Wave Q (90 cards / 6,249 ins) was stopped mid-flight, then a repair-only pass recovered 12 of its
39 unfinished drafts (+579 ins, 51 -> 64 verified MATCH). Banking took two new tools, because the
gate failed three times on causes no C-level check can see.
tools/fragment_check.py (NEW) — the enclosing-function trap, both halves, in milliseconds:
* a draft whose [addr, addr+4*nins) SUBSUMES another symbol. splat labels addresses that are not
functions (a bare epilogue tail, a jump-only branch target, an interior label); convert the
enclosing function and a neighbour's `jal .L80050F24` loses its target.
* a draft that DEFINES another stub's symbol in inline asm. MoveImage's repair agent correctly
worked out that a trailing epilogue belongs to MoveImage (splat attributes those bytes to the
NEXT symbol) and emitted `.globl SYS_OBJ_8F4` itself -- right bytes, match_one passes, and the
assembler then sees the symbol defined twice because the fragment still has its own .s.
My first hypothesis was the subsumption case; the tool REFUTED it (clean) and the redefinition
case was the real one. Recording that order, because I built the tool before verifying the
premise -- R35 inverted.
tools/bisect_slate.py (NEW) — gate_main's built-in bisect ran THREE HOURS on a 45-draft slate and
printed nothing. Three defects: it never checked whether the BASELINE builds (if no subset can
pass, the search is doomed from step 1), it logs only when it isolates a single draft, and its
re-split rule degrades toward one rebuild per draft. The replacement runs the NULL CONTROL first
(the same control that refuted this phase's "main is link-blocked" misdiagnosis), logs every step,
and does a true binary search: it found the culprit (SYS_OBJ_1790) in 7 steps and 176 SECONDS.
Result: 40 banked, main stubs 1,803 -> 1,763.
§176i — WHAT A STATIC PRE-GATE CHECK CAN AND CANNOT PROVE. pregate_check validated wave Q's slate
as clean in 0.7s (the first slate all session to reach the gate pre-validated) and the build then
failed twice, both times outside what any text-only check can see:
1. LINK-time undefined reference: `.L80050F24` lives INSIDE gfx2D_BG0_OBJ_698 and another
function's .s branches to it -- converting a function to C deletes the local labels its
neighbours jump to. Statically checkable, but from the .s files, not the .c: scan every other
.s for label references landing inside a candidate's address range. Worth building.
2. BYTE mismatch: with the link fixed the binary BUILT and the SHA differed -- the §174 law 1c
class, which reloc_identity had already named six suspects for.
The division of labour to rely on: text checker for SHAPE, reloc oracle for IDENTITY, gate for
TRUTH. A clean pre-gate is a licence to build, not a prediction of success -- and when the binary
builds but the hash differs, BISECT, because it costs wall-clock and zero tokens.
§176j — STOPPING A WAVE MID-FLIGHT COSTS THE IN-FLIGHT TAIL. Wave Q stopped early: 51/90 verified
(3,631 of 6,249 ins) versus the 96-97% the same pipeline yields when allowed to finish. The loss is
SUSPENDED, not destroyed -- every draft persists on disk, 15 of the 39 unfinished sit at closeness
<=10. Do NOT resume the workflow to recover it (resume re-runs unfinished agents from scratch at
full cost); use a REPAIR-ONLY pass over the <=30 band instead. Decision rule: before killing a long
agent run, price the tail -- stopping converts near-matches into "needs a cheaper second pass",
which is a deferral, not a saving.
The 68%->95% lever from §176h.C2, mechanized. Reconciliation belongs INSIDE the wave: a banked
draft's declarations become the TU's, so a sibling clash hardens into a file clash and post-bank
recovery is measurably worse (18 parked drafts still MATCH, only 1 survived after their wave banked
vs 5 before).
AUTO-FIXES, each re-verified with match_one and REVERTED if a byte moves (a declaration change is
a codegen change, §176f):
* COSMETIC-TYPEDEF two names for a structurally identical struct -> adopt the other. Compared by
BODY, never by name (OtBlk_80015498 == OtBlk_80016450; Elem12 != B12). This body comparison is
also the answer to §176h.C's spelled-name limit.
* SIGNEDNESS / ALIAS / ARRAY-VS-SCALAR -> adopt the TU's spelling, fixing the use site.
* DEFPARAMS (NEW LEVER) -> adopt the TU's parameter types on the DEFINITION and re-narrow with a
shadowing local: `void f(s32 a0_p) { s16 a0 = (s16)a0_p; <body unchanged> }`. One textual
insertion instead of rewriting every use site, and the cast emits the same sll/sra pair.
Byte-identical on both cases tried.
REFUSES, with named reasons, because these are decisions and not edits: DIFFERENT-STRUCT (two real
layouts for one symbol), IMMOVABLE-TU-DECL (gate_main reverts src/, so it needs its own commit +
rebuild + R22), DEF-SIDE-RETURN (adopting the TU's return type usually costs the match -- measured
on func_8001ABBC), and BROKE-MATCH for anything its own verification rejects.
Measured on wave P's leftover slate: 6 -> 9 compatible, 3 auto-reconciled, 2 repairs reverted by
the tool's own byte check, 7 named for a human.
build_wave_atlas: --rank mass (main's gate cost is per SLATE, so ranking groups by member count
silently collapses a wide band to the smallest functions -- measured 60 cards/2,604 ins where 46
cards/4,829 ins were available), and the selector no longer counts ITS OWN OUTPUT as already-waved
(re-running with identical filters had been shrinking the pool 60 -> 46).
MEASURED, and it inverts the obvious plan. "Bank the clean drafts now, recover the conflicted ones
later" is backwards: of 18 wave-O/P drafts parked and re-verified still MATCH, only 1 survived
resolve_conflicts once their wave had banked -- versus 5 before it.
The mechanism: a banked draft's declarations BECOME the TU's, so every parked draft that merely
disagreed with a SIBLING now disagrees with the FILE, which is the stricter arbiter (a sibling
clash can be settled by editing either side; a file clash only by editing the draft, and some
cannot be settled at all because gate_main reverts src/ before every build). Worse, the auto-rename
that reconciles a cosmetic clash pre-bank becomes a DUPLICATE TYPEDEF post-bank, because the name
it renames to is now defined in the file.
