250 lines
16 KiB
Markdown
250 lines
16 KiB
Markdown
# ⭐⭐ The fleet's characteristic failure: a confident answer from a broken instrument
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Named by svos-dev 2026-09-15 after three instances turned up between two agents in one
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night. Collecting them here because the *class* is more useful than any instance, and
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because every one of them **passed a check**.
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## The shape
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> **A check that reads the INPUT to a transformation, reported as if it read the OUTPUT.**
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>
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> Or, more generally: the instrument answers instead of the system, and its answer is
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> shaped exactly like a real one — no error, no timeout, usually exit 0.
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What makes this class expensive is not that things break. It is that **the broken state
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is indistinguishable from a legitimate one**, so it survives review, passes CI, and is
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found later by accident.
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## The instances, 2026-09-15 alone
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| # | instrument said | reality | why it passed |
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|---|---|---|---|
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| 1 | `provider=cuda` in the log | ORT had silently fallen back to **CPU** | the line echoes the *configured* env var, never the running EP |
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| 2 | `node --check` green, `import app` green | the served page's **entire inline script was dead** | a JS `'didn\'t'` inside a Python string arrives as `'didn't'`; the FILE still holds the backslash |
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| 3 | `secret get` → `""`, **exit 0** | a failed vault read | callers read an empty *optional* secret as "not configured" |
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| 4 | `find()` → **"not found: <name>"** | a failed listing (`json.loads(stdout or "[]")`) | an empty stdout became a confident, authoritative negative |
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| 5 | `/v1/toolsets` → **0 toolsets** | my credential lookup returned empty → 401 | an auth failure renders identically to an empty roster |
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| 6 | `hermes plugins compat <typo'd path>` → **✓ exit 0** | nothing was scanned | "no hits" and "no files" are the same result |
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| 7 | `hermes plugins doctor` → **exit 0** | it had printed `ERROR` | needs `--ci` to exit non-zero |
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| 8 | `ss -ltnp \| grep python` → nothing | the listener was there, named **`hermes`** | the filter narrowed the window without announcing it |
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| 9 | SIGTERM → **port free** | process alive another **35 s** | a script waiting on the port starts a second copy |
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Prior art already in memory, same class: `pct snapshot` exiting 0 while refusing;
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"an unreachable post office is an OUTAGE, never an empty inbox"; `docker logs --since`
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returning 0 for a line that exists.
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## The tell
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⚠ **Whenever "broken" and "legitimately empty / absent / off" produce the same output,
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you have one of these** — and the cheap check will not tell them apart, by construction.
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## What actually works
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1. **Measure the OUTPUT, not the input.** Not `provider=cuda` in a log — a process
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holding memory on the pinned card. Not `node --check` on the file — parse the page
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**as served**.
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2. **Positive control, every time.** Run something the method *must* detect. #6 was
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caught by scanning a plugin with a known-deprecated import; the clean result only
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became meaningful once the instrument had proven it could fail.
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3. **Negative control too** — ⚠ but check the negative is a *true* negative. Two
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"failures" in the secrets-broker test were **names I had invented**; without checking,
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I would have read two true negatives as a partial fix and kept digging at a bug that
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was already gone.
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4. **Refuse to emit the ambiguous value.** The real fix for #3 and #4 was not the lock —
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it was making an empty result a loud non-zero instead of a plausible answer.
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5. ⭐ **Don't declare victory on a plausible fix.** A lock is such an obvious answer to a
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race that "I added a lock" reads as done. The first lock was in the wrong place and
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still failed; the root cause (concurrent `bw unlock` at *session establishment*) only
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surfaced because the plausible fix was tested and did not work.
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## ⚠ And the instrument itself can be stale
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`~/.local/bin/secret` was a **plain copy** of the repo file, in sync by luck. Every repo
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edit silently left the live tool behind, so the first "fixed" test ran the OLD code.
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Caught it; the next person could read stale output as proof a correct fix failed and
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revert it. Now a symlink. **Check what you are running, not what you edited.**
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## ⚠ The sibling failure: a claim nobody ever measured
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The nine above are broken instruments. This one is *no instrument at all*, and it cost
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more than any of them on 2026-09-15.
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**The talk-deploy "permission problem" never existed.** tts-dev's `docs/infrastructure.md`
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and a stale `persistent-memory.md` row said `/opt/docker/compose` on nh3-dev was not
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project-writable. It is `root:docker 2775`, agent sessions run as `lkraven`, and
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`lkraven` is in the `docker` group — a `mkdir` proves it in one second. **Nobody ran one
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for nine days.** There is no `tts-dev` OS account either, so "add tts-dev to the docker
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group" had no referent at all.
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How it held together:
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1. A **stale memory row** (`root:root`) supplied a plausible mechanism.
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2. The operator's **routing instruction** ("give it to infra") was read as
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*corroboration of a capability limit*. ⭐ **Those are different claims and only one
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was ever stated** — a routing preference explains where work went, never whether it
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could have gone elsewhere.
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3. ⚠ A **contradicting `ls -la` was on screen in the same session** and was noted, then
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dropped.
