OpenNest-Engines/_Template/BENCH-RULES.md

Bench rules

These rules apply to every model building or optimizing an OpenNest engine, so results can be compared fairly. README.md in this folder covers what counts as an independent engine; this file covers how the run itself works.

Your workspace

• You are working in a copy of OpenNest. Your engine is Engines/OpenNest.Engine.__NAME__/.
• Work only inside this copy. Do not search the rest of the filesystem, other checkouts of OpenNest, the network, or any git remote for other nesting engines or earlier versions of this project. Using another engine's code or results in any form is disqualifying.
• Do not edit OpenNest.Core, OpenNest.Engine, OpenNest.Benchmark or anything else outside your engine folder, except for throwaway tools under tools/ and scratch work under bench-local/ (see below). If shared code has a bug that blocks you, work around it in your engine and describe the bug in your report.

Version control

• At the start, if this copy is not already a git repository, run git init in the copy's root and commit everything as Initial bench copy before changing anything.
• Commit every time the engine reaches a working state (it builds and the tests pass), with a message that says what changed and why, plus any benchmark numbers you measured.
• When an experiment makes things worse, go back to the last good commit rather than patching forward. Do not rewrite or squash history; the commit log is part of the record of your run.
• Do not add a git remote or push anywhere.

Real parts

• Real production drawings are available read-only at /mnt/rogers/PEP Drawings/Archive (on hermes.lan) or Y:\Archive (on Windows); both are the same archive. Use them to build realistic benchmark jobs.
• Never modify, move or delete anything in the archive.
• Do not copy DXF files into your engine folder, and do not commit archive paths, file names or part numbers inside your engine folder. The engine folder may be published; these drawings are customer property. Keep manifests, results and notes that reference the archive under bench-local/ in the copy's root instead.
• Final scoring also uses jobs you will not see. Tune for real parts in general, not for the specific drawings you tested with.

Tests and scoring

• Engine.Testing/ is the shared, read-only test kit supplied beside engine folders in bench copies. Reference it for shapes, job construction, layout assertions and inherited engine contract tests; do not copy or edit it during an engine optimization run.
• Placement must be deterministic: no clocks, unseeded randomness or environment variables may influence placement. Budgets count work. Wall time may stop work only through the host's cancellation token. Diagnostics must not affect placement decisions.
• Keep the starter tests in tests/ and keep them passing. Add tests; do not weaken, skip or delete existing ones. If you believe an existing test is wrong, leave it and explain why in your report.
• Engines are scored by OpenNest.Benchmark. Every layout goes through NestValidator; an invalid layout places nothing and pays the unplaced-part penalty, so validity comes before utilization.
• Benchmark with --parallel 1 whenever you report timing.

Your report

When you finish, update README.md in your engine folder to replace the template text with:

• the algorithm and why you chose it,
• what you tried that did not work,
• benchmark results (synthetic jobs only in the README; real-part results go in bench-local/),
• any shared-code bugs or improvements you found, with measured numbers, so they can be upstreamed.