fox's commit `bb6a89c` (2026-05-09, "30% reduction") deleted seven docs but the indexes weren't updated to remove the dangling references. End-of-session sweep caught + cleared: == Phantom refs in TICKETS.md "Distinction from other docs" == 5 dangling references to deleted docs: - concept-relations-design.md → deleted inbb6a89c- mesh-deploy.md → deleted inbb6a89c- self-reference-design.md → deleted inbb6a89c- verifier-semantic-gap-design.md → deleted inbb6a89c- qa-modes-bench-2026-04-30.md → deleted inbb6a89cReplaced with the high-value arch docs fox'sbb6a89ccommit message explicitly named as kept: - seven-point-program.md (north-star directive) - cti-architecture.md (kept) - mesh.md (mesh-deploy removed; mesh.md kept) - benchmarks.md (operational; kept per commit message) - bench-maxing.md (operational; kept) - qa-modes-bench.md (rolling addenda — distinct from the dated -2026-04-30 file that was deleted) - soft-hash-channel-analysis.md (#000018 closure) - soft-hash-channel-t3-bound.md (#000036 derivation) - tool-action-dag-design.md (already present; kept) == Phantom refs in CLAUDE.md `## Docs index` == 5 dangling references (one of them duplicated — fox typo'd self-reference-design.md on two consecutive lines with the same description): - mesh-deploy.md - qa-modes-bench-2026-04-30.md - bench-emergent-design.md - verifier-semantic-gap-design.md - self-reference-design.md (duplicate entry) Replaced with current arch docs: - mesh.md (mesh wire + group-key) - soft-hash-channel-analysis.md + soft-hash-channel-t3-bound.md - calculator-test-patterns.md (#000044 sister discipline) - spec-methodology.md (#000019) - v7w-frontier-catalog.md (#000013) - v8-fork-score.md (#000012) - pi-star-composition.md (#000015) == Inline ref in CLAUDE.md §"Retrieval pipeline" == L328 cited `docs/concept-relations-design.md` for the 1.6%-storage-tax rationale. Doc deleted; rationale now lives inline in `arborist/concepts/extract.py` + the data is self-describing. Updated the prose to note the deletion + where the design now lives. == Why this matters == A phantom doc reference is the doc-index equivalent of a stale phase descriptor — it sends future readers to a file that doesn't exist. Same root cause as today's §-status drift (in-progress prose freezing while load-bearing surface updates). Thebb6a89ccommit was thorough about deletion but didn't sweep the indexes; this commit closes that loop. Hygiene: doc-only commit, no schema, no tests touched. Full suite 2347 passed + 37 skipped earlier; 60 active AUTOCOUNT claims still clean (3 passed in 2.80s).
26 KiB
Agent Blackops — arborist
This repo is operated by agent blackops for fox/timehexon on the unsandbox / unturf / permacomputer platform.
Identity shard: ~/git/unsandbox.com/blackops/BLACKOPS.md.
What arborist is
A content-addressed, Merkle-committed document store. Implements the runtime spec from Merkle Providence Reverse RAG (April 2026 whitepaper) scaled up to the Merkle-AGI v9.8 admissibility ledger.
Three layers stacked on one SQLite file:
- Surface — ingested documents (Wikipedia dumps, HTML pages, anything with a URI). Chunked, Merkle-rooted, FTS5-indexed.
- Core — distilled documents Merkle-bound back to surfaces via
per-chunk inclusion proofs in
derivations.proof_blob. Recursive. - Providence cache — Q&A records keyed on the v9.8 8-dim
invariant. Each record carries
audit_mode(STRICT / HYBRID / UNGROUNDED) decided by the verifier inarborist/qa/verify.py. For claim-lattice modes the renderer maps that token to a four- rung ladder (POINTER-LINKED → ANCHOR-WARRANTED → EVIDENCE-WARRANTED; ENTAILMENT-VERIFIED reserved); UNGROUNDED below all rungs. The schema column stays unchanged — programmatic callers see the trichotomy, human-facing surfaces see the ladder. Seearborist/cli.py:_render_audit_label.
