refactor: persist EWMA only on LLM failure, dedup EWMA helper

Audit items #7 and #5.

#7 — BrentPricePredictor::generatePrediction previously wrote both an
EWMA row and an LLM row to price_predictions on every run. The
downstream OilSignal already prefers llm_with_context > llm > ewma, so
the EWMA row was dead weight 95% of the time. Now we try LLM first; if
it returns null (no API key, parse failure, etc.) we compute and persist
EWMA as a real fallback. This also avoids redundant work on the success
path.

Updated the "stores both" test to "stores only LLM" — asserts no EWMA
row is written when the provider succeeds.

#5 — BrentPricePredictor and AnthropicPredictionProvider both had
byte-identical computeEwma() methods with identical EWMA_ALPHA = 0.3
constants. Extracted to App\Services\Ewma::compute() and dropped both
private methods + their alpha constants.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

app/Services/BrentPricePredictor.php

@@ -12,8 +12,6 @@ use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Log;
 
 final class BrentPricePredictor
 {
-    private const float EWMA_ALPHA = 0.3;
-
     private const float EWMA_THRESHOLD_PCT = 1.5;
 
     private const int EWMA_MAX_CONFIDENCE = 65;
@@ -33,8 +31,10 @@ final class BrentPricePredictor
     }
 
     /**
-     * Generate EWMA + LLM predictions, store them, and flag the latest
+     * Try LLM first; persist EWMA only as a fallback when the LLM provider
-     * brent_prices row as having a prediction generated.
+     * returns null. The downstream OilSignal already prefers LLM
+     * (llm_with_context > llm > ewma), so writing both rows on every run is
+     * dead weight 95% of the time. EWMA still acts as the safety net.
      */
     public function generatePrediction(): ?PricePrediction
     {
@@ -48,25 +48,23 @@ final class BrentPricePredictor
             return null;
         }
 
-        $ewma = $this->generateEwmaPrediction($prices);
-
-        if ($ewma !== null) {
-            PricePrediction::create($ewma->toArray());
-        }
-
         $llm = $this->provider->predict($prices);
 
         if ($llm !== null) {
             PricePrediction::create($llm->toArray());
+            $prices->first()->forceFill(['prediction_generated_at' => now()])->save();
+
+            return $llm;
         }
 
-        $result = $llm ?? $ewma;
+        $ewma = $this->generateEwmaPrediction($prices);
 
-        if ($result !== null) {
+        if ($ewma !== null) {
+            PricePrediction::create($ewma->toArray());
             $prices->first()->forceFill(['prediction_generated_at' => now()])->save();
         }
 
-        return $result;
+        return $ewma;
     }
 
     public function generateEwmaPrediction(Collection $prices): ?PricePrediction
@@ -77,8 +75,8 @@ final class BrentPricePredictor
             return null;
         }
 
-        $ewma3 = $this->computeEwma(array_slice($chronological, -3));
+        $ewma3 = Ewma::compute(array_slice($chronological, -3));
-        $ewma7 = $this->computeEwma(array_slice($chronological, -7));
+        $ewma7 = Ewma::compute(array_slice($chronological, -7));
 
         $changePct = (($ewma3 - $ewma7) / $ewma7) * 100;
 
@@ -112,20 +110,6 @@ final class BrentPricePredictor
         ]);
     }
 
-    /**
-     * @param  float[]  $prices  Chronological (oldest first).
-     */
-    private function computeEwma(array $prices): float
-    {
-        $ema = $prices[0];
-
-        foreach (array_slice($prices, 1) as $price) {
-            $ema = self::EWMA_ALPHA * $price + (1 - self::EWMA_ALPHA) * $ema;
-        }
-
-        return round($ema, 4);
-    }
-
     private function ewmaConfidence(float $changePct): int
     {
         $scaled = min($changePct / 5.0, 1.0) * self::EWMA_MAX_CONFIDENCE;

