Finding the node is the expensive part: grounding costs 7–9 points, and navigation is a frontier-only trap

Grounding without ids

Study Overview

Grounding Without Ids

Same edits, instructions rewritten without ids ("the image-atom named 'maple-ember'"), every description verified to match exactly one node.

The Grounding Tax

With the full tree in context, models ground at 84–87% (vs 91–96% with ids).

Navigation Is a Frontier-Only Trap

Letting the model navigate a skeleton with an expand tool matches the oracle on sonnet; at a median of 54 expansions, costing MORE than showing everything; and collapses on gemini, mostly by exhausting its budget without an answer.

The Gate Fails, for Now

Naive lexical retrieval is the floor it was designed to be. The pre-registered gate failed: no partial-context mechanism was both accurate and cheaper; until Study N (next chart) swapped the expand tool for content search.

Charts & Tables

Chart L.1: Grounded-Instruction Success by Grounding Mode and Model