So iterate the dry run to `N -> N compatible, 0 dropped` BEFORE spending the first rebuild, and
budget reconciliation into the wave rather than after it.
pregate_check: DUPLICATE-TYPEDEF now fires on ANY redefinition, not only differing bodies. C89 has
no compatible-redefinition allowance for typedefs, and my first version missed exactly the case the
tool exists for -- two identical `OtBlk_80016450` definitions, which the compiler rejected on the
next rebuild. Measured, not reasoned.
Also banks the auto-reconciler's rule: tell a COSMETIC clash from a REAL one by comparing struct
BODIES, not names. OtBlk_80015498 vs OtBlk_80016450 are the same {s32 a; s32 b[4];} and rename
byte-identically (both re-verified MATCH); Elem12 vs B12 genuinely differ and were refused.
Wave P drafted at 97% and cost A DOZEN clean rebuilds to bank, and not one of those rebuilds
failed on a matching problem -- every one failed on a TEXTUAL property of the substituted file
that a grep could have reported instantly. This is that grep.
gate_main's resolve_conflicts cannot answer it, and not from carelessness: it inspects the DRAFTS
while the compiler sees the FILE THEY LAND IN -- after typedef stripping and renaming, at each
draft's own insertion offset, interleaved with declarations the file already had. Those
transformations run AFTER the conflict check passes. So substitute() gained write=False and this
tool checks the artifact itself.
Five checks, each earned by a rebuild lost this session (§176h): typedef used above its
definition; type never defined anywhere; duplicate typedef with different bodies; one symbol
declared two incompatible ways; definition contradicting a visible prototype.
CALIBRATED AGAINST THE COMPILER, NOT AGAINST C89 PEDANTRY -- and this mattered. The first version
reported 4 hard FAILUREs on the slate that had just built BYTE-IDENTICAL:
- it ignored SCOPE, but the project deliberately uses block-scope extern blocks, and a declaration
inside one function cannot conflict with a definition elsewhere. Now brace-depth aware.
- it split `void f()` from `void f(void)`, which gcc-2.7.2 accepts. Normalized.
- it called every def-vs-decl mismatch fatal, but gcc-2.7.2 accepted `void f(void*,s32)` against a
`void f(s8*,s32)` definition and even `G3P *f(...)` against `G4P *f(...)`. What it REJECTED was
a void/non-void RETURN split (func_8001ABBC). That split alone is FAIL; the rest are WARN.
Comments are masked via cdecl before any use-site scan (an unmasked scan reported 7 phantom hits).
R39 controls: the slate that banked is FAIL-free (exit 0, 3 informative warnings); four synthetic
defects each reported at FAIL; a clean text reports nothing; a block-scope extern does not
conflict; `short` vs `s16` does not conflict; array-vs-scalar does.
Wave P was the first full run of the 6k-ins doctrine: 60 cards / 6,589 ins in 2 gate groups,
59/60 claimed and 58/60 independently re-verified MATCH (6,372 ins), reloc_identity 58/58 AGREE
with ZERO symbol errors -- the second consecutive clean wave on symbol identity.
Banking cost a dozen rebuilds and exposed four more gate_main defects plus three regressions of
my own. The tool fixes, all NC'd:
- resolve_conflicts never read a draft's OWN DEFINITION, so the DEF-side wall (a draft defining
s32 func_X against a TU prototyping void func_X) reached the compiler. Now definition-aware:
it caught 13 conflicts up front where the build had been finding them one rebuild at a time.
- DECL and both typedef patterns anchored on end-of-line, so a TRAILING COMMENT hid a declaration
or typedef entirely -- and agents comment nearly everything they declare. Seventh instance of
one root cause: a scanner that looks green while reading less than it claims (R32).
- typedef handling is now BODY-AWARE and POSITION-AWARE, in a single pass:
* identical definition visible ABOVE the insertion point -> strip and reuse;
* same name, different shape -> rename (private to the draft);
* definition below the insertion point -> never reuse (it is not in scope there).
Three wrong strategies preceded this, each costing a rebuild: blanket strip (the file's copy can
sit BELOW the draft -> implicit-int, then a collision), blanket rename (breaks drafts that share
an IDENTICAL typedef, because their externs stop agreeing -- my regression, three drafts at
once), and a rescan loop that found the definition it had just renamed and stripped it as a
self-duplicate -> 'parse error before *'.
KNOWN LIMIT, recorded not fixed: the conflict check compares spelled type NAMES, so three drafts
each defining their own Slot54 with different layouts all declared func_80032A74(Slot54*) and
looked compatible. Comparing struct LAYOUTS for locally-defined types is the real fix.
13 + 4 verified-correct drafts are parked in two named buckets (competing local type models;
immovable TU declarations that gate_main reverts before every build).
A wave is now sized by INSTRUCTION MASS, not card count. The metric is instruction-weighted, so a
wave is worth what its instructions are worth: the 12-42-ins card lanes carried ~1,400 ins/wave
(~0.011pp, ~440 waves to finish) while wave O carried 6,266 ins at the same gate cost and the same
draft rate.
build_wave_atlas --target-ins draws cards until the instruction budget is met (still capped by n)
and refuses to under-fill silently. Standard recipe: --target-ins 6500 --min-ins 60 --max-ins 200
--max-bins 4, levers now including UNKNOWN.
THE MEASUREMENT BEHIND IT: draft rate barely decays with size -- wave M 98% at avg 51 ins, wave N
92% at avg 65, wave O 96% at avg 128. Mass is nearly free.
THE UNKNOWN UNLOCK: UNKNOWN is not a difficulty label, it means the atlas could not name a lever,
and it had been routed as needing its own bespoke lane. Wave O's 22-card R37 probe drafted it like
any other lane -- reclassifying ~138k ins (a quarter of everything open) as ordinary wave fuel.
With UNKNOWN in, 9,224 fns / 417,325 ins = 70% of all open instructions are agent-draftable; the
60-200-ins mass band alone is 164,357 ins ~= 27 waves, and is the band to work first.
Also banks the five-step PRE-GATE PROTOCOL (independent re-verify -> reloc_identity -> dry-run to
0-dropped -> reconcile declarations toward the form the match needs -> gate), cookbook §176g.
