diff --git a/docs/results/autodata-live.md b/docs/results/autodata-live.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3746b36
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/results/autodata-live.md
@@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+# Autodata live result: a false null, autopsied, then a real (clean) null
+
+Running the agentic data-creation loop (`src/autodata/`) on a real arXiv doc with real two-tier
+solver models, to manufacture training examples that separate a strong solver from a weak one
+(the discriminative reward). The headline is a null — but the path to it is the result.
+
+## What happened, in order
+
+1. **First runs looked like a null with a *negative* gap.** Across two tier pairs —
+   `glm-4.5-air` vs `glm-5.2`, then `groq/llama-3.1-8b-instant` vs `gemini-2.5-pro` — every run
+   reported 0 accepted and a strong−weak gap *below zero* (plain −0.47, then −1.00). A frontier
+   model scoring *below* an 8B on reasoning questions is not credible.
+
+2. **Autopsy (a direct probe on the real judge) found an artifact, not a finding.** At the solver's
+   `maxTokens: 1024`, the strong **reasoning** model (`gemini-2.5-pro`, and `glm-5.2` before it)
+   spent its whole budget on hidden reasoning and returned **empty visible content** on hard
+   prompts — which the judge scored 0. So "strong" was being scored 0 for *answering nothing*,
+   manufacturing a false negative gap. The trivial cost-gate smoke ("reply ok") didn't trigger it,
+   so it slipped through. (Confirmed: the same prompt at `maxTokens: 8000` → gemini answers in
+   956 chars and scores 1.00.)
+
+3. **Fix (this PR).** The solver now uses a reasoning-safe `maxTokens` (8000) **and fails loud on
+   empty content** — an empty answer is a measurement failure, never a silent 0 that corrupts the
+   gap (the repo's no-silent-zeros rule). The model tier is now an env knob
+   (`AUTODATA_WEAK_MODEL` / `AUTODATA_STRONG_MODEL` / `…_CHALLENGER_MODEL` / `…_JUDGE_MODEL`), and
+   the price table covers the wide tier.
+
+4. **The clean result.** Re-run with the fix, `llama-3.1-8b` vs `gemini-2.5-pro`:
+
+   | metric | value |
+   |---|---|
+   | accepted (discriminating) examples | **0 / 3** |
+   | plain gap (n=1) | 0.000 |
+   | refined best-gap per slot (n=3) | 0.006 |
+   | Δ (refined − plain) | **+0.006 — no meaningful widening** |
+   | spend | $0.09 |
+
+   The gap is now **~0, not negative** — `gemini-2.5-pro` and `llama-3.1-8b` score about **equally**.
+
+## The finding
+
+On these auto-generated, doc-grounded questions a small model performs as well as a frontier one,
+because **the answer is extractable from the provided context** — reading beats reasoning, so model
+capability does not separate and no example clears the discriminative bar. This is *not* a
+model-tier problem (we used a genuine 8B-vs-frontier gap); it is a **question-difficulty** problem.
+
+The lever is therefore the **challenger**, not the model tier: to open a real gap the challenger must
+generate **non-extractive, reasoning-heavy** questions (multi-step derivations, numerical claims that
+require following the paper's argument) — which is exactly the move the Autodata paper relies on
+("the agent's initial attempt was usually a high-level summary question… subsequent rounds moved the
+questions toward specific algorithmic steps the paper's actual argument required"). Our challenger,
+on a single section, mostly produces extractable questions. Making it harder is the next experiment.
+
+## Status
+
+Mechanism: proven end-to-end on real frontier models, cost-tracked, fail-loud. Empirical
+discrimination: a clean null on extractive questions. The harness is now trustworthy (no empty-→0
+artifact); the open lever is challenger difficulty.
diff --git a/src/autodata/router-roles.ts b/src/autodata/router-roles.ts
index 6ba7413..39801ef 100644
--- a/src/autodata/router-roles.ts
+++ b/src/autodata/router-roles.ts
@@ -37,10 +37,13 @@ export const DEFAULT_BASE_URL = 'https://router.tangle.tools/v1'
 // GLM family IS served, so the real tier here is the smallest GLM (`glm-4.5-air`) as the weak solver
 // vs the latest (`glm-5.2`) as the strong solver. Same family, a real generational/size gap; swap
 // these constants back to the Qwen ids once the router provisions that upstream.
-export const WEAK_SOLVER_MODEL = 'glm-4.5-air'
-export const STRONG_SOLVER_MODEL = 'glm-5.2'
-export const CHALLENGER_MODEL = 'glm-5.2'
-export const JUDGE_MODEL = 'glm-5.2'
+// The solver tier is the experiment's load-bearing knob — a real strong>weak capability gap is
+// required for any example to clear the discriminative bar. Overridable by env so the tier can be
+// swept without a code change (e.g. AUTODATA_STRONG_MODEL=gemini-2.5-pro AUTODATA_WEAK_MODEL=groq/llama-3.1-8b-instant).
+export const WEAK_SOLVER_MODEL = process.env.AUTODATA_WEAK_MODEL ?? 'glm-4.5-air'
+export const STRONG_SOLVER_MODEL = process.env.AUTODATA_STRONG_MODEL ?? 'glm-5.2'
+export const CHALLENGER_MODEL = process.env.AUTODATA_CHALLENGER_MODEL ?? 'glm-5.2'
+export const JUDGE_MODEL = process.env.AUTODATA_JUDGE_MODEL ?? 'glm-5.2'
 
 interface ModelPrice {
   /** USD per 1M input tokens. */
@@ -58,6 +61,10 @@ interface ModelPrice {
 const PRICE_TABLE: Record<string, ModelPrice> = {
   'glm-4.5-air': { inputPerM: 0.2, outputPerM: 0.6 },
   'glm-5.2': { inputPerM: 0.95, outputPerM: 3.0 },
+  // Wide-tier solver pair (a genuine small-vs-frontier capability gap). Approximate router rates.
+  'groq/llama-3.1-8b-instant': { inputPerM: 0.05, outputPerM: 0.08 },
+  'gemini-2.5-pro': { inputPerM: 1.25, outputPerM: 10.0 },
+  'gemini-2.5-flash': { inputPerM: 0.3, outputPerM: 2.5 },
 }
 
 /** Per-call usage record surfaced to an optional sink for cost-provenance reporting. */
@@ -268,10 +275,22 @@ function solverClient(cfg: RouterRolesConfig, model: string): SandboxClient {
         baseUrl: cfg.baseUrl,
         model,
         messages: [{ role: 'user', content: prompt }],
-        maxTokens: 1024,
+        // Reasoning models (gemini-2.5-pro, glm-5.2, …) spend their budget on hidden reasoning and
+        // emit EMPTY visible content when it is too low — at 1024 a "strong" solver returned nothing
+        // and was scored 0, manufacturing a false negative strong−weak gap. Give every solver room
+        // for reasoning + a full answer.
+        maxTokens: 8000,
         signal: ctx.signal,
         onCall: cfg.onCall,
       })
+      // Fail loud: an empty answer is a measurement failure, not a score of 0. Letting empty → 0
+      // silently corrupts the strong/weak gap (the whole signal), so refuse to score it.
+      if (r.content.trim() === '') {
+        throw new Error(
+          `solver '${model}' returned empty visible content (likely all tokens spent on hidden ` +
+            `reasoning) — raise maxTokens or pick a non-reasoning solver; refusing to score it as 0`,
+        )
+      }
       return [
         {
           type: 'llm_call',