What this is, in plain words

Same feature, three database designs — here's the AI's effort

Shorter bar is better — less work for the AI. Each assistant is compared only to itself.

What that costs at scale

Does it change as the database gets more complex?

Three Postgres normalized depths, same feature. Numbers are extra AI reading vs MongoDB at that depth.

How we kept it honest

Inspect the evidence

Every number comes from a real file you can open, fingerprinted so it can't be quietly changed.