vh/booth

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vh c75d7a2797 fix: four defects the U4 bug-hunt panel found in code it did not add

All four pre-date U4 and sit in files it touched, which is why a diff-scoped
robustness lens saw them. They are separated from the unit's own commit so the
feature history stays readable; the release tags both.

* A booth name reached a JS string context. The confirm dialogs interpolated
  the name into a string literal inside `onsubmit`. Jinja's autoescape is
  HTML-attribute escaping, not JS-string escaping: the browser decodes the
  entity back to a quote before the JS parser sees it, so a name crafted to
  close the string executed on submit. Booth names are agent-authored — making
  a folder under the data dir is the whole API — so this was a live path, not a
  theoretical one. The name now travels as a data attribute to a delegated
  handler, where escaping is escaping.

* An unreadable `links.md` returned 500 for the whole booth page. `is_file()`
  then an unguarded `read_text()`. The board is one tile on that page, and a
  page that will not load is worse than one missing a tile — the posture
  `read_blurred`, `marks_for` and `read_manifest` already take.

* The index order had no tie-breaker, which violates the deterministic-order
  invariant. Equal-mtime booths fell back to whatever `iterdir()` yielded, and
  two booths landed by one `rsync` batch share an mtime exactly. Now
  `(mtime, name)` reverse: newest first, then name. The operator refers to
  cards positionally, so a sequence that moves between renders misfiles his
  judgment rather than crashing.

* `/b/<n>/marks.json` reported damage as empty success. `booth marks` exits 3
  on an unreadable file precisely so a caller can tell "not yet" from "broken";
  the HTTP mirror — the only reader a remote session has — returned the same
  empty list for both. It now carries `error` and `detail`. The status stays
  200 deliberately: reads are lenient here, and a pinned status code is a
  promise to remote clients this fix has no business breaking.

Each has a regression test. 410 tests.

2026-09-22 09:51:14 -07:00

11 KiB

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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, U4 and U5 are landed. U1 ce598b3; U2 c7f9437 → v0.2.0, 5e41108 → v0.2.1, 026a1fc → v0.2.2; U5 c015a91 + 95beede → v0.3.0. U4 landed 2026-09-22 — 396 tests green (341 → 396), deployed and verified live, 24/24 booth pages 200, layout probe clean.
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 have NOT been told that keep no longer means "waiting on an answer". That is the one coordination this release genuinely warrants, and a fleetwide post needs operator approval before it is sent.
THE NEXT UNIT IS THE OPERATOR'S CALL. U3 (declared embed seam) and U6 (benches) are both unblocked; U7 waits on the rest. U6 is independent of everything and was conceptually unblocked by U5 giving job 5 a home; U3 is where verbatim-booth provenance was deferred to, and U4 added a fourth reason to want it — a verbatim booth has no Booth-rendered header, so its lifetime line lives only on the index card and the marks page.
No gate is outstanding. All three ran on U4 and were folded in: the /heid-contract-review panel (01M34VX0SH23Y3VC92E7GM4S70), the /heid-code-review panel (01M34WAFJC3RTERFYBBZJN1SVG) and the /heid-bug-hunt (01M34Y2R0RAJRSN36Q8K4KAB36). All loops closed with heid. The U5 round's three are also closed (01M340PNVRS21HPASZT38PXQPN, 01M341E9XAPZEFBSPK9HPGAM0S, 01M343SXX27Z47C3STXXRC7M42).
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.
Three methodology proposals from this session sit with the operator, routed by heid rather than decided unilaterally: 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. They are changes to the /heid* skills, not to this repo.
The booth set churns hard: 26 → 24 during this session as the sweeper ran. Re-count rather than trusting any number written here.

Recent decisions

[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] 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