# bf-3ca5: Phase 13 strategies vs §10 evolver documentation

## Work Completed

Added comprehensive file header documentation to `engine/bot_strategies_phase13.go` clarifying:
- These are HAND-CODED strategy implementations (not LLM-evolved)
- Phase 13 bots serve as reference implementations and strategic diversity fixtures
- They differ fundamentally from the §10 evolver pipeline which uses LLMs to autonomously generate, evaluate, and promote new bot strategies

## Key Distinction Documented

| Aspect | Phase 13 Bots | §10 Evolver Pipeline |
|--------|---------------|---------------------|
| Origin | Human-designed archetypes | LLM-generated candidates |
| Behavior | Fixed, deterministic | Continuously evolving |
| Purpose | Reference implementations, ladder diversity | Autonomous strategy discovery |
| Storage | Single Go file | Programs database with island model |
| Update | Manual code changes | Automated evolution cycles |

## Retrospective

- **What worked:** Reading the plan §10 section first to understand the evolver architecture, then comparing it with the actual file contents to identify the conceptual gap
- **What didn't:** Initially tried to read the entire plan.md at once (54941 tokens) — needed to use grep with context to target §10 specifically
- **Surprise:** The file name `bot_strategies_phase13.go` could be misleading — "Phase 13" sounds like it might be part of an evolution pipeline, but it's actually just a set of hand-coded expansions similar to the original `bot_strategies.go`
- **Reusable pattern:** For future documentation tasks, compare plan descriptions with actual code implementation to identify terminology gaps — document the distinction between "hand-coded reference" and "autogenerated" implementations