# Idea Candidates

> **Curated pool of viable ideas that survived novelty check and review.** Unlike `IDEA_REPORT.md` (raw brainstorm output with all 8-12 ideas), this file only contains ideas that are worth pursuing — filtered, scored, and ready to be selected.
>
> When the current idea fails (result-to-claim negative, or pivot needed), pick the next candidate from here instead of re-running the entire idea discovery pipeline.

## Active Idea

**Current**: [Idea name] → see `docs/research_contract.md` for full context

## Candidates

### Candidate 1: [Idea Name]
- **One-line**: [What it does]
- **Novelty score**: X/10
- **Reviewer assessment**: [Key strength + key risk]
- **Pilot result**: [POSITIVE/NEGATIVE/NOT TESTED — one-line metric]
- **Estimated effort**: [GPU hours, implementation complexity]
- **Why not selected first**: [Reason — e.g., higher risk, needs more data, less novel]

### Candidate 2: [Idea Name]
- **One-line**: [What it does]
- **Novelty score**: X/10
- **Reviewer assessment**: [Key strength + key risk]
- **Pilot result**: [POSITIVE/NEGATIVE/NOT TESTED]
- **Estimated effort**: [GPU hours, implementation complexity]
- **Why not selected first**: [Reason]

### Candidate 3: [Idea Name]
...

## Killed Ideas

> Ideas that were evaluated and explicitly rejected. Kept here to avoid re-exploring dead ends.

### [Killed Idea Name]
- **Kill reason**: [Why — e.g., not novel (found prior work X), infeasible (needs Y data), pilot negative]
- **Kill date**: YYYY-MM-DD
- **Source**: IDEA_REPORT.md, Idea #N

## Idea Switch Log

> Track idea transitions to maintain context across switches.

| Date | From | To | Reason |
|------|------|----|--------|
| YYYY-MM-DD | [Previous idea] | [New idea] | [Why — e.g., result-to-claim negative, pivot after reviewer feedback] |
