The whitehead incident (2026-10-09): glm-5.3 emitted quiz type with
quotes baked in ('"predict"') — rejected ten times, byte-identical
retries, the lesson never started — and correctAnswer with the JSON
key-value colon glued on ([':parmenides']). Third GLM wobble incident,
and each prior heal was wired only where its incident landed; this one
landed precisely where the practice heal never reached.
Layer 1 — healEncodedArguments moves to core/argument-heal (the display
seam needs it too — the tool-parts law) with withArgumentHeal +
healToolRecord (agent/tools/heal) wired at EVERY registry: prober,
teacher, practice, bareQuestionTools (it had no prepareArguments at
all), demo-builder, and submit-agent (composing after
healStringifiedArrays; the auditor's extraTools wrapped).
Layer 2 — stripModelValueDebris (core/value-debris): leading/trailing
colons, quotes, backticks, whitespace strip at the MEMBERSHIP seams —
coerceCorrectAnswer (boundary check + display + grading in one),
normalizeQuizType (persisted wobbled records keep their role),
resolveTargetId (copy-syntax on targets).
Layer 3 — schema description hygiene: the quiz type and practice
mode/outcome/rung/missClass values now read as bare words — the quoted
JSON-key style invited quote-copying.
Display mirror — parseQuizInput heals the raw record on read, so a
boundary-healed quiz whose record keeps raw args renders instead of
becoming an invisible pending quiz (learner lockout).
Pins: tests/tool-heal.test.ts (the incident shapes end-to-end through
pi-ai validation, the wiring, the strips, the mirror). The stringy-
options pins flip to boundary-parity per tool-parts' own law; the
chat-flow garbage pin keeps its honest-reject intent with an unhealable
shape. 1471 tests, typecheck, lint green.
Owner ruling 2026-10-04: the module is a sunk cost, retrievable from
history if ever revisited. Removed: core practice contracts + pipeline
helpers, the PracticeStore port + adapter + data dir path, server
service + API routes (sets, clusters picker, practice aborts), the
practice pages + dialog/exam/list UI, chain-table's Generate handoff,
sidebar nav, activity-dock practice rows, and the partitioner/
problemGenerator/grader model roles (BACKGROUND_MODEL_ROLES 8 → 5).
Survivors, moved to core/chains.ts (pure + browser-safe): ReasoningChain,
chainsForSelection, formatChainLine — the chain table and graph
emission still consume them.
Authoring refinements (quizInputProblems, nodeId checks, ask/explain
refinements, submit-agent pipeline laws) now return invalidInputResult —
same model-facing failure and retry semantics pi minted from the throw,
but details keeps {tool, problems} as data instead of the throw path's
empty {}. ToolInputError deleted; wire shape unchanged (verified against
pi's own thrown-error conversion in agent-loop).
Owner live-test verdict on the spine (2026-09-30): no perceptible gain —
the real problems (restatement nodes, shallow re-derivations, same
conclusion from many angles) are mint-time issues a post-hoc chain
minter cannot fix. This arc moves assembly INTO the extractor and adds
the deterministic dedupe the owner specified:
- Digest-aware extraction: each stretch's extractor prompt carries THE
GRAPH SO FAR (its own source's merged propositions + chains, ids
verbatim); build on existing ids instead of restating, lean on
established conclusions as premises. Mixed-namespace chain endpoints
(fresh p-ids OR existing n_-ids) validated at the submit seam.
- Serialized per source: a source's batches/chunks run strictly in
order (each extract reads every earlier merge); cross-source runs
stay parallel; source-wide abort stops the loop. The spine stage,
role, phase, usage stage, cost row, and setup roster are gone.
- Core-ideas prompt: goal reframed as uncovering core ideas and showing
how everything derives from the foundations; direction upward, prefer
lean derivations, never re-derive what the graph already holds.
- Chain simplification (merger maintenance): simplifyChains drops
provably redundant chains at every merge — prefer-fewest-premises +
ancestry-cover ([A,B]⟹X with [X,C]⟹Y covers [A,B,C]⟹Y, transitive);
same-key provenance lines drop together; rewriteLedgers under the
audit lock; droppedChains counted separately in stats.
Chunk budget stays 8192 (owner: keep for now, maybe lower later).
Per-batch pipeline is now extract → spine → audit → merge (owner order,
2026-09-30), the spine inside the serialized audit section so it reads
the graph exactly as the following audit will. Measured motive: 0 of 133
chains in the live corpus crossed a stretch boundary — no stage minted
cross-stretch chains.
- src/agent/subagents/spine.ts: SESSION/NOTES spine preambles + shared
SPINE_CORE (span doctrine; extraction doctrines carried over), the
submit_spine TypeBox schema, validateSpine (mechanical span law: every
chain touches >=1 fresh endpoint AND >=1 existing digest endpoint;
unknown ids, self-reference, and id collisions are loud), the digest
prompt builder, and the runner (strong tier, retry-only).
- extraction.ts: 'assembling' phase, spine stage in the per-need gate,
usage/billing stage, assemble() inside withAuditLock for both front
doors; first stretch of a source skips the call (empty digest, no
spend); the audit sees COMBINED propositions (chunk + connectives),
never chains; merger receives the combined findings.
- core/graph.ts mergeFindings: chain endpoints resolve through the
job-local map OR pass through verbatim as existing n_ ids (the spine's
mixed namespace).
- EXTRACTION_CORE: steps-of-reasoning selection bar (examples, notation
glosses, and restatements that no argument needs are not steps).
- Factory chunk budget 4096 -> 8192 (fewer seams, more local context).
- healStringifiedArrays moved to the shared submit seam (submit-agent.ts).
- Cost panel: Assembly row; usage records carry a spine stage (optional
on legacy records).
- Tests +5: prompt pins, span-law matrix, digest rendering, seeded
end-to-end flow (spanning chain + connective, verbatim n_ endpoint,
spine billed as its own stage), non-spanning refused + retried.
src/agent/subagents/practice.ts: createPracticeAgents(deps) with the
ExtractionModels mirror (per-stage engine overrides + engineFor +
providerKeyMissing + refuseIfStagesUnready, all three roles strong-tier).
Generator doctrine = the owner's problem-engineering framework verbatim
(minus Sources) + Part III wiring section per the green-lit amendments
(FULL SET input with minimal-use doctrine; degradation never in
meta-commentary). Partitioner: true-partition doctrine, validate via
chainCoverage + exactly-once + unknown-ids, error-back retries through
runSubmitAgent's new validate hook (ToolInputError → error tool result).
Generator: echo law (chains set === target). Grader: verdict union +
nonempty feedback (schema-enforced). renderChains/renderPropositions/
renderParams/renderPreviousProblems. BACKGROUND_MODEL_ROLES extended with
the practice trio (settings override symmetry). runSubmitAgent gains the
validate seam (null = accept). 16-test faux-engine suite incl. retry
paths, refusal gates, neverSubmitted.
runSubmitAgent moved verbatim from extraction.ts to src/agent/subagents/
submit-agent.ts (exported; extraction imports it — zero behavior change,
extraction suites green untouched). New optional prepareArguments seam:
extraction wires its healStringifiedArrays heal; default is identity
pass-through. ModelRole += partitioner | problemGenerator | grader;
ROLE_SLOT pins all three to strong (quality-critical trio, plan default).
Note: BACKGROUND_MODEL_ROLES (per-role settings overrides) deliberately
NOT extended — settings-surface decision, flagged for the planning
session.
amosblomqvist