booth/persistent-memory.md

# Persistent memory — booth

_Last updated: 2026-09-22_

> **Always check for `/tmp/booth-dev-handoff.md`** — if it exists and its
> `Written:` stamp is under 8 hours old, read it (it carries the in-flight
> handoff from the previous session), then delete it. Older than 8 hours:
> stale — delete it unread.

## Repo purpose

The Booth is the fleet's **operator-review surface**: agents post work by
making a folder under `~/booth-data`, the operator looks at it and judges it in
the browser, and the judgment gets back to the agent that posted it. It was
built as a file-shuttle and is being converged, unit by unit, onto the review
loop it turned out to actually be.

## Current state / in-flight

_As of 2026-09-22:_

- **v1 is gated on seven units** in `ROADMAP.md`, dependency-ordered
  **U1 → U2 → {U3, U4, U5} → U7**, with **U6 independent**.
- **U1, U2, U3, U4 and U5 are landed — the whole middle tier is closed.** U1
  `ce598b3`; U2 `c7f9437` → `v0.2.0`, `5e41108` → `v0.2.1`, `026a1fc` →
  `v0.2.2`; U5 `c015a91` + `95beede` → `v0.3.0`; U4 `c3a97c1` → `v0.4.0`.
  **U3 landed 2026-09-22 and released as `v0.5.0`** — 444 tests green
  (410 → 444), deployed and verified live, 23/23 booth pages 200, and each of
  the four verbatim booths served at exactly +46 bytes, which is
  `len(EMBED_SCRIPT_TAG)` — one append, nothing else. `87e2c53` is the unit,
  `5c20e2f` the panel fixes, `7996fbd` the release. **PUSHED AND DEPLOYED**
  2026-09-22 on the operator's word — and it was **the first push of this
  repo's history**: `main` was 26 commits ahead of `origin/main`
  (`ce598b3..7996fbd`), so `v0.2.0` through `v0.5.0` all reached
  `git@gitea.phasefinal.com:vh/booth.git` in the same motion. `main` tracks
  `origin/main` clean now; a future session can assume a remote exists, which
  no earlier one could.
- **U4 released as `v0.4.0`** (operator approved the minor on 2026-09-22).
  `c3a97c1` is the unit; the release commit carries the pre-existing fixes the
  bug-hunt panel surfaced in touched files. The tag waited for the last gate to
  close, per the `v0.2.0` lesson — see Tried and abandoned.
- ⚠ **The 17 consuming handles are NOT being told** that `keep` no longer means
  "waiting on an answer" — operator decision, 2026-09-22, no broadcast. This is
  deliberate and it CHANGES HOW THE 2026-10-06 RE-COUNT READS: the hold rides
  for free, but not-pressing-`keep` has to be learned, so a flat `.forever` rate
  does not falsify anything. Read its entry before measuring.
- **TWO UNITS LEFT TO v1, and they do not depend on each other.** U6 (benches,
  independent, closes the 69% link-board rot) and U7 (navigation at 270 items,
  which U3 just unblocked — its only dependency was {U3, U4, U5}). Which goes
  next is the operator's call. ⚠ Before starting U7, read
  `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-21-u7-section-premise-half-wrong.md`: every booth
  that actually needs navigation is FLAT, so half its premise is already known
  to be wrong. **No recommendation is recorded for this one on purpose** — U6
  and U7 are genuinely independent, they close different defects, and the last
  two units before a 1.0 cut are a scope-direction call rather than a
  dependency one.
- **U3's tier was MINOR and the operator approved it** (2026-09-22). The
  argument that settled it, recorded because the tie-break rule says patch: a
  capability arrived AND one left — the verbatim path gained a declared public
  API (`<script src="/_booth/embed.js" defer>`) and lost no-JavaScript
  operation. That asymmetry is what made it not a tie.
- **ALL FOUR U3 GATES ARE CLOSED.** In-session seam review (5 findings, SR-2 a
  real payload-shape bug); `/heid-contract-review`
  (`01M351WKV666D681SSRNY7D7X6`, 12 findings, 10 adopted, 2 already settled by
  the seam review while it was in flight, 1 declined);
  `/heid-code-review` (`01M352RXV1ZET566KV73C7TSB8`, 3 more vacuous falsifiers
  + the prototype-pollution bug); `/heid-bug-hunt`
  (`01M352TPCSN52G6NGJ07T5WSGY`, 5 net-new, incl. the byte-exactness break).
  **Seven of the adopted findings were CODE fixes, not wording** — the cold
  gates were not ceremony on this unit. The **seam review ran in-session and is
  folded in** — five findings as a table at the end of the U3 contract, and SR-2
  was a real payload-shape bug the cold panel structurally could not see. U4's three and U5's three are all closed
  (`01M34VX0SH23Y3VC92E7GM4S70`, `01M34WAFJC3RTERFYBBZJN1SVG`,
  `01M34Y2R0RAJRSN36Q8K4KAB36`; `01M340PNVRS21HPASZT38PXQPN`,
  `01M341E9XAPZEFBSPK9HPGAM0S`, `01M343SXX27Z47C3STXXRC7M42`).
- ⚠ **ONE DEFECT IS OPEN, FOUND BUT DELIBERATELY NOT FIXED, AND IT HAS NO
  TRACKING SURFACE YET.** A `.marks.json` that is well-formed JSON with a
  wrong-shaped `answer` 500s **the gallery page and the marks page** —
  reproduced, and measured at `42ea67f` so it PREDATES U3. U3 guarded its own
  surface (`_safe_fragments`) and left those two alone rather than widening the
  unit; the gallery is named out of scope in the U3 contract. **The operator was
  asked where the guard belongs and has not answered** — `_hydrate` (session
  recommendation: one predicate, one place, every surface inherits it), per
  render site, or the template. No issue filed. Read
  `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-22-a-wrong-shaped-answer-500s-the-gallery.md`
  before touching marks rendering anywhere.
- **Two dated predictions are pending and must not be forgotten.** U5's adoption
  re-measure on **2026-09-29** (two counts, see its entry — already at 3 of 24
  announced and 2 with a `why`, all from peers told nothing), and the `.forever`
  re-count **on or after 2026-10-06**, a fortnight after U4 landed, which is
  U4's success criterion. ⚠ Only 4 booths carry marks at all, so the hold's live
  blast radius is small and the prediction rests on both halves of U4 — see its
  entry for what a null result would and would not mean.
- **FOUR methodology proposals sit with the operator, all UNTRACKED BY OPERATOR
  CHOICE** (no issue, no ticket — they are `/heid*` skill changes, not this
  repo's work, and are recorded here only so they are not lost). Three are from
  the U5 round: reshaping the paraphrase gate toward a drift-check for
  narrative-heavy contracts, a standing "green-tests-prove-nothing" direction
  for the code-review gate, and regin's table-vs-signature consistency pass.
  The fourth is new and is the one with evidence behind it: a **contract-time
  VACUITY PASS** — for each invariant, name a change that defeats it and check
  the test goes red. Regin and Kimi proposed it independently on the U4
  paraphrase round; the code-review panel then showed five of seven U4
  falsifiers were vacuous, and heid rates that the strongest single data point
  for it so far. See `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-22-vacuous-falsifiers.md`.
- The booth set churns hard: 26 → 24 → 25 across the last two sessions as the
  sweeper ran. Re-count rather than trusting any number written here.