Source papers
~/git/unfirehose-nextjs-logger/whitepaper/merkle-providence-reverse-rag-whitepaper.rst— canonical whitepaper (rst → PDF). Edit here, not the PDF.~/Downloads/merkle-agi-dag_v7.txt— formal substrate (TLV encoding A1, public quantization A2, collision-resistant hash A3, theorems T1–T5).~/git/proxy.unturf.com/pkg/verified/merkle.go— fox's existing Go merkle. Arborist Python ports its conventions exactly.~/git/proxy.unturf.com/docs/merkle-tree.md— convention reference.
Architecture
arborist/
├── merkle.py # Python port of proxy.unturf.com Go conventions
├── store.py # v9.8 SQLite schema, audit-chain helpers
├── document.py # Document, Edge, Chunker (TokenChunker default)
├── source.py # Source ABC: iter_documents()
├── ingest.py # batched normalize → chunk → merkle → upsert
├── evict.py # hot↔cold + rehydrate (v9.8 falsification on drift)
├── compress.py # chunk pack/unpack (zstd dictionary trained on corpus)
├── snapshot.py # snapshot.db creation + load
├── journal.py # NDJSON unfirehose journal sink
├── wikitext.py # to_base(): wikitext → plain prose (BASE_VERSION-pinned)
├── search/ # SearchBackend ABC + AuditMode + FTS5
├── sources/ # one file per corpus (wikipedia, html_page,
│ # claim_pack, textbook_tex, grok, vcs, …)
├── distill/ # surface → core distillation (tfidf, first_sentence)
├── qa/ # Q&A: 8-dim cache_key + Merkle-bound answers
│ ├── client.py # ChatClient + StubClient + OpenAICompat
│ ├── keys.py # cache_key, question_hash (pure functions)
│ ├── verify.py # layered verifier + claim-lattice verifiers (G0)
│ ├── evidence.py # EvidenceObject + spotlight excerpt
│ ├── inspect.py # read-only sidecars (deflection, title-relevance)
│ ├── dag.py # per-run Merkle-DAG (7/8 quote · 9/10 CTI · 3 reject)
│ ├── quantifier.py # broad-quantifier classifier (#000008 P1)
│ ├── model_profiles.py # per-model claim-cap profiles (#000008 P2)
│ ├── quantifier_reminder.py # broad-query reminder text (#000008 P3)
│ ├── canonical_cache.py # canonical-projection persistence (#000027)
│ ├── witness.py # multi-witness fan-out (#000028)
│ ├── warrant_resolver.py # claim-pack warrant chain resolution (#000031)
│ └── runner.py # ask(): cache → infer → verify → write
├── concepts/ # corpus-derived synonym + rivalry layer (#000018 sib.)
├── pi_star/ # canonical projection π* registry (#000015)
│ # arithmetic@v1, logic-kernel@v1, algebra-symbolic@v1, …
├── memory/ # MemoryRoot lifelong-learning audit chain (#000017)
├── selfmodel/ # SelfModel snapshot + falsify (#000014)
├── capital/ # 8-form capital ledger (#000020)
├── substrate/ # Merkle-AGI substrate primitives (paper-spec'd)
│ ├── anchor_prg.py # φ_PRG HMAC-SHA-512 (v7 §9.10; #000035)
│ ├── fork_score.py # ScoredFork decision fn (v8; #000012 P1a)
│ └── weights.py # ForkScore weight set
├── world/ # v7-W spatial-temporal substrate reservation (#000013;
│ # namespace stub; future kernels under world/pi_star/,
│ # world/frontier/, world/adapters/)
├── mesh/ # mesh wire format + group-key state machine
└── cli.py # ingest / search / verify / stats / distill /
# evict / rehydrate / ask / providence / emergent /
# reclassify / inspect / analyze / canon / sweep /
# warrant-resolve / alias / capital / selfmodel
Dir naming convention. Topic-named, never version-prefixed. The
substrate-paper version (v7 plastic-training, v8 selection/consensus,
v9 falsification controller, …) and the live SQLite schema version
(v9.8) are two unrelated numbering schemes that share decimals;
version-prefixed dirs (arborist/v7/, arborist/v8/) were tried
2026-05-10 and retired the same day because readers asked "is this
schema-v7 or paper-v7?". Substrate-paper-spec'd primitives now live
under arborist/substrate/; topic dirs (capital/, memory/,
selfmodel/, concepts/, pi_star/) hold cross-version
mechanisms.