36 fresh wave-O cracks + 10 recovered wave-J/K/L drafts, verified in ONE clean rebuild:
143dbb89f34491258bbc27810d0a12ec8b43a8dd BYTE-IDENTICAL. main stubs 1881 -> 1835.
Wave O was a 3-arm 49-card wave (6,266 ins): main head-crack, main UNKNOWN, overlay UNKNOWN.
47/49 standalone MATCH, independently re-verified by me (R14) at 47/49 -- exact agreement --
and reloc_identity reported 46 AGREE / 0 MISMATCH, the first wave of the campaign with zero
symbol errors. THE UNKNOWN LEVER DRAFTS LIKE ANY OTHER LANE, which matters strategically: it is
~138k ins fleet-wide (a quarter of everything open) and was routed as "needs its own lane".
FOUR gate_main defects fixed here, each of which had been silently costing prior waves drafts:
- typedef stripping walked drafts in SLATE order while substitution happens at ADDRESS order, so
the surviving typedef could land BELOW a draft using it -> "syntax error before D_800A651C".
Verified the two orders genuinely diverge for both destination files in this slate.
- a BUILD failure (sha None) fell through to a silent bisect -- a full clean rebuild per step to
rediscover what the compiler had already printed and discarded. Now the error lines are shown
and the offending drafts named for undefined-reference/redefinition/conflicting-types.
(My first version of that printer TAILED a stderr+stdout concatenation and faithfully showed 25
lines of make progress chatter instead of the error -- selecting by position, not by content.)
- typesig treated "short" and "s16" as different types (R39 over-refusal). Aliases now normalize;
11/11 NC cases pass, with signedness, volatile and array-vs-scalar still conflicting correctly.
- conflict detection ignored shared headers: engine_core.h's DEFINE_ macros declare symbols in
their own bodies, so a draft's file-scope array decl of D_800A651C was illegal. Block-scoping
the draft's extern fixes it byte-identically.
DECLARATION RECONCILIATION took the slate from 5 dropped to 0, and three of the four conflicts
were load-bearing CODEGEN, not style: the array form of D_80078D88 blocks a sched1 hoist (scalar
users adopt [0] for free); "volatile" on D_800B9A02 is required by one draft and fatal to two
others (plain u16 loses 1 bank, volatile loses 2); D_800A651C needs block scope. Cookbook §176f.
R37 probe: 20 shape-verified AND symbol-verified stored drafts, 5 gate groups -> 1 banked (5%),
statistically the same as the project's A10 stored-verdict law (~0-8%; T1 measured 0/23 on the same
kind of pile earlier this phase). The null is the finding: a stored draft's rejection is almost
never symbol identity, it is TU plumbing (§176d) or staleness. reloc_identity's real home is a
PRE-GATE check on FRESH drafts, not a backlog resurrection tool. The remaining 30 groups are not
worth 30 rebuilds -- lane closed rather than pursued because the tooling was new and interesting.
Also names the SYMBOL-COLLAPSE class in the fixer's refusal (one draft extern standing in for N
distinct globals; a textual rename moves every occurrence together, so it needs one extern per
site) and records the R38 self-note: the 0/23 prior was already in the phase log.
§174 law 1c recorded match_one's relocation blindness as a caution to the reader ('check every
symbol by hand after MATCH'). It is a computation, not a human's job. Banks the arithmetic, the two
failure shapes it separates (uniform-delta stale seed symbols vs wrong field offset), the four
traps that bit me building it (splat-derived names absent from the symbol files; MIPS o32 REL keeps
the addend in the instruction; index alignment is a precondition; a nearest-symbol label needs a
tight window), and the honest limit measured the same session: symbol-verified + shape-verified is
still NOT sufficient for a bank -- the first re-gate group of five such drafts banked 0/5, because
what remains is TU plumbing (§176d), not identity.
--fix rewrites only unambiguously-wrong symbols (every mismatch naming a symbol must imply the SAME
corrected base) and refuses otherwise: 10 of 12 repaired, 2 correctly refused.
match_one masks relocations (26-bit jal field, HI16/LO16 immediates), so it verifies instruction
SHAPE and is structurally blind to WHICH symbol each relocation names: a draft calling the wrong
function or touching the wrong global reports a clean MATCH (§174 law 1c; wave K burned 5 gate
attempts on two swapped globals). Until now only the whole-binary gate caught it, and it reports a
hash, not a cause.
But the target .s comment column carries the FINAL LINKED WORD, so the true address behind every
masked field is recoverable arithmetically, and config/symbols*.txt maps it back to a name. This
tool resolves what the DRAFT names, computes what the TARGET references, and compares -- /bin/bash, no
rebuild, and it names the fix instead of reporting a mismatch.
match_one --emit-streams additionally carries mine_relocs (kind/operand per index); existing
consumers read mine/tgt only.
THREE INSTRUMENT BUGS FOUND BY ITS OWN NEGATIVE CONTROLS, each fixed before any verdict was
believed (R35/R39):
- splat-derived func_/D_/jtbl_ names are not in the symbol FILES (their address IS their name), so
the first run checked ZERO relocations on a draft whose every callee was correct -- a checker
that looks clean while checking nothing (R32).
- the nearest-symbol fallback used a 0x4000 window and labelled func_8001C9D0 as 'SsGetMute+0xC50';
a wrong label is worse than none. Tightened to 0x200 with an explicit splat-derived fallback.
- MIPS o32 uses REL relocations: THE ADDEND IS IN THE INSTRUCTION, not the reloc entry. Reading it
off the operand string reported 0 for every struct-field/array access and fabricated mismatches
(the +1/+2/+3 signature on func_801F0734 was a byte-array walk, not three symbol errors).
Also refuses to answer confidently when the streams are not index-aligned (shape differs), since a
single inserted instruction shifts every later index -- my own NC produced exactly that phantom.
NC: known-good drafts AGREE (3 and 5 relocs actually checked); a synthetic callee 4 bytes off is
caught while match_one still says MATCH; a misaligned mutant is downgraded to advisory.
resolve_conflicts() had two defects, both found by the wave-J/K/L draft recovery:
(a) THE SYMBOL TABLE STARTED EMPTY -- only draft-vs-draft was compared, so a draft contradicting
a declaration ALREADY IN the .c reached the rebuild and surfaced only as a compile error and
a bisect. src/800.c carries 'extern void func_8001C9D0(void);' (from banked func_8001C2C4)
while three wave-J drafts declared it (s32)/(void *). The TU now seeds the table, and the
drop report names whether the clash is with the TU itself or an earlier draft.
