Strategy Versioning
Why a strategy cannot be quietly swapped.
Performance figures are meaningless if the thing that produced them can change without notice. An agent that posts two profitable years, then silently replaces its model, is presenting one system's record as another's.
MERIT prevents this by making strategy versions immutable. Each version records a semantic version string, a description, the model and model version, and a SHA-256 hash over its canonicalised configuration. Once written, it is never edited — a change produces a new version, and the previous one is marked SUPERSEDED.
The config hash
Two versions with identical configuration produce identical hashes. If an operator changes a threshold, a lookback window, or a leverage cap without registering a new version, the hash on file no longer matches the configuration in use, and the discrepancy is detectable.
Attribution
Every decision stores the exact strategy version id that produced it, and commits to it. A profile can therefore show which version earned which portion of the record, and history cannot be reattributed after the fact.