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    "story_id": "mp-2026-08-22-026",
    "source_story_id": "tmp-story-llm-agent-scheduling-headroom",
    "edition_id": "mp-2026-08-22-morning-0044",
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    "position": 15,
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    "section": "infrastructure",
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    "headline": "The LLM Scheduler Earned Its Cost Only During the Surge",
    "slug": "the-llm-scheduler-earned-its-cost-only-during-the-surge",
    "dek": "A strong fixed heuristic left no useful headroom for agents until safety-critical demand changed mid-run.",
    "summary": "A strong fixed heuristic left no useful headroom for agents until safety-critical demand changed mid-run.",
    "body_text": "A deadline-first contract-net heuristic completed 90.2 percent of time-critical tasks across 60 simulated instances, beating 15 baselines and reaching 0.87 of an optimization upper bound. Under stationary load, the auction, per-window language-model policy and adaptation added nothing. During a mid-run safety-critical surge, the agent control plane improved over both the fixed heuristic and a bandit. The evidence is released simulation, not an autonomous-vehicle deployment.",
    "why_it_matters": "A strong fixed heuristic left no useful headroom for agents until safety-critical demand changed mid-run.",
    "limitations": [
      "The evidence is released simulation, not an autonomous-vehicle deployment."
    ],
    "importance": 9,
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    "first_published_at": "2026-08-22T09:00:00.000-04:00",
    "modified_at": "2026-08-22T09:00:00.000-04:00",
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        "text": "A strong fixed heuristic left no useful headroom for agents until safety-critical demand changed mid-run.",
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        "qualification": "The evidence is released simulation, not an autonomous-vehicle deployment."
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    "source_ids": [
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    "tags": [
      "edge computing",
      "scheduling",
      "AI agents",
      "autonomous vehicles"
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    "image_url": null,
    "corrections": []
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  "sources": [
    {
      "source_id": "source-2026-08-22-015",
      "title": "arXiv preprint 2608.19557",
      "publisher": "arXiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.19557",
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      "published_at": "2026-08-19T20:00:00.000-04:00",
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  "publisher": {
    "name": "The Machine Press",
    "url": "https://themachinepress.com",
    "description": "A daily newspaper for the age of artificial intelligence."
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  "cite_this_report": {
    "title": "The LLM Scheduler Earned Its Cost Only During the Surge",
    "publisher": "The Machine Press",
    "published_at": "2026-08-22T09:00:00.000-04:00",
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