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Dev.to
7/17/2026
Model experiments became an architectural stress test

Model experiments became an architectural stress test

Short summary

Swapping from GPT-4o-mini to GPT-5-mini in an LLM-powered Codenames game exposed hidden contract gaps that had been stable for months. Validation failures, retry spikes, and batch rejections traced back to three layers: prompt contracts, deterministic validators, and downstream consumers that all shared the same invariants. The lesson is that model swaps are architectural stress tests, not just quality comparisons — they reveal underspecified contracts the previous model silently satisfied.

  • •Swapping GPT-4o-mini to GPT-5-mini caused validation failures across stable code paths
  • •Failures traced to three layers: prompt contracts, validators, and downstream consumers sharing invariants
  • •Model swaps are architectural stress tests that expose underspecified contracts, not just quality regressions

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.

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