(b) ONE NAMESPACE FOR ALL FILES -- 'seen' was global across the slate, so two drafts landing in
DIFFERENT .c files could not legally disagree about a symbol. Separate TUs are separate
namespaces; the table is now keyed per destination file (R39: over-refusal discards good work).
On the 11 recovered drafts the new check named 7 real TU conflicts that the old one missed
entirely. All 7 were repaired by adopting the TU's declaration verbatim and casting at the use
site -- including a NEW variant: when the TU's prototype takes no argument and the call must pass
one, cast through a function pointer, ((void (*)(s32))func_8001C9D0)(a0). All 11 re-verified
MATCH afterwards, so the cast is byte-identical in every case.
R39 NC: a synthetic draft re-contradicting the TU is still dropped; the repaired slate is 11/11.
build_wave_atlas.py:
- taken-set was a hardcoded 'abcdefghijkl' wave-letter literal -> glob('.run/wave_*_cards.json')
(R33 derive, don't re-derive). NC: 634 -> 726 taken, strict superset, +92 cards from waves m/n
that the literal would have silently re-issued.
- --exclude-bins defaulted to 'main' on the REFUTED link-defect rationale; default now empty and
the help states the real reason (main cannot be gated incrementally; use tools/gate_main.py).
- new --only-bins allow-list: main waves need it, since gate_main rebuilds once per SLATE.
gate_lane.py: an unhandled gate_stage exception produced no JSON line -> v={} -> '0 banked',
indistinguishable from an honest empty gate (cost 2 cycles in P31). Now a non-zero rc or a missing
JSON line is labelled CRASH with the stderr tail, recorded in the results JSON, listed in the
summary as NEVER GATED, and exits non-zero. R39 NC both directions.
- each draft compiles STANDALONE so it carries its own 'typedef struct {...} SVECTOR;'. Once
one such function banks, that typedef lives in src/800.c forever and every later draft
defining its own collides — a C89 duplicate-typedef error, not a byte miss. harvest_verify
already handles this; gate_main did not, and wave L lost a verified-correct draft to it.
- strip_dup_typedefs() drops typedefs the destination file (or an earlier body in the same
batch) already defines, and keeps novel ones.
- R39 NC: drops the duplicate, keeps the novel one, leaves the function body untouched, and is
a strict no-op when there are no duplicates.
- clean_build() ran 'make build' and then sha()'d build/us/SLUS_007.26 off disk. If the build
FAILED (compile error), the PREVIOUS successful binary was still there, so sha() returned the
good hash and the tool reported BYTE-IDENTICAL for a build that never ran.
- that is exactly how it claimed '43 banked' for wave K on a TU that did not compile; the
clean-fleet R22 caught it ([FAIL] main). A verifier that can pass without building is worse
than no verifier.
- fix: rm the output before building, and treat a non-zero make return as no-hash/never-pass.
- also: unbuffered print (a 16-min run looked hung with an empty log) and read the compile
error to name the culprit instead of bisecting at a full clean rebuild per step.
- gate_main reported wave K BYTE-IDENTICAL; the clean fleet R22 then failed [FAIL] main.
Three drafts declared D_80078D98 inconsistently (1 scalar, 2 array) and my conflict checker
could not see the difference: typesig() split on the symbol and kept only the prefix.
- fixed to retain the declarator suffix ('' vs '[]'); NC'd both directions — the wave-K
conflict is now caught, wave J's known answer (34/5) is unchanged.
- BOTH failure modes now documented in the tool: v1 too STRICT (compared parameter names,
discarded 2 good drafts), v2 too COARSE (ignored [], passed a real conflict). R22 caught
what the tool missed, which is exactly why the clean-rebuild rule exists.
- phase log: recorded the night's methodological lesson — every serious stall was an
instrument trusted without a control, never the compiler.
- main CANNOT be gated incrementally: its extract runs the EXE-only psyq_integrate +
ld_interleave steps that REWRITE the .ld, so gate_lane/gate_stage's incremental build
re-runs that on an already-rewritten script and yields a FALSE diff (R22's own rationale).
That cost a night: 4 byte-correct drafts gated 0/4 and I wrote up a nonexistent linker
defect before the null-draft control refuted it.
- gate_main substitutes the whole batch -> make extract BINARY=main -> make build -> compare
SHA. ONE clean build verifies the WHOLE batch (34 banked in one rebuild); bisects on failure
so a single bad draft can't sink the rest.
- handles both main-specific hazards: (1) in-TU cross-draft decl conflicts, resolved greedily
on TYPE SIGNATURES ONLY (comparing parameter names wrongly discards good drafts, R39 — my
own first version did exactly that); (2) stale .s after a revert (extract before resolving).
- NC'd against wave J's known answer: 34 compatible / 5 dropped, matching the hand result.
- deltas[int(new[-8:],16) - int(old[-8:],16)] assumed every symbol is func_XXXXXXXX/D_XXXXXXXX.
A draft whose target calls a PsyQ symbol by name (Square0, RotMatrixY) raised
ValueError and aborted the WHOLE audit — in wave F one such callee took down a 55-draft
batch, and the rename itself (re.subn) had already succeeded.
- a curated pair is a plain 1:1 rename with no address delta: count it as 'named-1:1' and
carry on (R32 — one unparseable pair must never answer for the batch). Delta print made
mixed-key safe.
- verified on the literal incident values: old aborts on 'Square0'; new completes, counting
2 named renames + still bucketing the hex pair by its 0x484c delta
- wave D (48 adapt cards): 47/48 standalone, 45 BANKED across two gates (40 + 5 late-repair).
Operational lesson: build the gate slate AFTER the repair stage lands — the first slate was
built early and 5 rescued drafts needed a second gate.
- wave C (35: 11 tell + 24 weak): 32 banked, 91% gate. Weak lane proven 24/24 on haiku.
