder-evening | 12 |
| reply-question-bait | 11 |
| reply-formality-bait | 9 |
| reply-note-router | 8 |
| reply-fact-weight | 6 |

Two cases fail in every single run at every temperature. That is not sampling
noise, and no temperature will fix it. It is a defect in the reply phrasing
path. It caps the talk fixture at 30/36 before persona is scored at all. Filed
as Vikunja #537.

The talk score of 27/36 recorded on 2026-08-04 went through a different call
path. It is not comparable to the numbers above.