rea/docs/specs/agent-environments/write-coverage/spec.md

Wider write coverage

Issue: https://github.com/morluto/rea/issues/4933

Outcome

Four recording shapes kept write tools out of the manifest or left their writes unserved, although the recordings showed what the writes did:

• Bodiless replies. A write answered 204 with no body (Jellyfin's and Shlink's deletes, Miniflux's and Keycloak's updates) had no JSON-like content type, so its group was excluded as non-json and never became a tool.
• Omitted fields. A field every recording of a view carried was required, so an application that leaves empty or false members out of some entities (Go's omitempty) made the write gate refuse its own read-backs.
• Projected reads. An item read asking for some fields only (Directus's /items/provisions/2?fields=title) does not repeat the requested id, so it blocked the identity proof of the whole item view, and the view's writes had no state target.
• Digit-group sequences. A sequence spelled in digit groups (Homebox's asset number 000-005) was not an integer, so a create that numbers it had no rule for it and was contradicted.

Behaviour

• Manifest. A write group (POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE) is kept as a tool when every response had no body (a 204 or 205, an empty text, or a recorded size of zero) and one succeeded. A missing text alone does not count.
• Omitted fields. The write gate notes required fields missing from the entities the state holds that successful reads it checks return, when the read names no projection parameter: the item whose id the path names, or the listed items. No view of the type requires them any more. A read that checks nothing, such as one begun while a modelled write to its targets still ran or a page the collection has outgrown, notes none. Established omissions apply when classifying subsequent reads and choosing later write observations, not just when serializing final views. A complete fields=* read is not partial solely for lacking a known optional field.
• Projected reads. An item read naming fields, fields[...], select or $select that does not return the item is left out of the identity proof and the view's checks. The view lists it in projected_record_ordinals, and serving replays a call to that tool naming such a parameter, for an entity the state holds, with the reason projection; the replay shows the recording, not served writes. The write gate neither checks nor learns a write's effect from a successful read serving replays, nor from one that names such a parameter and leaves out a field its view requires; a 400, 404 or 410 such a read answers is still the absence it checks. Identity-free projection evidence after the initial-state cutoff is retained too, without seeding later values into initial entities. Failed responses are classified before the projection-replay shortcut, so a projected absence can confirm a delete or contradict an unexplained disappearance. A list line asking for some fields only beside one showing whole entities is replayed the same way and proves no identity or membership; an item or list line showing its entities in another representation (an expanding or reducing query) is replayed when a query key tells it from the view's other lines (projected_query_keys, reason variant). A call asking for some fields only replays unless every value it gives is * or one a checked line gave, and no replayed read gave it; such calls replay recordings and do not show served writes.
• Sequences. A sequence value may be --separated digit groups of one width of at least two digits, not a date, version or address. The next value keeps the exemplar's groups and zero padding; digits that outgrow them lead. A later create must record its value spelled that way. A held value whose digits outgrew the mask (100-00 after 99-99) counts only when it is the exemplar's spelling of its number, so a reloaded state numbers on from it.

Acceptance

• Over the 50 published captures, no write group is excluded as non-json, served write tools rise from 35 to 39, and no write tool is served on the base and unserved here.
• The re-recorded Homebox capture's create is served.
• Every served write tool of those captures applies.