- MAIN BLOCKER DIAGNOSED (the night's most valuable finding): main drafts are byte-correct yet
gate 0/4. Byte-diff of the built EXE = exactly 2 bytes in 413,696, NOT in the drafted fn: a
jal at 0x80060E74 retargets func_80061FA8 (game code, 800c2.o) -> firstfile (PsyQ libapi
A66.o). Adding one C fn perturbs symbol resolution between game code and the LINKED PsyQ
archives. main is an INTEGRATION wall, not a matching wall -> its own lane; excluded from
build_wave_atlas by default.
- build_wave_atlas.py now packs by (binary, TU) — the REAL gate-group key, since each group is
one whole-binary rebuild (wave D: 42 drafts / 23 groups = the throughput ceiling).
- 3 NEARs enqueued as grinder fuel incl. func_80183578 at close=1 DELAY-SLOT (§60a precedent).
- the old glob('src/<binary>/*.c') found nothing for main (sources live at src/*.c), so every
main draft grouped under src=None: an R36 consumer-blindness, latent because main has never
been wave-gated (main is 0.5% matched, the largest coherent mass left)
- derive from corpus.stubs()[..].path instead; NC'd 3 ways: still-open wave-C drafts 3/3 agree,
overlay sample 96/96 agree (no regression), main now resolves None -> src/800.c
- tools/build_wave_atlas.py: wave selection off the frontier atlas, optimized for GATE
THROUGHPUT (gate cost scales with (binary,TU) groups, not drafts: wave C was 1.3 drafts per
rebuild; atlas selection concentrates to ~96) and weighted toward instruction mass
- wave C: 35 cards (11 tell + 24 weak) -> 35/35 standalone (re-verified independently, R14)
-> 32 banked / 3 near, 91% gate, 0 symbol failures (Law 4 prevention worked)
- weak lane proven for the first time: 24/24 on haiku; 890 candidates remain
- reach measured: 32 exemplars, 8 with sharers, x2 each => ~1.25x effective (the x134
era ended in P25/29/30) -> throughput, not leverage, is now the lever
- tools/build_wave.py (pool=adapt|weak, corpus-derived open-stub filter, R35 gate guard)
- 3 self-inflicted instrument defects found+fixed+NC'd (P9, recorded not buried):
pgrep self-match via shell=True; corpus.stubs() is addr->Stub not names (nearly
declared both card pools spent); a wave fired on hand-typed placeholder cards (stopped)
- STRATEGIC: card lanes are ~0.23% of open ins/wave; the Atlas's head-crack bucket is
1,276 groups / 186k ins with high-reach groups up to 265 instances -> retarget waves
at atlas groups next
- tools/warmstart.py: --from-banked walks a banked exemplar's family's open
members, builds remapped proven-body drafts (symbol_map + build_draft), and
STREAM-classifies member-vs-seed with zero compiles; enqueues ONLY permuter-
shaped work (bucket==permuter or LENGTH-DRIFT |delta|<=2) as backlog records;
--lenmiss ingests T8's 49-route. Armed live: 59 enqueued, 120 refused by the
stream filter (the anti-92%-wasted-CPU discipline)
- grinder patch NOT needed: candidates() deliberately keeps unclassified
records ('unknown is not a reason to skip'), so pre-filtered enqueues flow
as-is — documented in the feeder docstring (YAGNI honored)
- family_cousins --weak-cards: 954 seeded-crack cards from the never-consumed
0.70-0.85 band, ins-ranked, §168 laws embedded, model-routed haiku 804 /
v3 43 / sonnet 86 / opus 21 (cheap tiers dominate), 0 unresolved .s
- match_one --emit-streams (additive; stdout-identity NC'd): word streams for the
len lane
- family_align.addr_true_rel: reloc-vs-constant range discriminator — FULL
conservative set kept for pair semantics (NC-1 157/157 regression), address-
true subset for indel eligibility only (a constant li-cluster must not read as
reloc-in-indel); synthetic probes green both directions
- tools/len_tells.py: aligned classification + §172b tell tagging (EXTPAIR/
SELECT/NOP) on target-side indels; detectors imported from atlas_features
(R33); cookbook text embedded in cards
- tools/lenmiss_route.py: pool-parallel (A8) — 587 audit LEN rows re-verified
live + routed in 24s: redraft 345 (frac>0.35, APPEND-ONLY backlog
reclassification — near-miss metrics stop lying) / permuter-length 49 (grinder
fuel) / cards 192 incl 14 tell-tagged (the audit's own detectors had emitted
ZERO) / mechanical 0 — an HONEST NULL: stored drafts rarely get constants
wrong; LEN drift is shape, family_align's value here is classifier/detector
- R32 accounting 587/587
- tools/family_align.py (NEW module — classify_member's return contract untouched,
the remap_hseq silent-pass trap avoided by design): SequenceMatcher alignment
over FC.tok streams; li-cluster reconstructor (lui/lui+addiu/lui+ori/li-from-$0
chains, split-cluster absorb for the rs-changed addiu partner); verdicts
LEN-LI/LEN-NOP/LEN-JTBL/LEN-STRUCT/STRUCT-ALIGNED/PURE/IMM; aligned imm engine
mirroring imm_map_tier1 (ordinal deliberately out in v1)
- NC-1 verdict-equivalence 157/157 banked pairs — the NC caught two real gaps:
R-type non-shift sa diffs are STRUCT; registers tested BEFORE the reloc skip
(a reloc-slot word with a different register is STRUCT). NC-2 parity 21/21
- R37 PROBE REFUTED the planned mechanical driver before it was built: 0/26
LI-ONLY cards classify mechanically (regfields x19) — cousins are 0.85-similar
DIFFERENT functions; §168 law 1 re-derived by measurement; no driver written
- family_align re-scoped: its consumer is T8's LEN+N near-miss pile (draft vs
its OWN target = same function); reloc-vs-constant range discriminator parked
for T8. decision-log entry (R31)
- tools/plumbing_groups.py: derives the honest still-open pool from the classified
ledgers (R38) — '1,217 PLUMBING' collapsed to 237 (SELF 109 / CALLEE 48 / OTHER
48 / DATA 32)
- recover_integration: PER-GROUP ISOLATION (git-checkout binary TUs between groups
— one TU-stage edit was poisoning every other group's whole-binary gate with a
phantom shared error; per-group banked_from_source capture) + new stages