app/Services/Ewma.php

@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+<?php
+
+namespace App\Services;
+
+/**
+ * Exponentially-weighted moving average. Pure function — used by
+ * BrentPricePredictor for the EWMA fallback prediction and by
+ * AnthropicPredictionProvider to enrich the basic-flow prompt.
+ */
+final class Ewma
+{
+    public const float DEFAULT_ALPHA = 0.3;
+
+    /** @param  float[]  $prices  Chronological order (oldest first). */
+    public static function compute(array $prices, float $alpha = self::DEFAULT_ALPHA): float
+    {
+        $ema = $prices[0];
+
+        foreach (array_slice($prices, 1) as $price) {
+            $ema = $alpha * $price + (1 - $alpha) * $ema;
+        }
+
+        return round($ema, 4);
+    }
+}

app/Services/LlmPrediction/AnthropicPredictionProvider.php

@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ namespace App\Services\LlmPrediction;
 
 use App\Enums\PredictionSource;
 use App\Models\PricePrediction;
+use App\Services\Ewma;
 use Illuminate\Support\Collection;
 use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Http;
 use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Log;
@@ -11,8 +12,6 @@ use Throwable;
 
 class AnthropicPredictionProvider extends AbstractLlmPredictionProvider
 {
-    private const float EWMA_ALPHA = 0.3;
-
     /**
      * Tries web-search-enriched prediction first, falls back to basic tool use.
      * Overrides the parent flow because Anthropic uses two phases (web search
@@ -112,9 +111,9 @@ class AnthropicPredictionProvider extends AbstractLlmPredictionProvider
     private function predictBasic(Collection $prices): ?PricePrediction
     {
         $chronological = $prices->sortBy('date');
-        $ewma3 = $this->computeEwma($chronological->take(-3)->pluck('price_usd')->values()->all());
+        $ewma3 = Ewma::compute($chronological->take(-3)->pluck('price_usd')->values()->all());
-        $ewma7 = $this->computeEwma($chronological->take(-7)->pluck('price_usd')->values()->all());
+        $ewma7 = Ewma::compute($chronological->take(-7)->pluck('price_usd')->values()->all());
-        $ewma14 = $this->computeEwma($chronological->pluck('price_usd')->values()->all());
+        $ewma14 = Ewma::compute($chronological->pluck('price_usd')->values()->all());
 
         $url = 'https://api.anthropic.com/v1/messages';
 
@@ -229,16 +228,4 @@ class AnthropicPredictionProvider extends AbstractLlmPredictionProvider
 
         return $block['input'] ?? null;
     }
-
-    /** @param  float[]  $prices  Chronological order (oldest first) */
-    private function computeEwma(array $prices): float
-    {
-        $ema = $prices[0];
-
-        foreach (array_slice($prices, 1) as $price) {
-            $ema = self::EWMA_ALPHA * $price + (1 - self::EWMA_ALPHA) * $ema;
-        }
-
-        return round($ema, 4);
-    }
 }

tests/Unit/Services/BrentPricePredictorTest.php

@@ -61,7 +61,7 @@ it('returns null when fewer than 14 prices are available for EWMA', function ():
     expect($this->predictor->generateEwmaPrediction($prices))->toBeNull();
 });
 
-it('stores both EWMA and LLM predictions when provider succeeds', function (): void {
+it('stores only the LLM prediction when the provider succeeds', function (): void {
     seedPrices(20);
 
     $this->provider->shouldReceive('predict')->once()->andReturn(new PricePrediction([
@@ -76,7 +76,8 @@ it('stores both EWMA and LLM predictions when provider succeeds', function (): v
     $prediction = $this->predictor->generatePrediction();
 
     expect($prediction->source)->toBe(PredictionSource::LlmWithContext)
-        ->and(PricePrediction::count())->toBe(2);
+        ->and(PricePrediction::count())->toBe(1)
+        ->and(PricePrediction::where('source', PredictionSource::Ewma)->count())->toBe(0);
 });
 
 it('falls back to EWMA when provider returns null', function (): void {