- make crawl-ingest writes to one central crawl db (CRAWL_DB, default
~/.arborist/crawl/web.db) instead of per-domain shards in the
peer-shared main dir: keeps locally-crawled content out of peer
sharing by default and a growing domain set under SQLite's 10-attach
cap (Makefile, docs/crawler.md).
- arborist query auto-includes the local crawl db (query() gains
extra_shards; CLI --include-shard / --no-crawl-db, default-on when
web.db exists). Fix latent --db single-file query AttributeError
(cli.py). Persist used / used_pointer_ids + retrieval_purity into
merkle_proof so read-only consumers can see which chunks fed the
answer (qa/query.py).
- arborist.read: read-only seam for dashboards / verifiers; on a
multi-source context root surface the real primary source instead of
the opaque corpus://multi-source sentinel (read.py). Backs the
arborist-viz Merkle Command Center (#000069).
- tests for extra_shards, the CLI crawl-db resolver, and the read seam.
Sister rule to Rule 9 (SUBJECT_TOKENS_ABSENT) landed in the same
session. Both demote STRICT → HYBRID but on orthogonal signals:
Rule 9 catches premise-parroting; FORMAT_COLLAPSED catches
protocol abandonment.
Surfaced by fox's "winners of all major sports?" 2026-05-02 case:
Hermes-3-8B melted under an under-specified broad-quantifier
question, dumped 50+ free-form prose claims with zero [E\d+]
pointer tags. Verifier honestly returned UNGROUNDED 0/2 (parser
caught two line fragments), but operators couldn't distinguish
"tried & failed to ground" from "abandoned the protocol." This
soft-demote separates the two failure shapes at audit-line glance.
verify_claim_lattice (pointer-mode only — JSON collapse already
shows as SCHEMA_INVALID):
- count meaningful_lines (>20 chars after strip) and [E\d+ regex
matches in raw answer
- ≥5 meaningful lines AND 0 bracket tags → FORMAT_COLLAPSED
violation, soft-demote STRICT → HYBRID
- format_collapsed: bool added to verdict dict
Plumbing:
- claim_lattice_format_collapse_check_enabled: True in DEFAULT_POLICY
and DEFAULT_QUERY_POLICY
- _VERIFIER_POLICY_FIELDS in keys.py adds the field so it folds
into verifier_policy_hash
- threaded through ask() and query() call sites
CLI:
- _SOFT_DEMOTE_VIOLATION_KINDS includes FORMAT_COLLAPSED so the
audit-line ladder rendering treats it as a soft demote
- _render_warrant_tail appends "· format collapsed" tail
Bench fixture: new "under-specified 'all'" section in
qa_questions.txt with `winners of all major sports?` and rationale
about cross-model resilience signal.
Tests:
- test_format_collapsed_fires_on_bracketless_multi_line_prose
- test_format_collapsed_does_not_fire_when_pointer_tags_present
- CLI render coverage
Full suite: 781 passed (up from 776).
Open Ticket #000008 — Broad-quantifier preflight guard. Cleaner
upstream fix: detect quantifier-intensity at query layer and
apply a per-model claim ceiling BEFORE the 13-second LLM call.
FORMAT_COLLAPSED stays as the downstream catch; #000008 proposes
the upstream prevention. TICKETS.md index + Next ID 000008→000009.
The phrase-pattern retrieval route (commit 1b8677d) closed the
RETRIEVAL side of reference-frame failure; this ticket closes
the ANSWER side.
New module aborist/qa/frame.py:
FrameDetection dataclass (frame_kind, reference_title,
reference_uri, confidence). Sidecar — never enters cache_key
or governance_policy_hash.
detect_frame(question, sources, phrase_match_roots) — heuristic
detector. Reference-frame classification fires when:
(a) phrase route surfaced at least one source, AND
(b) at least one phrase-matched source is a reference work,
determined by:
- title parenthetical disambig (`(novel)` / `(film)` /
`(play)` / `(franchise)` / etc.), OR
- body sample contains ≥3 DISTINCT fiction markers
(novel / published / protagonist / plot / ...).
Distinct-marker count keeps the heuristic robust against a
history article saying "novel approach" twice.
aborist/qa/query.py:
Calls detect_frame for lattice modes only. Body sample uses the
ARTICLE LEAD (chunk_idx=0, post-wikitext-strip) — fiction
markers cluster in the lead on Wikipedia, not in plot chunks
that may have been query-relevance-ranked higher.