## Recent decisions

- `[2026-09-22]` **U3 landed — the page declares the seam, the Booth mounts into it** — ten regexes against author HTML replaced by a substring test and a `+` → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-22-u3-declared-embed-seam-landed.md`
- `[2026-09-22]` **A wrong-shaped answer 500s the gallery and the marks page** — PRE-EXISTING (measured at `42ea67f`), NOT U3; the v0.2.2 lesson is only half-implemented → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-22-a-wrong-shaped-answer-500s-the-gallery.md`
- `[2026-09-22]` **The browser became a test surface** — READ BEFORE TOUCHING `playwright` IN pyproject; the pinned upper bound is the foot-gun, and these tests SKIP rather than fail → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-22-the-browser-became-a-test-surface.md`
- `[2026-09-22]` **A vacuity pass that tries the contract's own mutation agrees with itself** — U3 ran one, reported 7/7, and a cold panel then showed one of the seven was vacuous; READ BEFORE WRITING A *Falsifiable:* LINE → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-22-seven-of-seven-falsifiers.md`
- `[2026-09-22]` **U4 landed — lifetime is derived, not declared** — three states, viewing is activity, and no new arithmetic anywhere → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-22-u4-derived-lifetime-landed.md`
- `[2026-09-22]` **The `.forever` diagnosis got a live positive control** — 3 of the 4 booths awaiting an answer were ALSO hand-pinned — RE-COUNT 2026-10-06 → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-22-forever-had-a-live-positive-control.md`
- `[2026-09-22]` **No fleetwide notice for U4, and what that does to the prediction** — READ BEFORE THE 2026-10-06 RE-COUNT; a flat rate does not falsify the diagnosis → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-22-no-notice-and-what-it-does-to-the-prediction.md`
- `[2026-09-22]` **Four independent paths to one fail-open delete** — the bug-hunt panel's class, and the zsh word-splitting trap that shipped an empty bundle → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-22-four-paths-to-one-fail-open-delete.md`
- `[2026-09-22]` **Two reads of one file are not one read of one state** — a TOCTOU seam that composes two correct readers into a fail-open delete → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-22-two-reads-are-not-one-state.md`
- `[2026-09-22]` **Five of seven INV falsifiers did not falsify anything** — read before writing a *Falsifiable:* line; a green test cited one rather than being one → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-22-vacuous-falsifiers.md`
- `[2026-09-22]` **The third one-branch template miss** — this repo's recurring blind spot; read before adding a fact to any template → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-22-third-one-branch-template-miss.md`
- `[2026-09-22]` **The size cap opened a service-wide hang** — a FIFO has st_size 0; a bound that trusts it inherits what it does not mean → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-22-size-cap-opened-a-hang.md`
- `[2026-09-22]` **An existing test stopped me retiring documented behaviour** — the clean fix for the mtime race would have silently changed TTL doctrine → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-22-doctrine-not-defect.md`
- `[2026-09-22]` **Two U5 panels, and prose reached a released outage** — read the detail before assuming a conformance finding stops at its own module → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-22-u5-panels-reached-a-released-bug.md`
- `[2026-09-22]` **U5's adoption prediction split in two** — the handle rides for free, the why must be learned — RE-MEASURE 2026-09-29 → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-22-u5-adoption-split-in-two.md`
- `[2026-09-22]` **The U2 bug-hunt panel was not ceremony** — the lock-unlink race and the TTL guard that was failing at its own job → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-22-u2-bug-hunt-panel.md`
- `[2026-09-22]` **The lenient reader's blast radius was the whole service** — marks_for runs per booth per index load; a raise there is an outage → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-22-lenient-reader-blast-radius.md`
- `[2026-09-22]` **`booth marks` / `booth answer` got real exit codes** — read it before changing anything the 17 consuming handles call → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-22-cli-exit-codes.md`
- `[2026-09-22]` **`scripts/booth` went from zero tests to five** — they run the real script under system python3, so they also check INV-1 → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-22-scripts-booth-got-tests.md`
