C.32.ACE:2 - Problem

Architecture synthesis is an optimization and learning activity under competing characteristics. It needs evals: deliberate measurement, simulation, benchmark, scenario, review, or monitoring runs that say how a current architecture or candidate architecture reads against declared criteria.

Testing for errors is a neighboring use. A test asks whether an expectation is violated. An eval asks how variants compare, how a candidate changes the trade-off front, which constraint is hit, or whether the next synthesis pass should open. A candidate that loses the eval is not automatically an error; it may be a deliberate probe that improves the architecture team’s knowledge of the solution space.

Evolutionary-architecture sources often say “fitness function”. In FPF that is source-side wording. The recoverable FPF object is an eval program over declared architecture-characteristic rows, Q-Bundle slots, candidate structures, and a parity frame. Some eval programs can specify automated tests or monitors, but automation does not change the kind of the program record.