Host HiCache reservations were paying token-level free-slot scans when trying to preserve page contiguity. The allocator now keeps a lazy page-extent index so availability checks and contiguous-preferred allocations avoid materializing the full 220GB-equivalent free-slot metadata path.
The companion benchmark models steady-state L2 churn near full occupancy, including burn-in and historical node-size effects, so LPF/RDMA descriptor quality can be separated from ETE noise.
Constraint: CP HiCache host allocations are page-shaped, but existing callers may still read free_slots directly.
Rejected: Sort and scan free_slots on each alloc_contiguous_preferred call | measured ms-level CPU overhead on 220GB-equivalent metadata.
Rejected: Remove free_slots compatibility | storage/tests still rely on the public tensor surface.
Confidence: medium
Scope-risk: moderate
Directive: Do not reintroduce per-allocation full free_slots scans on HostKVCache; preserve page-extent metadata or benchmark before changing allocator shape.
Tested: Local py_compile for memory_pool_host.py, allocator benchmark, and related tests.
Tested: Local test_cp_hicache_allocator_bench.py 10 passed.
Tested: Remote g0034 test_hicache_controller_cp.py 67 passed; test_cp_hicache_allocator_bench.py 10 passed.
Tested: Remote 220GB-equivalent host_churn benchmark: contiguous path reduced from ms-level to ~30-292us p50 depending on fragmentation.
Not-tested: Full CUDA ETE run after allocator change.
Not-tested: Production long-run fragmentation behavior under live traffic.
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