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sortfrontier

confirmedPython · CPUModel behavior & reasoningJuly 6, 2026

the question

How long a list can a small model sort, and how does it fail?

what came out

The failure mode shifts from comparison errors to tracking errors -- dropped or invented numbers, ~97% by length 16. And CoT doesn't help sorting; it hurts the small model. Exact oracle.

method & receipts

  • Result: confirmed
  • Reproducible one script re-runs the whole thing from scratch.
  • Independently reviewed an adversarial review pass, kept in the repo.
  • Machine-readable claims every reported number, in a checkable file.
  • Tested — a correctness/benchmark suite ships alongside the code.

→ read the code and re-run it

github.com/v-code01/sortfrontier