D110 — Advised attempts as extra portfolio variants

Decision

Advised attempts are extra portfolio variants: the next variants (default 4) entries of the portfolio's list, the ones a plain run with that many more variants would add, carrying the hints and appended after the variants that run anyway with indices 1000 and up (a first version advised copies of variants 0, 2, 4, 6: with a hint that does nothing they repeat work already done, and a plain run with four more variants beat them by 11 connections on the held-out half, doc 17 §8). The winner is the portfolio's total order, so a tie goes to the unadvised variant; in --advisor mode the plain result is kept unless the advised run is strictly better (route_result_better). Each routing run gets the full --work / --time; the advisor's wall time is not routing work

Alternatives

Applying the advice to every variant; replacing the plain run by the advised one; counting the advisor's time against the budget

Reason

Advice can then only win by routing more (rule 4), and the unadvised variants are untouched (tested), so adding advice cannot cost connections. Against a plain run with the same number of variants the only difference is the hints, which is the comparison that matters. The price is about twice the work in --advisor mode (doc 17 §4, §5)