Build, test, run
Every workflow is a make target. Bare python is not the user
interface. See the Makefile for the full list.
make bootstrap # venv + editable install with [dev] extras
make test # pytest -q
make all # bootstrap + fetch-cur + ingest-cur + verify + stats
make verify-shards # round-trip Merkle proofs (cross-shard sample)
make analyze-shards # cross-shard compression + audit integrity
make chain-check-shards # audit-chain break count per shard (0 = intact)
make query Q="..." [JSON=1 BURN=1 K="extra retrieval keywords" ANSWER_MODE=…]
make bench-qa # QA-quality sweep (live LLM)
# Textbook surface-ingest layer (#000031 — PD/open-licensed
# math/logic/CS textbooks for warrant promotion):
make textbooks-summary # license + URL counts per manifest entry
make crawl-textbooks # BFS-crawl every entry with crawl_url
# → ~/.arborist/crawl/textbook_<id>.db
make textbooks-tex # PG LaTeX-source ingest (Hilbert, Boole)
make textbook ID=<id> # ingest one textbook by manifest id
# (idempotent at DB layer)
make textbooks-base-knowledge # bulk: Cantor + De Morgan + Russell
# IMP + Judson (the four 2026-05-09
# base-knowledge additions)
# Per-textbook convenience targets (one per active manifest id):
make textbook-bogart textbook-keller-trotter textbook-levin
make textbook-aristotle-prior textbook-aristotle-posterior
make textbook-newton textbook-morin
make textbook-judson textbook-cantor textbook-demorgan
make textbook-russell-imp textbook-russell-pom
make textbook-laplace textbook-pm textbook-grinstead-snell
make textbook-hilbert textbook-boole textbook-peano textbook-dedekind
make textbook-plfa textbook-sf-lf
# Claim-pack warrant-chain resolver (#000031 Phase 2 + 2.5):
make sweep TARGET=warrants # warrant-resolve --use-aliases --write
arborist warrant-resolve --use-aliases --write
# → 92 / 92 (100%) coverage as of 2026-05-10:
# 18 textbook substrates + 74 fox-decided
# citation-aliases + 13 term-aliases.
# (alias counts grow as fox adds substitutions
# — `arborist alias citation list | jq length`
# for live count). Per-pillar 13/13 · 10/10 ·
# 13/13 · 18/18 · 5/5 · 5/5 · 14/14 · 14/14.
arborist alias citation list # see substitutions
arborist alias term list # see vocabulary aliases
Hygiene after any state-changing op (rebuild, reclassify, hash
bump, mass falsify): make chain-check-shards first (every shard
should report 0), then make analyze-shards for the spectrum +
chain audit. Chain breaks are the loudest possible signal.
Schema invariants (do not break)
- v9.8 8-dim cache_key:
source_root | question_hash | model_profile_hash | conversation_hash | governance_policy_hash | schema_version | canonicalization_version | chunking_version. Bumping any one invalidates prior records on lookup. falsification_state ∈ {live, failed, stale, quarantined}. Cache lookups filter onstate='live'. Drift →stale.- Audit chain: every state-changing op writes one row in
audit_eventswithevent_hash = sha256(prev || canonical(body)). Verified bymake chain-check-shards. Usearborist.store.append_audit— never insert intoaudit_eventsdirectly. - Cores never evict.
evict_to_coldonly toucheskind='surface'. - Idempotent re-ingest. Same content → same
document_root→ no-op insert. Same URI + different content → new doc +supersedesedge (lossless history).
Conventions (do not silently change)
Each rule below has full rationale in the named source file. Don't revert without reading why. When in doubt, walk the Five-step algorithm first.