'macro-externs' (§121 draft-tier, via family_sweep.macro_def_sig_map, R33) and
'tu-scope' (§103 STU binary-tier, the sweep-only lever)
- the probe (ov_SC03_107): raw 0/14 -> root-caused (poisoning + stale seed
symbols; rtu_match MATCHes them — blind to reloc names, R34) -> symfix-first
-> 9/14 BANKED (64%)
- sweep finding (Law 3): the no-draft majority (ov_SC02_037 44/44, most of
ov_MAIN_012) had verdicts from transient sweep remaps never persisted — family-
lane fuel, not recovery fuel; the stored-draft class is consumed
- cookbook §173 (symfix-first / per-group isolation / verdicts-without-drafts);
index 518 green; R22 clean fleet 213/213; phase total 17 banked @ 0 agent tokens
- decision-log: the P31 re-charter entry (organize-before-grind; R37/R38/R39
ratified at gate-1) per R31
- harvest_verify.py: import guard — a bare import now RAISES loud instead of
running a full gate (CLI unchanged, verified both directions)
- sig-resident: bootstrap boundary artifacts fixed (fused +0 data word with
func_800CEDFC; func_800D33E0 dropped past a glued tail) -> ELF-seeded per the
S45 pattern, exactly 145 fns; true denominator confirmed 145 (progress was
right); audit-corpus 0 PHANTOM + 0 TRUNCATED; all three oracles agree
- family maps regenerated at HEAD commit:2161: 11,025 open non-main members
reconciles EXACTLY with 12,059 - main 1,034 (102 stale phantoms cleared);
adapt cards 704, aprop cards 204 (full emission)
- main fuel-gap finding: 2,001/2,002 main stubs already have cached Ghidra-C
(only func_80049600 missing) — the roadmap '0/2,096' note was stale
- tools-health OK (dedup 2,063/0; C1 254,521/254,521; audit-digest green)
- tools/cc1_dumps.sh: run the pinned cc1 with -dr/-ds/-dj/-dc/-dl/-dg and count standalone
(use (reg)) insns in the .combine dump — each is one 8-byte never-referenced reload slot.
The NEAR-2 residual = 12 such orphans vs the target's 16, now ENUMERATED pseudo-by-pseudo
instead of inferred from ablations.
- The orphan mechanism, exact (combine.c:10835 + mips.md force_not_mem): every short-mem read
is a movhi+shift-pair triple; the fold orphans its ashift temp iff the HI reg carries an
extra HImode use and the death-note walk hits a label/jump. Single-use loads never orphan;
the head can never orphan (walk reaches insn 0).
- The zero-code +4 factory is byte-refuted: 18 new probe families x 3 placements (s16
respellings, cast truncations, <<16>>16 factories, placement sweeps, loop t/n, dossier-file
re-sweep) all land at vars=224-same-bytes or drift. p_optr reproduces the target's exact
16-orphan frame at +7 insns — opacity that defeats cse equally blinds num_sign_bit_copies;
fold-const closes the tree level. Three canonicalizers, one wall.
- Dossier NOTES.md updated with the S50 ledger; backlog klass -> WALL(P32) for both names.
- NOT banked: no 0-closeness draft exists. The dial draft (NEAR 2) remains the floor.
Three carries a mechanical seed-body draft needs beyond the symbol rebase (cookbook §171b),
each found from one compiler verdict:
- DATA DEFINED INSIDE THE MEMBER'S OWN .s must be DEFINED, not externed — it vanishes with
the stub it lives in. Re-initialised with THIS member's bytes (the 0x801F1CD8 family carries
4 distinct 8-byte patterns across 42 members). Flat-byte-list initializers only; refuse the
rest rather than mis-initialise something the gate would reject unexplainably.
- SHARED TYPES the destination cannot see: MATRIX/SVECTOR live in engine_types.h, which md_*
TUs never include. `parse error before 'm1'` was the only thing between 4 of 9 members and a
bank. Carried brace-matched, vetoed by the destination.
- A POSITIONAL LITERAL MAP where imm_map_tier1 gives up: it refuses a value that also appears
at a non-differing slot (0x10 collides with the struct offsets), but the 8 differing slots
map 1:1 onto the C's call sites in order. Asserted ([C literals] == [seed slot values])
before substituting — that assert is the whole safety argument. 10/10 refused -> 9/9 banked.
- ROOT-CAUSE FIX: body_text matched `extern void func_X(...);` at column 0 and returned the
NEXT function's body — silently shipping wrong seed bodies, visible only as "no definition
after rename" skips. A definition is now confirmed by a `{` with no `;` before it.
R22 clean rebuild: check-all 213 passed, 0 failed of 213. Stubs 12,161 -> 12,111.
Fleet 95.3% instr / 90.0% distinct / 96.66% fn-count.
Final S50 state: 307 instances banked, stubs 12,468 -> 12,161, fleet 95.3% instr / 90.0%
distinct / 96.65% fn-count. R22 clean rebuild 4x, check-all 213/213 every time.
- tools/aprop_autodraft.py + tools/draft_prechecks.py: seed body + symbol_map + a MINIMAL
synthesized preamble. The seed's decl layer never travels — that layer is family_sweep's
dominant failure (331 of 458 S49 verdicts). 256 banked at zero agent tokens, against the
~20M the same work would have cost as a wave.
- Macro seeds (567 of 1196 members, all 3737 de-macroize) take the DEFINITION only; the block
stays the decl source. Pasting it whole measured 28% vs inline's 68% — func_8016AB6C's macro
is 1,891 lines of which 108 are the function.
- IMM is a second engine, not a wall: T2a's imm_map_tier1 resolves a per-location LITERAL like
symbol_map resolves a per-location SYMBOL. 131 of 275 IMM members resolve.
- draft_prechecks negative-controlled against ALL 205 banked drafts: zero false positives,
catches 39 of 67 known failures. That control found two bugs in the checks themselves —
C89 `f()` declares UNSPECIFIED parameters (not zero), and a member's own definition read as
a call to itself. Conservative by design: a pre-check that discards good drafts is worse
than one that lets a few builds fail.
- The A-prop pool is now priced exactly: PURE 437/37,376 ins, IMM 275/8,849, STRUCT 238/4,259.
