# Scoring Engine (AlertScoringService)

## Purpose

Produces a "fill up now or wait?" recommendation per user based on their local
station history. Output is one of: `fill_up`, `wait`, `no_signal`.
Never guess — stay silent (no_signal) when signals conflict or data is insufficient.

## The 5 signals (in priority order)

### Signal 1 — Local price trend (40 pts max)
- Nearest 5 stations within 5km; user's preferred fuel type
- Least-squares regression on `(recorded_at, price_pence)`; adaptive lookback: 5 days first, fall back to 14 if R² < 0.5
- Slope ≤ -0.3p/day AND R² ≥ 0.5 → wait; slope ≥ +0.3p/day AND R² ≥ 0.5 → fill_up; otherwise no signal
- Store: slope, R², lookback_days, data_points

### Signal 2 — Supermarket anchor effect (35 pts max)
- Nearest supermarket (is_supermarket = 1) within 10km
- Supermarket cut > 1p in last 48h AND independents haven't followed → wait
- Inverse (supermarket raised, independents haven't) → mild fill_up

### Signal 3 — Day-of-week pattern (15 pts max)
- Requires 56+ days of station history; average price by day-of-week over last 90 days
- Today 1.5p+ below weekly average → mild fill_up; 1.5p+ above → mild wait

### Signal 4 — Brent crude direction (10 pts max)
- Read from `price_predictions` table only (never query `brent_prices` in scoring)
- LLM (`source='llm'`) preferred; EWMA fallback. Points = `(confidence / 100) * 10`
- `rising` → fill_up; `falling` → wait; `flat` → no signal

### Signal 5 — Price stickiness (confidence modifier, ±5 pts)
- Requires 30+ days history. Applied after all signals are summed.
- avg hold < 2 days → -5 pts; 2–4 days → 0; > 5 days → +5 pts
- Store: avg_hold_days, data_points

## Confidence thresholds

- Score 70–100: strong signal → fire recommendation + notification
- Score 40–69: weak signal → show in dashboard only, no push/SMS/WhatsApp
- Score 0–39: no_signal → stay silent entirely

**Only send notifications when confidence ≥ 70.** Never spam.

## Output (stored in scoring_results)

```php
[
    'recommendation'  => 'wait',
    'confidence'      => 78,
    'signals'         => [
        'trend'       => [
            'direction'     => 'falling',
            'slope'         => -1.07,     // pence per day
            'r_squared'     => 0.96,
            'lookback_days' => 5,
            'data_points'   => 5,
            'points'        => 32,
        ],
        'supermarket' => ['triggered' => true, 'points' => 35],
        'day_pattern' => ['triggered' => false, 'points' => 0],
        'brent'       => ['direction' => 'flat', 'points' => 0],
        'stickiness'  => ['avg_hold_days' => 2.8, 'modifier' => 0],
    ],
    'local_avg_pence' => 14380,           // 143.80p
    'trend_delta'     => -2.3,            // pence change over lookback period
]
```

## Human-readable reason strings

Always generate a plain-English reason for the recommendation:
- "Prices near you have been falling at 1.1p/day for 5 days. Tesco {station} cut 3p yesterday — independents usually follow within 48 hours."
- "Prices are rising sharply in your area (+7.5p expected this week) — filling up today avoids paying more later."
- "No clear pattern this week — fill up at the cheapest station near you now."

Reason strings are stored in `scoring_results.signals` JSON and shown in the UI and notifications.

## Data quality — anomaly rejection

Reject before storing or scoring: `price_pence > 25000` or `< 10000`, or single-update change > 20p (flag for review).
Log to `anomalous_prices` table. Never let dirty data skew regression slope or collapse R².

## Accuracy self-tracking

After 3 days, check if `wait` was correct (prices fell further). Store outcome in `scoring_results` for display.