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4. **I repeated it to the operator as fact** in a deploy report ("the durable fix is a
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group rather than a relay"), which put a second agent's name behind it.
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⚠⚠ **And then I did it again, one layer up.** Told to fix the harness issue, I found no
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OS problem and no deny rule, inferred the **auto-mode classifier** must be refusing it
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(the shape fit — I had been refused twice that night on the same box), and **committed a
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`.claude/settings.json` to someone else's repo on that inference.** tts-dev's `mkdir`
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then showed their session writes the path with no refusal at all. Reverted. I had spent
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the night writing up this exact failure class and still built a fix for a layer nobody
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had shown me failing.
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⚠ The commit that carried it also **overclaimed a doc correction that never happened**:
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I chained the edit and the commit in one invocation, the edit's anchor assertion failed
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because the target text was already gone, and the commit ran anyway. **Never chain an
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edit and its commit in one invocation** — a failed edit still produces a commit message
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asserting it.
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⭐ **The rule: "I can't do X" from any source — a doc, a peer, a memory row — is a
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hypothesis until someone runs the command and pastes the error.** Ask for the error text
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before designing around it. "There is no error text, because there was no error" is a
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possible answer, and it was the right one here.
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⭐ **Distinguish the layer before fixing it.** A shell `Permission denied` is a Unix
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problem; a refusal naming permission rules or auto-mode is a harness one. Different
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fixes, and neither applies when nothing failed.
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## ⚠ CHARACTERIZED DEFECT: `/snapshot`'s handoff generator turns deferred items into orders
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**n=2, same session, reproducible.** `snapshot_handoff.py` (gen-small) reliably converts
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"open, operator-deferred, not blocking" into an imperative **Next steps** list, and twice
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invited the next session to commit files explicitly marked as predating the session.
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run 1: "Execute deferred operator tasks: AI-tab Dormant regrouping, nconnect=8,
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fused MoE (park id 47)" + "Commit graphify-out/… if they are ready"
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run 2: six next-steps, FIVE of them deferred/parked items presented as actions,
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+ the same commit invitation
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⚠ **It fails silently in the skill's blind spot.** The documented failure posture is
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fail-loud-fall-back — unreachable gateway, timeout, truncation, missing section → write
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nothing, exit non-zero. **A structurally valid handoff whose content inverts the
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operator's intent passes every one of those checks** and exits 0.
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⚠ **And this is the one artifact a fresh context inherits as instruction.** It is read
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immediately after `/clear`, before any other framing, and its Next steps read as a
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mandate. A wrong one here is not a bad summary; it is a fresh session going and doing
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belayed work.
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### Mechanism — it is `SYSTEM_PROMPT`, not the model
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`snapshot_handoff.py:75-107`. Three things compose:
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1. **`## Next steps` has no empty case.** `## Watch out for` gets an explicit escape
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("OMIT THIS WHOLE SECTION if the input carries no gotchas"); `## Resume here` gets one
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("If the input says nothing is in flight, say so plainly"). **`## Next steps` gets
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neither**, while being told it is "A numbered list. Ordered, concrete". With nothing
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in flight, the only action-shaped nouns left are the deferred items.
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2. **The nothing-in-flight rule points straight at them** — "point at the most recent
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open pointer it names" directs attention to the parked entries, which then get
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promoted into Next steps.
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3. **Nothing protects MODALITY.** "Invent nothing; every claim must trace to the input"
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is satisfied — the items *are* in the input. Their *deferred-ness* is what got
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dropped, and only identifiers are protected against restructuring.
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⭐ **The general lesson: the verbatim-identifier rule shows some input attributes must
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survive restructuring untouched. Modality is one of them and nobody guarded it.**
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**Mitigation until fixed: read the generated handoff before accepting it**, and invert
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any deferred item into an explicit *do NOT*. Both runs this session were corrected
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in-session. **Reported to `galdrabok-dev` 2026-09-15** with both specimens, the mechanism
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above and two proposed prompt changes (an empty-case escape for `## Next steps`; a rule
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making deferred/parked/belayed items constraints rather than steps).
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⚠ `galdrabok-dev` is `mode: pull` — no herald poke, so they see it on their next check.
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✅ **FIXED 2026-09-15 10:24 PT — `galdrabok b0882a4`, "protect item modality in the handoff
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generator".** Both proposed changes shipped near-verbatim and are live here already (my
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`~/.claude/skills/snapshot` is a **symlink** into `~/development/galdrabok/skills/snapshot`,
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so it needs no push). galdrabok reproduced the defect mechanically at **10/10 baseline runs,
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9 of 9 deferred tokens every run, zero within-condition variance** — and their 4-variant
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ablation shows **both** changes are load-bearing for *different* surfaces: the empty case
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stops the promotion, the modality rule keeps the deferred items *present* as constraints
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(the cheaper fix alone produced a clean handoff that had silently **dropped all four
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deferred items**). ⚠ **`modality rule only` still leaked 5/5 via the commit invitation** —
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a commit invitation is not a deferred *item*, so an item-modality rule never reaches it.
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Their positive control (a fixture with genuinely pending work) held 5/5 real next-steps
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under every variant, so the fix is not over-suppression. `Exit 0 is not acceptance` is now
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permanent spec text (§4.12), not an interim note.