New policy field claim_lattice_polarity_preamble injected as a
user-role message before the grounding_reminder when
frame_kind == "reference". Format-string with
{reference_title} placeholder.
Result dict carries frame_detection (kind / title / uri /
confidence) for renderer + bench consumption.
aborist/cli.py:
Renderer adds a `reference frame: <title>` line when
frame_detection.kind == "reference". Skipped for literal /
no-phrase-route / ambiguous rows.
Live verification — Orwell case:
PRE : "The text does not directly state that Oceania has always
been at war with East Asia."
POST : "In George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four,
the nation of Oceania is always at war with Eastasia,
but this is a result of propaganda and doublethink, not
actual historical continuity. The war with Eastasia is
a fabricated conflict to maintain control..."
Multi-frame compilation: distinguishes propaganda claim from
fictional-actual continuity, exactly the polarity contract from
the ticket §2 abstraction.
Literal queries (capital of france) unchanged — polarity preamble
only injects when frame_kind classifies as "reference".
22 new tests (19 in test_frame.py + 3 in test_cli_render.py).
Full suite: 734 passed (was 712, +22).
Directive D3 status: ½ → ✓. Ticket #000002 closed.
All seven structural directives now ✓:
D1, D2, D5 (were ✓);
D3 #000002, D4 #000001, D6 #000003, D7 #000005 (closed in this
series).
Replaces the two-rung EVIDENCE-LINKED / EVIDENCE-LINKED-PARTIAL
display label for claim-lattice methods with a four-rung ladder
that names a strictly stronger property at each rung:
POINTER-LINKED pointer/source/chunk verified;
warrant either didn't apply or failed
ANCHOR-WARRANTED pointer-linked + warrant passed where it ran;
other soft demotes may apply
EVIDENCE-WARRANTED anchor-warranted + no soft demotes
UNGROUNDED no verified pairs
HYBRID gets a -PARTIAL suffix on whichever rung applies.
Implementation: _render_audit_label gains a violations parameter
(defaults to None for backward-compat). _ladder_rung_for_lattice
discriminates rungs from the existing violations list:
- WARRANT_MISSING in violations → POINTER-LINKED
- any of {LAZY_ANCHOR_DEMOTED, POINTER_OVERFLOW_TRIMMED,
TOO_MANY_CLAIMS, BARE_NAME_CLAIM} → ANCHOR-WARRANTED
- else → EVIDENCE-WARRANTED
Design simplification vs the ticket's §3 sketch: the proposed
verifier_steps_ran field on the verdict dict was NOT needed. The
existing violations list carries enough signal to discriminate
all rungs. Per the five-step algorithm step 2: don't add fields
you don't need.
Quote / span / entity / paraphrase methods stay unchanged (their
STRICT verifies pinned spans, not synthesis).
Schema column audit_mode enum stays {STRICT, HYBRID, UNGROUNDED}
— pure renderer transformation, no governance_policy_hash bump,
no cache invalidation, no mesh-wire-format change. Existing
providence records render under the new ladder on next read.
5 new renderer tests in tests/test_cli_render.py covering each
rung mapping. D7 anti-regression test in tests/test_directives.py
updated to gate on the ladder labels. Bench helper docstring
follows. Full suite: 711 passed.
Directive D7 stays at ✓; ticket #000005 closed.
Two UX fixes addressing the 2026-05-01 Orwell run feedback:
(1) Evidence pointer format. Old form `[E5: "<excerpt>"]` looked
visually like a 1-indexed source rank — paired with a "sources (8)"
list whose `[5]` slot was a different document, operators easily
mis-attributed citations. New form:
[E5 | Nineteen Eighty-Four | 682f0a11: "<excerpt>"]
Title comes from EvidenceObject.title (URI-tail fallback when None);
chunk_root prefix is the first 8 hex chars — enough to disambiguate
chunks from the same source while staying compact. Renderer change
in render_claim_lattice; pre-existing claim-lattice tests updated;
3 new unit tests pin the format (title-inline, URI-tail fallback,
no `[E1:` collision-shape).