- `[2026-09-21]` **v0.2.0 was tagged while a gate was in flight** — the sequencing lesson: if a gate is outstanding, the tag waits → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-21-v020-tagged-with-a-gate-in-flight.md`
- `[2026-09-21]` **A write over a damaged `.marks.json` wiped the booth** — the reads-lenient / writes-strict asymmetry, and why it exists → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-21-marks-write-wiped-judgment.md`
- `[2026-09-21]` **Seam review and cold panel had zero overlap, twice** — evidence for running both; neither substitutes for the other → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-21-two-gates-are-complementary.md`
- `[2026-09-21]` **Every code-changing finding came from the AMBIGUITY pass** — a finding about the /heid-contract-review skill, not about this repo → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-21-ambiguity-pass-did-the-work.md`
- `[2026-09-21]` **Deterministic order is a cross-cutting v1 invariant** — operator directive; read before adding ANY ordered surface → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-21-deterministic-order-invariant.md`
- `[2026-09-21]` **U2 (marks) landed — one primitive for three mechanisms** — what moved where, and the HTTP mirror remote sessions poll → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-21-u2-marks-landed.md`
- `[2026-09-21]` **A partially-answered pick counts as OPEN** — declared, not smuggled; it is the reading that makes U4 correct → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-21-partial-answer-counts-as-open.md`
- `[2026-09-21]` **The U2 seam review earned its place, and how** — inline.place indexes by subscript — the miss a cold panel cannot see → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-21-u2-seam-review-earned-it.md`
- `[2026-09-21]` **Marks are one `.marks.json` per booth** — operator decision with two rejected alternatives; read before restructuring → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-21-marks-storage-decision.md`
- `[2026-09-21]` **U7's section premise is half wrong** — every booth that needs navigation is FLAT — read before starting U7 → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-21-u7-section-premise-half-wrong.md`
- `[2026-09-21]` **`sindra-finalists` is U2's flag motivation, caught live** — evidence, not argument → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-21-sindra-finalists-is-the-motivation.md`
- `[2026-09-21]` **The information architecture and the v1 gate landed** — the single defect the seven units decompose → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-21-ia-and-v1-gate-landed.md`
- `[2026-09-21]` **The `.forever` diagnosis is a falsifiable prediction** — U4's success criterion — re-count a fortnight AFTER U4 lands → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-21-forever-diagnosis-is-a-prediction.md`
- `[2026-09-21]` **Extracted from `eshpfi` into its own repo** — test_booth.py is the regression net the v1 rewrite is checked against → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-21-extracted-from-eshpfi.md`

## Tried and abandoned

- `[2026-09-21]` **Tagging a release while a review gate was in flight** — cost a same-hour v0.2.1 and a correction to 15 handles → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-21-tagging-with-a-gate-in-flight.md`
- `[2026-09-21]` **Letting the write path share the read path's leniency** — a tolerant reader and a tolerant writer are not the same decision → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-21-tolerant-writer-over-tolerant-reader.md`
- `[2026-09-21]` **Letting Jinja hot-reload templates in the deployment root** — caused a live outage: 19 of 25 booths at 500. Why auto_reload=False → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-21-jinja-hot-reload-outage.md`
- `[2026-09-21]` **Five mechanisms to get one question beside one artifact** — the accretion signature this whole v1 rewrite is undoing → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-21-five-mechanisms-one-job.md`
- `[2026-09-21]` **Regex-injecting chrome into arbitrary author HTML** — the defect U3 exists to close → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-21-regex-injecting-chrome.md`
- `[2026-09-21]` **A boolean escape hatch as the lifetime mechanism** — why `.forever` is a symptom; the defect U4 exists to close → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-21-boolean-escape-hatch-as-lifetime.md`
- `[2026-09-21]` **Letting the link board absorb the announce job** — 69% rot; U5 gave the job a home, which is what unblocks U6 → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-21-link-board-absorbing-announce.md`