THE WORST DEFECT IN THE AUDIT IS NOT IN A SCANNER. It is one default argument in the CALLER of a
scanner we had already fixed.
# tools/gate_stage.py:315
summary = run_gate(a.drafts, binary=b, src=a.src or f"src/{b}/{b}.c", ...) # ALWAYS the main .c
`src` RESTRICTS the byte-gate to ONE translation unit, and _gate1 does `if src: cmd += ["--src", src]`
-- always truthy. A3 had just taught harvest_verify to DERIVE each draft's home TU *when --src is
omitted*, lifting the byte-gate's reach from 4.9% to 100%. gate_stage NEVER OMITS IT. The fix was
neutralised by its own caller's default, and the PRIMARY BANKING PATH -- every wave, the grinder, the
orchestrator, bulk_harvest -- remained structurally unable to bank 250 of ov_SC01_077's 263 stubs.
WHY IT SURVIVED 26 PHASES: harvest_verify cannot splice a draft whose stub is not in the TU it was
pointed at, so the draft never verifies -- and is then logged as near/failed, i.e. AS A MATCHING
PROBLEM. The wave reports a poor close-rate; the function goes to the backlog as a compiler residual.
A tool that CANNOT bank a function is indistinguishable, in every log this project keeps,
from a function that CANNOT BE banked.
PROOF, same draft / same gate / same second: gate_stage rejected func_80129C40; harvest_verify run
directly (no --src) VERIFIED it byte-identical and banked it.
AND A COUNTING BUG THAT HID THE HIDING (gate_stage:261): when match_one says MATCH but the whole-binary
gate rejects, the record is logged status="near" and THE COUNTER IS NEVER INCREMENTED. A 63-draft run
printed `banked 0, near 0, failed 0` -- three zeros that do not sum to 63 -- for phases. Nobody ever
added them up. (The number was not wrong. It was ABSENT.)
ALSO FIXED, sig_unify (the same disease, one level down): it SILENTLY DROPPED 190 of 196 drafts (97%).
`cur_stubs` was read from the main .c (13 of 263 stubs), so any draft whose stub lives in a _jr_ carve
hit `if fn not in cur_stubs: continue` -- dropped BEFORE THE WRITE: never copied to --out, never gated,
never logged, while the summary printed "drafts unified: 6" and read like success. THIS IS GATE_STAGE'S
STAGE-2 RECOVERY -- the pass whose whole job is to rescue the stage-1 failures -- and it has been a
no-op for nearly every draft it was meant to save. Now: TU derived per draft (corpus.stubs), canon
derived from cdecl.tu_scope (cpp -- macro-injected decls finally visible), and _keep() so an
already-acceptable decl is left alone (the §19 "sig_unify regresses canonical drafts" failure mode).
Reach: 6 -> 196 drafts; callee-externs rewritten 2 -> 90; own def-sig 2 -> 86.
MEASURED, all three consumers migrated (196 never-banked drafts):
near 5 -> 116 failed 190 -> 17
=> 173 of 190 "failures" were PLUMBING, not codegen: now compiling and SCORED instead of invisible.
THE PRIZE (measured, not claimed): the backlog holds 1,588 entries at closeness==0 -- body byte-exact
per match_one, whole-binary gate rejected. 1,215 have been banked since by other paths. 373 ARE STILL
OPEN STUBS WHOSE BODIES ARE ALREADY BYTE-EXACT, sitting in a ledger that calls them unrecoverable.
⚠ THE HARVEST ITSELF IS NOT IN THIS COMMIT, AND IS NOT CLAIMED (P9). Gating the 63 ov_SC01_077 ones
dragged `dedup_propagate --auto-from --recover` behind it; it ran >1h and hit its timeout -- its
first-ever run over the FULL corpus (A6/A7 unblocked the 407 files it could never see). It MUTATES THE
TREE BEFORE IT GATES, so the kill left 859 files + engine_core.h (+544 lines) written and UN-GATED with
the registry never updated. R22 on that tree: 44 passed / 92 FAILED -> `git checkout -- src/ config/`,
fleet restored to 136/136. Nothing lost (H4: the tree was clean, so the revert was one command).
Two real lessons, recorded: dedup_propagate is NOT crash-safe and must never run under a timeout it can
hit; and a 63-draft experiment must not drag an unbounded fleet-wide propagation behind it.
R22 clean-fleet after revert: 136 passed, 0 failed of 136. src/ and config/ clean.
cookbook §51g LAW 11: A FIX IS NOT LANDED UNTIL ITS CALLER STOPS OVERRIDING IT. After fixing a
scanner, grep every call site and ask whether a caller's default re-disables it. An audit that stops
at the callee is half an audit.
- grinder.py: persistent blacklist for permuter-won/gate-rejected (plumbing-bound) fns;
stops the tried.clear()-after-idle churn (was 0 banks in 8h on func_8014F3E8/func_8014FE60)
- sig_unify.py rewrite_def: adopt the canonical param list on arity mismatch (DEF-side
loose-typing wall) — unused extras sit in $a0-$a3, free at -O2; banked func_8016EDEC/EE40
- cookbook §22 (DEF-side recovery + grinder blacklist); CURRENT_PHASE option-C log
- compounds: sig_unify is in the gate pipeline -> every future wave + the grinder auto-recover
- docs/struct-core-pivot.md: findings + decision + new research directions. Root cause = the
original engine is LOOSELY TYPED (K&R; same fn called with int/ptr, arg/no-arg across sites),
so no single canonical signature exists -> m2c guesses inconsistently, permuter can't fix
semantics, byte-gate (correctly) rejects. Yields ~3%, not the crack. New plan: emulator-recover
the actor struct/types -> Ghidra global type propagation -> Ghidra-C -> permuter+gate.
- harness bug-fixes (REAL, kept): p16_permute output-0-only match (killed the false '42%'),
base.c keeps callee externs, winner_to_draft line-strip; sig_unify canonicalizes m2c's
no-extern prototypes; gen_engine_decls.py (documents why a global canonical header breaks
loose-typed matches).
- a few byte-gated leaf matches banked in ov_SC01_077.c.
- tools/sig_unify.py (NEW): unifies a draft's FULL signature set to the banked-canonical
decls — both callee externs AND the draft's OWN definition signature (return + param
types, body param-names preserved). Recovery for the standalone-MATCH residual: a probe
found 30/30 sampled failures were type conflicts, 0 false-positives. Gated 191 -> 32 verified.
- tools/dedup_propagate.py find_site FIX: the inline-def detector required the opening brace
ON THE SAME LINE as the signature, silently dropping every next-line-brace def from
propagation (sig_unify/permuter outputs + ~stragglers all session). Now accepts brace on
the same OR next line -> unlocked a 61-function propagation backlog.
- propagated 61 fns fleet-wide (incl. 32 sig-unify + the permuter win func_801508F8 +
earlier-dropped next-line-brace matches), all 134 byte-identical; dedup-check 1394/0
- R22 CLEAN fleet rebuild: 136/136 byte-identical. REAL 177501 -> 185646. Zero agent tokens.
Drew T