- Merkle conventions: non-commutative
HashCombineprefix0x03, leaves0x00, odd-element rule = self-duplicate (NOT zero-pad).MerkleProof.siblingscarriesis_leftflag — never sort lexically. Seearborist/merkle.py. - Versioned defaults:
tok-512-v1(chunker),norm-v1(canonicalization),v9.8.0(schema),wikitext-base-v1(prose). Changing any default stales every prior cache record. Add a newnameinstead. question_hashis dedup-mode-aware (strict|equivalence_class); folds intogovernance_policy_hash. JITfidelityparameter onquery()/ask()decouples lookup tolerance from write policy. Seearborist/qa/keys.py.audit_modeis decided by the verifier, never asserted. Four layered strategies tried in order, first to find evidence classifies: quote (sequential pair-matching, NOT regex — prevents phantom inter-pair captures), span (verbatim line match), entity (proximity-clustered proper nouns;entity_policy ∈ {strict, hybrid, drop, proximity}), paraphrase (token-coverage, prose-shaped only;verifier_method='paraphrase'). Trichotomy: STRICT = every unit verifies, HYBRID = mixed, UNGROUNDED = none. Never overclaim. Seearborist/qa/verify.py.- Verifier stays binary; falsifications carry soft signal. No
per-quote diagnosis fields on hard verifier output. Sidecars
(
arborist.qa.inspect.diagnose_*,arborist inspect --cache-key X) classify unverified spans, deflection, title-relevance — never write toprovidence_cacheoraudit_events. - Trailing-citation strip:
_strip_trailing_citationpeels one trailing parenthetical at end-of-span (gated on a citation cue or URL) before substring testing. Seearborist/qa/verify.py. - Soft hash vs hard hash: hard = SHA-256 (commitments, proofs, cache_key); soft = embeddings/TF-IDF/similarity (training, ranking, distillation). Soft never enters proof path.
- Three answer modes:
policy["answer_mode"] ∈ {"quote", "claim_lattice_pointer", "claim_lattice"}, default"quote". Bench 2026-05-02T15:07Z on Hermes-3-8B (post-Sprint-1b/2, n=3 × 71 questions, sample-shuffled @ c=4): quote 0.54 strict-rate, pointer 0.20, JSON 0.42. Quote leads on raw lexical grounding; JSON leads among lattice modes. Per-mode peak buckets: quote 8-16KB (0.58), pointer 16-32KB (0.20), JSON 32-64KB (0.48) — these drivemax_context_chars_by_mode. 99% directive coverage (D2/D3/D4/D6/D7) on lattice modes. Both lattice modes shareverifier_method="claim_lattice";answer_modeon the run-DAGjson_fixupsdisambiguate. Each mode folds intogovernance_policy_hash. Seearborist/qa/verify.py,docs/qa-modes-bench.md.
- Four-rung ladder (lattice-mode display layer): POINTER-LINKED
→ ANCHOR-WARRANTED → EVIDENCE-WARRANTED → (ENTAILMENT-VERIFIED
reserved); UNGROUNDED below. Each rung names a strictly stronger
property the lexical verifier could confirm. WARRANT_MISSING drops
to POINTER-LINKED; soft-demote violations (LAZY_ANCHOR_DEMOTED,
POINTER_OVERFLOW_TRIMMED, TOO_MANY_CLAIMS, BARE_NAME_CLAIM,
TITLE_MISMATCH) cap at ANCHOR-WARRANTED. Quote / span / entity /
paraphrase modes keep their original audit_mode tokens (those
verify against pinned spans, not synthesis). Pure render-layer —
cache_key, governance_policy_hash, & all programmatic callers see
the underlying audit_mode unchanged. See
arborist/cli.py:_render_audit_label. - Claim-lattice-pointer mode (G0 / CTI): runtime mints
pointer_id(E1, E2, … — what the model sees) and content-addressedevidence_id(what the cache & run-DAG store). Renderer interpolates literal source spans via_spotlight_excerpt. Synthetic-elision-by- construction-impossible — model never types the quote string. 9-stage run-DAG. Seearborist/qa/evidence.py,docs/cti-architecture.md. - Claim-count ceiling (