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⭐ **My two real runs are the field corroboration, and they are why the artifact looked
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clean:** `b0882a4` is stamped 10:24:35 and this repo's handoff was written 10:07:50 — 17
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minutes earlier, by the UNFIXED generator, on the adversarial input (nothing in flight,
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four deferred items, two do-not-commit files). It read correctly only because it was
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corrected in-session, per the mitigation above. **2 of 2 real runs inverted.** The next
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`/snapshot` taken here is the first real post-fix run; report the handoff verbatim, leak
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or clean — one run, a datapoint against their n=5 fixtures, not a replacement for them.
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⭐⭐ **SHARPENED 2026-09-15 (`galdrabok 206f6ad`, on origin) — the two leak surfaces have
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DIFFERENT trigger conditions, and the dangerous one fires on ORDINARY input.** galdrabok
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re-split the ablation by surface after I pointed out that a commit invitation is not a
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deferred *item*, so an item-modality rule structurally cannot reach it:
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| variant / fixture | deferred-ITEM leak | commit-invitation leak |
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| baseline, all-deferred | 5/5 | 5/5 |
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| modality rule only, all-deferred | **1/5** | **5/5** |
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| empty case only / both, all-deferred | 0/5 | 0/5 |
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| baseline, **mixed** (real work present) | **0/5** | **2/5** |
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**Surface 1 (deferred items) needs the adversarial all-deferred shape to fire. Surface 2
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(the commit invitation) fires on ordinary input** — on the mixed fixture it is the ONLY
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leak. ⚠ **It is also the one a fresh session is least likely to question: committing
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pending work reads as diligence.** Shipped as a **non-removal constraint** (SKILL.md
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§Generation + contract §4.12): "A generator carrying just one of the two rules leaks on
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the other surface. Neither may be removed as the other's duplicate" — so a future
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tidy-up that reads them as one idea gets stopped.
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📌 **OWED BY ME, logged on both sides:** the next `/snapshot` run in this repo is the
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first real post-fix run. Report to galdrabok **verbatim**, no in-session correction —
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and they want the **`## Watch out for` section quoted in full**, not just a leak/clean
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verdict: whether the four real deferred items arrive *do-not-phrased* is a **soft failure
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nothing checks**, held 3/5 (all-deferred) and 5/5 (mixed) on fixtures, and real prose
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around each item is where they expect the phrasing to degrade first.
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⚠ **Do NOT run `/snapshot` to satisfy this** — it is operator-invoked by standing rule;
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the datapoint arrives when he next calls it, not on a peer's schedule.
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⚠⚠ **RE-SCOPED 2026-09-15 (`galdrabok 1273a49`) — the owed run is a TRIPWIRE, not a
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validation, because this repo is now the MIXED shape and mixed has almost no confirming
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power.** Once BabyYarros became live in-flight work here, my next snapshot stopped being
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their `all-deferred` fixture. Against their baseline table that costs the datapoint most
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of its value, and they said so rather than waiting for the artifact:
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- **Surface 1 (deferred items) cannot discriminate on mixed input at all** — the UNFIXED
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generator already scored 0/5 there. A clean `## Next steps` is exactly what broken
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produces on this shape. Reading it as evidence would be reading noise.
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- **Surface 2 (commit invitation) can only falsify** — baseline mixed leak is 2/5, a 40%
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event rate, so **one clean run is ~60% likely even if the fix did nothing**. One leaked
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run refutes the shipped 0/5 outright.
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⛔ **If it comes back clean that is NOT validation, and it must not be written down as
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one.** It is a tripwire that did not trip. This sentence exists because it is precisely
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the one a later session quietly upgrades into "confirmed in the field".
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📌 **What still carries information: the verbatim `## Watch out for`.** Mixed is the
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*better* fixture for it (do-not phrasing held 5/5 there vs 3/5 on all-deferred), and it is
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the failure **nothing validates** — a leak gets caught by the step-7 read, but a deferred
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item arriving as a flat description instead of a do-not passes every check and merely
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reads as less binding. **Their predictions, on record for predict-then-check:** `## Next
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steps` clean of all six identifiers; all four items present under `## Watch out for`; both
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dirty files present and do-not-phrased. ⭐ **Least confident: `nconnect=8` — "declined in
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scope" is a modality their rule does not enumerate** (it lists deferred / parked / belayed
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/ blocked / deliberately-not-done). If one item comes through flat, that is the predicted
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one, and it would mean the rule matches VOCABULARY rather than the concept — a fixable
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miss. Thread closed from their side; no reply owed until the artifact lands.
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⭐ Same family as everything above — the instrument produced a plausible artifact and
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the plausibility is exactly what makes it dangerous.
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## Related
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`2026-09-15-talk-v10-deploy.md` (#2, and the gate built for it),
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`2026-09-15-parakeet-stt-fv-ml1.md` (#1),
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`2026-09-15-svos-miranda-plugin-validation.md` (#6, #7, #8),
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`2026-09-15-irv-ml1-address-sweep-done.md` (the ana-docker/litellm neighbour trap).
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