Undominated · Activation Recomputation Tax Audit

---
name: undominated-activation-recomputation-tax-audit
description: "Audits selective vs full gradient checkpointing memory savings vs compute FLOP taxes for long-context prefill. Recomputed fields must match the other inputs. A pass is not a compliance, safety, or price verdict."
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: Undominated.ai
  version: "1.1.0"
---

# Activation Recomputation Tax Audit

## Description
Audits selective vs full gradient checkpointing memory savings vs compute FLOP taxes for long-context prefill.

## Category
`architecture`

## Tags
`checkpointing`, `recomputation`, `vram`, `flops`, `memory`

## When to Use
Audit memory-constrained prefill configurations balancing VRAM headroom against generation latency.

## Operational Limitations
Calculates theoretical FLOP addition based on attention and MLP re-forwarding.

## Verification Script
Run the deterministic verification checker:
```bash
python3 scripts/check.py examples/synthetic.json
```
Exit codes:
- `0`: Check passed and thresholds satisfied.
- `1`: Threshold breach or operational violation detected.
- `2`: Schema error or invalid usage.

## What the checker recomputes

- `flop_tax` = 100 * recompute_flops_tflops / forward_flops_tflops, then the original `>` check against `max_allowed_flop_tax_percent`. `recompute_flops_tflops` cannot exceed `forward_flops_tflops`.

- Bound: `activation_memory_saved_gb` <= `total_vram_gb`.

Every other declared field is type-checked. A negative value is rejected except for deltas, drifts, and gains. A type check does not, by itself, prove the measurement.

`population` and `observedAt` are required. The bundled examples are synthetic fixtures, not market measurements.

```bash
python3 scripts/check.py examples/synthetic.json
python3 scripts/check.py examples/contradiction.json
python3 scripts/check.py examples/broken.json
```

Exit 0 is a pass, exit 1 is a review, and exit 2 is invalid input. A pass does not certify a provider, a regulation, a release, or a price.

The download contains SKILL.md. Extract the whole bundle; the supporting files are required. Inspect the included MANIFEST.json for file hashes.

By Undominated.ai. Exact upstream source ↗ · Licence · Attribution

SHA-256 50fe23c8da4fb85ffc3585ba18d17eeb52efd2225ae7db15b63812dc95d90241

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2026 Undominated.ai

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.