TOO_MANY_CLAIMS): default 12 per answer. Catches "tell me all there is to know about X" runaway. Demotes STRICT → HYBRID without truncating. Folds intogovernance_policy_hash. Seearborist/qa/verify.py. - Broad-quantifier preflight guard (Ticket #000008): pure lexical
classifier (
arborist/qa/quantifier.py) maps a question onto a 10-rung intensity ladder (ABSENT → SINGULAR → … → ALL → COMPREHENSIVE). Per-modelarborist/qa/model_profiles.pyPROFILES dict picks a per-call claim-cap from the (intensity, model) pair;arborist/qa/quantifier_reminder.pysynthesizes a one-line user-turn reminder for broad questions. Six-level disable hierarchy (per-test, per-call CLI, per-phase policy, per-mode, per-model, master-via-governance-hash). 7 policy fields fold intogovernance_policy_hashso flipping any of them invalidates prior records. Defaults preserve dry-run discipline:quantifier_guard_apply_caps=False,quantifier_reminder_enabled=False,quantifier_reject_broad=False. CLI flags onarborist query:--no-quantifier-guard,--allow-broad,--reject-broad,--apply-quantifier-caps. Bench A/B (2026-05-03, n=3 × 9 broad questions × 3 modes): reminder default-on supported (FORMAT_COLLAPSED −100%, NO_EVIDENCE_POINTER −33%, JSON UNGROUNDED −22pp); cap default-on for JSON only (+14pp STRICT-rate, no gain on pointer); cap+reminder best on pointer mean ratio (0.684) but not strictly best on JSON STRICT-rate. Seedocs/tickets/ticket-000008-broad-quantifier-preflight-guard.md§12 for the four-cell A/B data. - Wikitext base prose:
arborist/wikitext.py:to_base()runs before the LLM call AND insideverify_quotesso model and verifier see the same prose. Optional dep — graceful fallback whenmwparserfromhellis missing. - Deflection sidecar:
diagnose_deflection(question, answer)detects topic-shift via subject-anchor heuristic (LAST content token in question must appear in answer). Suppressed for date / count / cause shapes ("when", "why", "how many"). Seearborist/qa/inspect.py. - Title-relevance hard check (Rule 8):
_claim_title_overlapinarborist/qa/verify.py. For each claim that resolved, at least one cited evidence's source title must share ≥1 stemmed content token with the claim text. When NO cited title overlaps, record aTITLE_MISMATCHviolation & demoteSTRICT → HYBRID. Catches retrieval-driven hallucinations where the cited chunk's SOURCE is structurally unrelated to the claim's subject (2026-05-02 spin-glass case: claim about spin glass cited to a chunk from Quantum chromodynamics; span had incidental physics-vocab overlap, but the source title shared zero stems with the claim). Renderer surfaces a· title mismatchtail on the audit-line label alongside· warrant missing. - Title-relevance sidecar (legacy diagnostic):
diagnose_title_relevance(claim, cited_titles)inarborist.qa.inspectreturns the same signal in dict form for per-cache-key inspection. Sidecar; never enters proof path. Pre-dates the Rule 8 promotion (2026-05-02).
Live endpoints
- LLM:
https://hermes.ai.unturf.com/v1(Hermes-3 Llama-3.1-8B-FP8- Dynamic on vLLM, 82K ctx, no auth).uncloseai.comis marketing only. Override via--endpointorARBORIST_LLM_ENDPOINT. - Wikipedia dumps:
https://dumps.wikimedia.org/archive/2003/2003-05-16/en/.robots.txtreturned 404 → no rules.
Retrieval pipeline (arborist/qa/query.py)
Multi-stage. Each stage exists because something earlier wasn't enough; revert at your peril. Order:
- Four parallel FTS5 search routes per shard, merged — body BM25, title-LIKE, core-keyword (TF-IDF cores), and phrase-pattern (verbatim n=5/n=6 sequences from the question). Phrase route closes the allusion gap (Orwell case: "always been at war" verbatim matches the 1984 article whose title shares zero tokens with the query).