(2) Audit-label discipline. _render_audit_label already maps STRICT
→ EVIDENCE-LINKED for claim_lattice* modes (verifier output stays
binary, schema CHECK constraint stays); 4 new tests in
test_cli_render.py pin the relabel for STRICT / HYBRID / UNGROUNDED
in claim_lattice modes and the no-relabel for quote-mode where the
verifier verifies pinned spans not synthesis.
Net: 8 new tests, full suite 649 passed.
Implements 6 of fox's feedback-2/3 items (2026-05-01) targeting the
red-fish-blue-fish output. Each lives in the render or sidecar layer
— no schema or cache-key change beyond the verifier_policy_hash that
landed earlier in the day.
(1) Honest audit-label rendering. Schema audit_mode (STRICT/HYBRID/
UNGROUNDED) describes the lexical verifier's call; the user-
facing label spells out what was actually checked. Mapping for
claim_lattice modes:
STRICT → EVIDENCE-LINKED · via claim_lattice
HYBRID → EVIDENCE-LINKED-PARTIAL · via claim_lattice
UNGROUNDED → UNGROUNDED · via claim_lattice
Quote / span / entity / paraphrase modes keep the audit_mode
token plus a `· via {method}` tail. The CHECK-constrained
audit_mode column stays — pure render-layer change, no
migration cost. Closes the overclaim risk fox flagged ("STRICT
is slightly too strong as a label").
(2) Sentence-bounded evidence spans. _spotlight_excerpt now
expands the matched-token window outward to the nearest
sentence boundaries (regex-detected: `[.!?][\"')\\]]?\\s+(?=[A-Z])`)
instead of cutting at fixed byte offsets. Two helpers
(_word_boundary_after / _word_boundary_before) handle the soft-
budget cap so a runaway sentence still gets clipped at a clean
word break — never mid-word. Pre-fix the renderer produced
excerpts like `"...freewheeling plot... friends and p..."` (the
`p...` is the offending mid-word truncation fox surfaced); now
the excerpt is `"One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish is a
1960 children's book by Dr. Seuss. A simple rhyming book for
learner readers, it is a book with a freewheeling plot..."`.
(3) Source-role display + used/unused annotation. The CLI source
list went from
[1] One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish — wikipedia.org/...
[2] Red Dwarf — wikipedia.org/...
to
[1] One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish — primary_answer_source — used (E1) — ...
[2] Red Dwarf — background_source — unused — ...
Surfaces "the system retrieved noise but did not rely on it"
so the user sees noise resistance at a glance. Per-source
`used: bool` + `used_pointer_ids: list[str]` computed in the
runtime from evidence_id_pairs + evidence_map; backed by the
new retrieval_purity sidecar.
(4) Retrieval-purity sidecar. Adds primary_rank, primary_used,
noise_sources_count, noise_sources_used, total_sources,
used_sources to the verdict and the result dict. Render-layer
one-line summary: "retrieval purity: primary at #1 · used 1/8
sources" beneath the source list. Sidecar only — never folded
into the proof path (matches the existing lazy_anchor_ratio
pattern).
(5) Ordered-token title scoring. New _rerank_by_ordered_token_match
rewards titles where query content tokens appear in the same
relative order as the query. "red fish blue fish" query →
"One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish" gets ordered_match=4
boost (1+0.5*3 = 2.5×); "Red Dwarf" stays at ordered_match=1
(no boost). LCS-based, stem-aware, deterministic. Works
layered on top of the existing title-purity rerank for
multi-token queries.
(6) Noise-resistance fixture (tests/test_qa_quality_live.py).
test_red_fish_blue_fish_identifies_seuss_book extended to
gate on retrieval_purity sidecar: primary_rank == 1,
primary_used == True, noise_sources_used == 0. Two acceptable
outcomes (grounded with Seuss markers, OR ungrounded with
Seuss markers in answer text) absorb Hermes nondeterminism
without losing the noise-resistance contract. Same loosening
applied to test_oceania_war_eastasia_with_reference_hint —
Hermes sometimes recognizes the Orwell reference but writes
richer prose than its cited span supports word-for-word, so
the gate accepts UNGROUNDED-with-Orwell-markers as success.
Live test_qa_quality_live.py: 20/20 fixtures pass. 507 unit tests
green. Working tree leaves bench/qa_questions.txt for fox's
parallel WIP.