- Cookbook §171a; SETUP rows; CURRENT_PHASE S50 FINAL checkpoint.
Measured on the 489-draft run: inline seeds banked 145/213 (68%), macro seeds 77/276 (28%),
and the macro failures were decl collisions to a fault — 'parse error before *', 'too few
arguments to function'. Cause: a de-macroized DEFINE_ block is decls + definition, and
pasting it wholesale reintroduces the exact decl-agreement failure the minimal-preamble
design exists to avoid. func_8016AB6C's block is 1,891 lines of which 108 are the function.
- seed_body() now returns the DEFINITION as the body and keeps the macro block as the DECL
SOURCE, so only the externs the definition actually references are emitted.
- aprop_symfix.body_in_text(): text-based sibling of body_text (R33 — one implementation).
Indented-definition fallback for macro blocks, confirmed by a '{' with no ';' before it,
so an indented CALL can never be mistaken for a definition.
A lane-A member's body IS its matched sibling's body with the per-location symbols rebased.
Two mechanisms had each left that population on the table: family_sweep remaps but CARRIES
the seed's decl layer (decl-agreement = 331 of 458 S49 failures), and the agent wave
re-derives the same body at ~80k tok/fn. This does neither — seed body + symbol_map
(positional reloc zip) + a minimal synthesized preamble.
- Byte-proven before the tool existed: a hand-written draft of exactly this shape banked
func_801E2858@md_SC03_132, in a family the mechanical sweep had refused. Then 9/9 banked
on the first generated batch.
- THE SELECTOR, measured: only PURE members (every diff site a RELOC) are drafted. An IMM
(per-location literal) or STRUCT (register/opcode drift) site cannot be reached by a
rename — the first 5 gated 0/5, all IMM or STRUCT. classify_member now decides that
BEFORE a build is spent, not after. --allow-impure to override.
- Macro seeds supported: DEFINE_<fn>() de-macroizes back to a plain self-contained block
(3737/3737 extract). They were the largest skip bucket — 567 of 1196 members.
- 592 drafts emitted (304 macro / 288 inline) from 1196 members; every skip is named (R32).
- aprop_symfix: asm_syms_ordered() so an n:m card hands over the target's reference ORDER.
- Two defects caught by probes before they scaled: a typedef regex that stopped at the `;`
INSIDE the struct braces, and a continuation walk that started on the empty pre-newline
element and returned an empty body.
- The blocker was carried as "one missing file-scope extern gates 83 PURE members". Both
halves were wrong (R14): corpus.stubs says 4 open members, and D_801ED98C is a DEFINED
const Blk8 whose rodata lives inside the member's own nonmatchings .s — replacing the stub
deletes the data with it. gather_externs can carry an extern DECL, never a DEFINITION,
which is why it reported "no file-scope decl" for a symbol md_SC05_023 defines on line 114.
- Fix: paste typedef + const definition + body per sibling (data bytes verified identical
across md_SC05_024/025/028/029). 4/4 banked.
- aprop_symfix: new `local-only` class — draft-DEFINED identifiers that merely carry a
vram-looking suffix (Blk8_…, S8_…, L_call_…) are not stale symbols. Measured: that is every
non-clean case in the whole wave-7a/7b stored-draft residue, which holds ZERO stale-symbol
recoveries (a clean negative result — the defect was A-prop-specific).
- cookbook index regenerated (tools-health fails closed on a stale index — it caught §171).
- R22 clean rebuild: check-all 213 passed, 0 failed of 213. Stubs 12,445 -> 12,441.
- REFUTES §170's open hypothesis (batched cards concentrate members into one TU ⇒ §169
collision): 5-draft groups banked 5/5; 11 of 35 unbanked drafts were already one-per-TU;
and the two "concentrated" groups banked 12/12 and 10/10 once the real defect was fixed.
- The cause: a per-location data symbol carried out of the seed body unrebased. match_one
compares instruction ENCODINGS and is blind to a relocation's target NAME, so it scores
MATCH standalone and dies at link in the host TU. 24 of 24 concentrated failures, all 1:1
rewritable at one constant vram delta (0x4128).
- tools/aprop_symfix.py: audit + --fix, emits a gate_lane-shaped slate; deterministic and
build-free, so it runs BEFORE the gate. The R34 second oracle for the class match_one
cannot see.
- family_cousins.py --aprop-cards: members now carry sym_map, the explicit {seed -> member}
renames, read from the seed's C BODY (a matched seed has no .s of its own) vs the member's
.s. Two case-mismatch defects fixed while wiring it (sig lowercase vs splat uppercase).
- 23/24 banked. Stubs 12,468 -> 12,445. Fleet 95.2% instr / 89.9% distinct / 96.57% fn.
R22 clean rebuild: check-all 213 passed, 0 failed of 213. dedup 2,043/0.
- A-prop's true conversion is 87% (79/91); the 320 batched members are unblocked.
- Cookbook §171 + §170 struck in place; SETUP row; decision-log (R31).
- checkpoint block refreshed for a fresh session (R30/checkpoint-before-pause): the TU-spread
test is the named FIRST action, the regen chain and gate contract are spelled out, and the
>=16 head's three open items are listed with their evidence.
- promote gate_lane.py into tools/ (it was scratchpad-only): accepts slate OR confirmed shapes,
explicit draft paths, R32 coverage assertion (refuses to report 0 as a result), dirty-tree
abort, no outer timeout, per-function propagation after.
- session: 179 commits, 177 instances banked, 5 R22 clean-fleet gates all 213/213.
- NEW family_cousins.py --aprop-cards + tools/wave/aprop_wave.js: lane A (1,700 open fns /
76,419 ins) had NO card type — cousin diffs are empty for h_seq-identical members, so the card
is a positional WORD diff vs the matched sibling, grouped BY FAMILY (one agent, N drafts).
Head cards: 13 families / 433 members, median TWO differing words each.
- calibration 9 batches / 108 members: 98 agent-MATCH (91%, best of any wave) -> 56 BANKED (57%),
~80k tok/banked fn vs 157k (cousin card) vs 400k+ (crack wave). R22 213/213 BYTE-IDENTICAL.