- Body-coverage
sqrtrerank — counters BM25's short-doc bias. - Title-token boost —
boost × overlapon title-token-matching hits. _filter_by_title_relevance— four accept paths: title-token overlap, TF-IDF core match, body density, phrase match (accept-path 4 lets phrase-route hits with no title overlap survive).- Rivalry exclusion + synonym expansion (
arborist/concepts/) — Intel-titled docs drop from AMD queries; reverse holds. Backed by the per-shardconcept_relationsSQLite table (corpus-derived, not hand-curated). 1.6% storage tax measured at backfill on 6 GB wiki — kept flat, no further compaction. (Storage choice rationale lived indocs/concept-relations-design.mdprior to its deletion inbb6a89c— the design is now documented inline inarborist/concepts/extract.py+ the data is self-describing.) - Stem-aware token matching — possessive / plural collapse
(
superman's → supermans → superman). - Per-source context cap —
max_context_chars / top_k. Prevents one huge doc from monopolizing the budget. - Wikitext base prose runs on assembled context BEFORE the LLM.
- Template-phrase stopwords (
_FTS5_STOPWORDSand_TITLE_STOPWORDSmust stay in sync) — stripstell show describe explain summarize say give list find make please all there know everything anything somethingso "tell me all there is to know about X" doesn't dilute query tokens.
--retrieval-keywords (CLI: K="...") lets an operator augment
retrieval-side tokens without changing what the LLM sees as its
question. Provenance gap on this is tracked in
Ticket #000001.
Hot path / gotchas
- Hand-rolled wikitext parser (
arborist/sources/wikipedia.py): char-position state machine, escape-aware, 4× faster than char- by-char loops viastr.find+ slicing. cProfile any change. PRAGMA synchronous=NORMALper-connection instore.connect(). Safe under WAL. Don't downgrade without measured reason (~5× cost).- HTML source has optional deps:
pip install '.[html]'forselectolax. CLI surfaces--source htmlonly if import succeeds. - Background ingest/distill processes: stdout is buffered. Use
export PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1orpython -u. - Disk pressure: full cur ~2 GB; full old ~5–8 GB.
df -hfirst.
Operational rules
- I propose, fox decides. Unsure = ask. Can't ask = stop.
- Never offer "stop here / take a break / fresh eyes tomorrow" as a next-action option. Fox keeps going. When proposing options at a decision point, list the actual moves (high-payoff vs low-risk cleanup, etc.); don't pad the menu with a no-op "we're done for today" choice. If a task is genuinely complete, say so flat — don't dress it up as a third option.
- No autonomous destructive ops (
clean-data,clean-db, force-push, DB drops) without explicit instruction. - Never add
Co-Authored-Byor "Generated with Claude" lines to commits. Code speaks for itself. - Python only in arborist. No Rust, C, JS, or other languages
inside this repo. arborist is the source-of-truth implementation;
forks and downstream clients/servers in any language follow our
schemas, canonical encodings, and audit protocols. Optional
toolchains for ZK/world-model/etc. live in sibling repos
(
arborist-zk-bench,arborist-world, etc.) so a fresh checkout needs onlypython3.12 + venv + sqlite3. - Always
export PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1for long-running processes. - AUTOCOUNT discipline on numeric claims in
docs/. Any numeric claim added to a doc (test count, fixture-row count, SQLite row count, filtered-row count) should be wrapped in an AUTOCOUNT tag at write time so future drift fires the regression test. Format:<!--AUTOCOUNT:metric:path-->N<!--/AUTOCOUNT-->wheremetricis one oftests/fixture-rows/db-rows/db-where. Tags are invisible in rendered markdown (GitHub strips HTML comments). Tags inside```fenced code blocks are auto-skipped (illustrative examples, not live claims). Closed-ticket "N tests pass" snapshots stay UNtagged (they're point-in-time historical records). Full discipline + 4-metric reference + future-metric recipe indocs/tickets/ticket-000044-autocount-doc-drift-discipline.md; harness attests/test_doc_counts.py. - Fail-closed. Cleanup crew, not demolition.
- DRY in context — single source of truth, no sprawl.