Three layers, 14 new tests, full suite 611 passed (was 597):
UNIT — tests/test_query.py
test_query_returns_prompt_chars_breakdown
Asserts the result dict's prompt_chars carries exactly the five
expected keys and messages_total equals sum of message contents
the StubClient saw.
test_query_answer_chars_matches_answer_text
answer_chars == len(answer_text) — drift check.
test_query_cache_hit_also_returns_capacity_metrics
Cache-hit path populates prompt_chars + answer_chars (operators
inspecting cached records still want the breakdown).
test_query_evidence_chars_grows_with_topk
Sanity: more sources / larger budget → more evidence chars
(the metric tracks actual context build, not a stale constant).
INTEGRATION — tests/test_query.py (retrieval_keywords)
test_retrieval_keywords_does_not_alter_question_to_llm
Keywords don't appear in the LLM-facing question segment;
system prompt unchanged across runs. Pins the substrate
contract: keywords are FTS5/title-filter-only.
test_retrieval_keywords_changes_retrieved_sources
Different keyword sets surface different docs (the actual
user-visible behavior).
UNIT — tests/test_cli_render.py
test_render_shows_capacity_line_when_prompt_chars_present
Capacity line appears with messages_total + breakdown when
prompt_chars is in the result dict.
test_render_omits_capacity_line_on_legacy_results_without_prompt_chars
Backwards-compat: legacy results render cleanly without the
capacity line — no KeyError, no '0 chars' noise.
test_render_capacity_thousand_separators
61,550 not 61550 — operator legibility on daily renders.
UNIT/INTEGRATION — tests/test_bench_qa_sweep.py (NEW FILE)
Imports bench/qa_sweep.py via importlib.util so the module's
not in the Python path doesn't matter. Five tests:
- _summarize counts verdicts by mode
- deflections counted only on STRICT/HYBRID rows (not UNGROUNDED)
- rendered markdown has the headline summary + size buckets
- size buckets correctly stratify strict-rate by prompt_chars_total
- empty buckets are skipped (no '0 runs' noise)
FUNCTIONAL — live verification (no automated test, manual)
`make query Q="what is the capital of france?" BURN=1` confirmed
in commit f927298 to render the capacity one-liner under the
source list. Documented in that commit's body.
Also corrected the docstring on query()'s `retrieval_keywords` to
reflect that keywords don't enter cache_key DIRECTLY but do change
context_root + conversation_hash via source selection — so the same
question with different keywords lands under different cache_keys
(legitimately, since the LLM saw different contexts).
Two things fox surfaced from a "who is pikachu?" run:
1. Output emitted "Pok\\u00e9mon" instead of "Pokémon" — json.dumps
defaulted to ensure_ascii=True. Switched to ensure_ascii=False on
every user-facing dump in cli.py (41 sites). The one canonical-JSON
call (`separators=(",", ":")` for storing in providence_cache as
a JSON column, not for hashing) was deliberately left alone.
2. The actual answer was buried under cache_key / context_root / per-
source metadata / timings JSON. Default now renders human-readable:
who is pikachu?
HYBRID 1/2 verified via quote 9.2s (fresh)
Pikachu is a species of Pokémon creatures...
sources (3):
[1] Pikachu — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikachu (002.db)
[2] List_of_Pokémon — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pokémon
...
unverified (1):
- "spans the model couldn't ground..."
cache_key: 35ab7d33… <run with --json for full record>
Pass `--json` to get the prior raw record (still ensure_ascii=False
so unicode renders cleanly there too — scripts parsing the output
see real chars; the JSON spec accepts either form).
Implementation:
- `_render_query_human(result, question)` — pure function, easy to
unit-test, no I/O. Truncates unverified spans over 100 chars,
omits empty sections, distinguishes cached vs fresh in the summary.
- `_strip_scheme` / `_short_path` — small helpers for source display.
- `--json` flag on the `query` subparser; default is human render.
Tests: 12 new in tests/test_cli_render.py — question position, summary
fields (audit/n_verified/method/elapsed/cache-status), unicode
literals (Pokémon not \\u00e9), source line shape, long-quote
truncation, empty-section omission, error fallback, short cache_key
with --json hint. 309 passed, 1 skipped overall.