- HONEST GAP (R14): 91% agent -> 57% gate is the worst conversion measured; 14 groups banked 0.
Hypothesis TESTABLE not proven — family batching concentrates members per destination TU, the
§169 collision. Re-gate unbanked ONE PER TU before scaling the remaining 320.
- >=16 head diagnosed: 3 of 4 blockers are plumbing — the --band substantial default hid 5 of 13
families from every prior sweep; one missing file-scope extern (D_801ED98C) gates 56 PURE
members; dedup_extend is macro-only. Only func_8017C294 is a genuine crack.
- fleet 96.56% fn / 95.2% instr / 89.9% distinct; stubs 12,535 -> 12,468; dedup 2,043/0.
- cookbook §170.
- thresholds relaxed to <=6 blocks/<=16 tokens UNION edit-fraction <=0.20: cards 518 -> 721,
MIXED 310 -> 50 skeletons; the 753-ins func_8017BEBC (0.987 sim) became reachable.
- 59 cards -> 48 agent-MATCH (81%) -> 44 BANKED (92% MATCH->bank, 75% end-to-end), 6.9M tok.
- FINDING (the actionable one): 7b's bank rate crushed 7a's because it SPREAD 48 drafts over 35
destination TUs; 7a's failures were per-TU declaration collisions between sibling drafts.
Cookbook §169 updated with the spread law.
- R22 213/213 BYTE-IDENTICAL from clean; fleet 96.55% fn / 95.2% instr / 89.9% distinct;
stubs 12,584 -> 12,535; dedup 2,035/0.
- incidents 3 & 4 recorded: an agent wrote a TRACKED header (guard caught it, prose is not
enforcement); my own gate_lane filtered on the wrong key and printed 'gating 0 drafts' as a
result (R32 silent skip) — fixed with a coverage assertion that refuses to report 0.
sig_image emits lowercase func_<hex> names; splat writes the .s with UPPERCASE hex, so
corpus.asm_path returned None for every address containing a hex letter — 60% of the cards
would have shipped agents a 'null/func_x.s' path. resolve_asm() tries the sig spelling
(authoritative for CURATED names), then both hex cases; a card with no resolvable .s is
now DROPPED, not emitted (R32). 518 cards, 0 bad paths.
- family_cousins.py --adapt-cards: per seeded-unit member, drift classified vs the seed
(LI-ONLY 27 / SMALL-EDIT 491 / MIXED 310 excluded); cards carry the seed C location + the
aligned diff blocks with the member's raw words + disasm (the new constant is readable in
the card). 518 cards / 1,101 instances / 23,820 ins; 514 haiku-band.
- tools/wave/adapt_wave.js: the EDIT-contract wave (crack_wave contracts preserved: per-agent
dirs, sha1-last, UNVERIFIED != refuted); symbol surface from the TARGET .s; haiku<=60/sonnet.
- regen chain absorbed the 48 lane-A banks (A-prop open ins -6,475 == the report's instr
delta exactly — two independent derivations agree); pilot slate .run/wave7a_pilot.json (30).
- R37: pilot before scaling to the 518-card pool.
- FINDING (Drew's smell, byte-verified): the '4,513 unique singletons' picture is substantially
an h_seq exact-hash artifact — 86/120 near-pairs in the 0.85-0.99 band differ by PURE
insertion/deletion (li-expansion tell in 25). Specimen: ov_SC06_010:0x8017bebc (753 ins,
'singleton') is 0.987-similar to a MATCHED fn in the same binary.
- NEW tools/family_cousins.py: distinct open skeletons -> shingle index -> >=0.85 union-find ->
matched-seed attachment -> .run/family_cousins.json + docs/family-cousins.md. R32 BOTH ways
(independent stub recount fails loud on a stale map — negative-control-proven; partition
assert). Reproduced the probe within +-1%; totals EXACT (11,627 inst / 584,448 ins).
- Unit table: A-prop 197u/68,729ins · seeded 418u/50,422 · cousin-multi 1,552u/249,799 ·
cold 3,240u/215,498 — the genuinely-unique tail is 37% of the remainder, not 90%.
Main's 'structurally barren' HOLDS at the similarity tier (94% mass <0.70).
- --targets wave slate: .run/wave7_targets.json = 40 targets / 33,304 unit ins (+33% vs
family-ranked), 9 resolved seed C paths, size-routed 2 haiku/20 sonnet/18 opus.
- LAWS (§168): a cousin is a SEEDED CRACK never a remap; rank waves by UNIT weight; discount
short-fn similarity. Byte-gate stays the sole arbiter (G3/P9).
- docs/family-hseq.md: this session's frontier regen (post-S48 propagations) rides along.
- cookbook §168 + SETUP inventory row (R16/R21/R30); CURRENT_PHASE S49 entry.
gate_stage labelled every "standalone MATCH / whole-binary DIFF" with
"(declaration/TU plumbing)". The tool never checked for a declaration conflict —
that was a GUESS printed as a diagnosis, and func_8017F2D4 carried it through
SEVEN attempts across five waves while every agent hunted codegen. The body was
byte-correct from the first attempt; the notes had simply named the wrong
destination TU (a file holding only a caller + prototype), and splicing there is
a no-op that leaves the INCLUDE_ASM bytes in place.
- gate_stage now says only what is true (the two oracles disagree) and hands
over the check that resolves it, instead of naming a cause it did not measure.
- §166a banks the oracle: asm/<ov>/nonmatchings/<TU_stem>/<fn>.s => the
INCLUDE_ASM is in src/<ov>/<TU_stem>.c. The third path component IS the TU
stem, derived from the split config, and it beats any prose citation — a grep
for the function name also hits callers and prototypes in OTHER TUs and reads
exactly like a destination hit.
- Plus the two probe gotchas that cost wave-5/6 agents real time: the wrong
--aspsx-version fakes ~32 ori-vs-addiu mismatches, and a collateral-drift
check must filter to sized symbols (nm -S) or the zero-size .NON_MATCHING
aliases all report false drift.
cookbook_index.py: 506 sections.
A markdown backtick inside the prompt's template literal terminates the string
and the workflow dies at parse time. Cheap (0 agents, 0 tokens) but it has now
cost two launches, so the file carries a warning at the top: use double quotes
for inline code in prompt prose.
Drew T