- Never say "AI" — always say "machine learning."
- Prefer "defect" over "bug."
- Check
robots.txtbefore any web fetch the user didn't authorize.
Five-step algorithm
When proposing or evaluating change, walk these in sequence. Skipping a step makes the next ones expensive and the system worse.
- Make the requirements less dumb. Every requirement gets a person's name, not a department. If you can't name who asked or which defect closed, the requirement is suspect.
- Delete the part or the process. If you aren't putting back at least 10% of what you delete, you aren't deleting hard enough. Verifier-stays-binary and "no soft signals in hard chain" are deletion-first guardrails.
- Simplify and optimize. Only after 1 + 2. Don't optimize a process that shouldn't exist.
- Accelerate cycle time. Only after simplifying. "Don't dig the grave faster."
- Automate. Last, not first. Hand-rolled before scripted, scripted before declarative, declarative before generated.
When in doubt, ask "have we tried deleting it?" before reaching for steps 3-5.
Bench-maxing — measure deltas, not opinions
Full discipline + worked examples in docs/bench-maxing.md. Headlines:
- Bench before AND after every change (n=3, signal under 5pp is noise).
- Avoid negation in prompts (Hermes-3-8B inverts under attention).
- Bench is the scoreboard; live fixtures are the gates.
- Self-heal beats retry (preserve partial output, never fabricate).
- Honest verdicts beat optimistic ones (false-positive STRICT is corruption).
- Old maps vs runtime maps — when the model and runtime disagree, the runtime wins. Pointer IDs, runtime-interpolated spans, evidence maps, policy hashes, hard verifier checks all move authority OUT of the model's prior and INTO runtime artifacts.
Docs index
North-star:
docs/seven-point-program.md— the architectural directive distilled 2026-05-01. Every new ticket / feature / prompt edit walks past this. Bench harness reports per-mode directive coverage.docs/warrant-substrate-cookbook.md— per-pillar map of the 18 open-licensed textbook substrates that back every claim-pack record. Ingest patterns (HTML / textbook_tex / PDF→localhost), alias discipline, cascade tuning, honest tier breakdown. Read first when extending substrate coverage.
Architecture / ongoing work:
docs/cti-architecture.md— CTI Clause Tree Intelligence.docs/mesh.md— mesh wire format + group-key state machine.docs/benchmarks.md— orientation: harnesses, fixtures, signal floor, make targets, bench-row schema, addenda index. Read first when running a bench.docs/qa-modes-bench.md— bench journal (rolling addenda). Headlines + cross-references to per-ticket bench data.docs/bench-maxing.md— bench discipline (5pp signal floor etc).docs/soft-hash-channel-analysis.md— #000018 closure; analysis of soft-hash covert channel risks under M0/M1/M2 threat models.docs/soft-hash-channel-t3-bound.md— #000036 closed-form per-window budget bound; pairs with t3_bound_calculator.docs/calculator-test-patterns.md— sister discipline for testing calculator-style code (12 patterns; see #000044 for numeric drift discipline).docs/spec-methodology.md— #000019 specification methodology for π* canonical projections.docs/v7w-frontier-catalog.md— #000013 v7-W spatial-temporal frontier catalog (4 ε-frontiers).docs/v8-fork-score.md— #000012 ForkScore Phase 1a reference.docs/pi-star-composition.md— π* cross-domain composition reference (#000015 deliverable).
Tickets: docs/TICKETS.md is the authoritative index with Next ID. Closed tickets stay in place as the design log. New tickets
bump Next ID atomically. Close tickets when the work lands —
flip Status to closed · landed in commit <sha> (or
closed · YYYY-MM-DD) in the ticket file AND in the index row, in
the same commit as the implementation. An open ticket whose code
already shipped is a stale map.
Orientation protocol
date -u
pwd
git log --oneline -5
git status
make test
make chain-check-shards # 0 per shard = intact
.venv/bin/arborist --shards-dir ~/.arborist/shards stats
.venv/bin/arborist --shards-dir ~/.arborist/shards analyze --gravity-top 5
Then ask fox what the mission is.