Proves the effort-ladder projection against the real request path
instead of against the mapping helpers it shares with it. For 22
(provider lane x capability shape) points — both Anthropic lanes,
openai-compatible on both API surfaces, openai, google (default and
template-override hybrid), xai (default and inert-override), and the
DeepSeek/qwen template contracts — every knob position is driven
through the actual provider create_streaming against a recording fake
client, and two invariants are asserted per shape:
1. each ladder token decodes to an expected effort wire subset
(toggle / template effort / flat param / thinking budget /
output_config) that must equal the captured kwargs exactly;
2. two knob positions carry equal tokens iff they produce identical
effort-relevant wire payloads — the grouping promise the UI
annotations lean on.
The RecordingClient SDK-seam stub moves from the wire-payload golden
harness into tests/_wire_capture.py so both suites capture at the same
seam. Verified the harness catches the bug class it was built for:
re-adding xai to _CHAT_LANES fails xai-template-override-inert.
Patrick Buckley