Every packages/*/* README now carries a canonical '## Known Limitations and
Deferred Work' section: condensed, evidence-backed bullets for consumer-visible
gaps (unimplemented features, platform caveats, MVP cuts) and consciously
postponed work (TODO/FIXME/XXX markers, RFC deferrals still open). The ten
pre-existing ad-hoc variants ('What is NOT here (TODO)', 'Deferred',
'Limitations (MVP)', 'Known limitations (tracked TODOs)', ...) are normalized
into the canonical heading.
A new doc-sync gate, scripts/verify-readme-limitations.ts, enforces the shape:
exactly one limitations-like heading per package README, byte-equal to the
canonical h2, with at least one bullet; near-miss headings fail so variants
cannot creep back. Packages with genuinely nothing to declare (dsh-brand,
dsh-timeout, dsh-subagent-mock, dsh-app-boot) are whitelisted in the script and
must NOT carry the section; whitelist entries are validated against the scanned
package set so a rename fails loud.
Wired into the doc-sync chain (package.json) and the run-gates doc-sync leaf
set; the standing rule lands in packages/AGENTS.md and the adding-a-package
cookbook; decision record in
docs/rfc/implemented/process/2026-07-10-readme-known-limitations-gate.md
(RFC index regenerated).
Also fixes two stale '(deferred)' markers claiming dsh-compact-basic is
unimplemented (the dsh-compact seam README's package table and the seam's
module doc comment).
Live failure: deepseek-v4-flash answered a greeting entirely in the
reasoning channel — no text block, no tool calls. The serializer's
null-content fallback produced an assistant message with neither
content nor tool_calls, which the API 400s ('Invalid assistant message:
content or tool_calls must be set'). Because that message sits durably
in the session log, every later turn of the session re-derived the same
history and failed identically — one all-reasoning response bricked the
session permanently (log: turns 2 and 3 failing byte-identically).
content is now always the flattened text ('' when there is none); the
passback rule still keeps reasoning_content off plain turns. The old
null shape was pinned by a test whose comment claimed the wire accepts
it — live-falsified, updated together with the code, plus a regression
test for the reasoning-only shape. Existing bricked logs resume cleanly
under the fix (the poisoned message now serializes as '').
Review discussion converged on the industry shape (Claude Code caches
user context per conversation; Codex separates initial context from
diffs; Kimi appends at continuation boundaries to protect prompt
caching): stable openers belong in a compose-once prefix, mid-session
changes belong in append-only history — not in a per-request slot.
agent/session-prefix fires ONCE per loop instance, lazily on its first
request-building step: the composed Message[] is deep-frozen, cached on
the transmission bookkeeping, recorded as EpochHeader.messagePrefix on
the anchoring 'initial'/'resume' snapshot, and reused verbatim for
every request the instance sends — prefix stability is structural, not
a producer discipline, and a resume recomposes with attributable drift.
The request is messagePrefix + boundary snapshot.
The per-step RequestAdvice/RequestAdviceContext surface and the
messageSuffix header field are dropped: the tail slot had no consumer,
and every current update pattern (new AGENTS.md discovered, memory
update, skills change) routes through the existing append-only history
channels — inject(), tools/post-execute additionalContext,
prompt-submit additionalContext — each paid once and prefix-cached
thereafter. The messagePrefix delta arm stays for codec totality; the
loop never produces one in practice.
A new waterfall near request construction lets plugins contribute
request-ONLY messages framing the derived history: RequestMessages
{ before, after } with a frozen empty seed, fired inside the open step
after the agent/request config waterfall, so the step/start boundary
snapshot and its same-sync-frame invariant are untouched. The request
becomes messagePrefix + boundary snapshot + messageSuffix.
Contributions never enter session history — deriveMessages() is
unchanged — so the request header is their durable record:
EpochHeader gains messagePrefix/messageSuffix (canonical absence for
empty arrays), request/header-delta replaces either array whole with
an empty array encoding the transition back to absence, and the
dev-mode reconstruction cross-check now expects the folded header's
framing around the boundary derivation.
This is the seam for per-request advisory context that must be
model-visible now without becoming durable history (a skills catalog,
an environment reminder), keeping the base system prompt
workspace-independent and provider prefix caches stable. The docs
carry the channel cost model: session-frozen content belongs in
before, low-frequency change notices belong in durable history via
inject() (paid once, prefix-cached thereafter), and after is reserved
for small frequently-refreshed state snapshots re-paid on every
request they ride. No shipped producer yet, so ACP snapshot fixtures
are byte-identical.
New doc-sync gate verify-export-jsdoc walks every module-level exported
name under packages/*/*/src and requires description prose everywhere,
plus @param per parameter and @returns on non-void annotated returns for
function-like exports, public class methods, properties, and accessors.
The parsing + check helpers move out of gen-cordis-catalog.ts into a
shared scripts/jsdoc.ts so 'documented' means one thing on both gated
surfaces.
Deliberate exemptions (documented in the RFC): heritage-declared class
members (the seam declaration is the doc's one home — the one checker
query in an otherwise pure-AST walk), cordis plugin-protocol slots
(name/inject/reusable/Config/apply, top-level and static), constructors,
overload implementations, declare-module augmentation bodies, and
re-export statements (checked at the defining module).
The 203 under-documented exports the gate found at adoption are filled
in this change, so the gate lands green; generated catalogs/graphs are
regenerated for the shifted line pointers.
RFC: docs/rfc/implemented/process/2026-07-06-export-surface-jsdoc-gate.md
The reconstructability RFC is the principle's home: model-visible ⟺
logged in both forms, the mechanism (boundary derivation + header
fold), the enforcement (write-time round-trip guard, the dev
invariant), the corollaries ranked (prefix-cache stability first), the
MiniCode lineage with the provenance arrow inverted, and the
alternatives it beat — including the stateful transmission client
whose three-design archaeology lives in PR #162.
Placements per the one-home-per-fact taxonomy: a standing-order line in
root AGENTS.md (with displacement trims to stay inside the 1,575-word
ceiling), the principle statement in architecture.md § Session Log and
its Turn Flow lines (condensed to the ratcheted 1,630 ceiling), the
request-envelope section in core-data-structures/core.md with the
LlmCallConfig paste, both review-requested FIXMEs
(FIXME(call-config-shape) beside the type, FIXME(catalog-verbs) at the
catalog's drift-gate note), cookbook rows redirected off agent/request
(tool filtering → system-prompt/assemble, plan-mode prompt → sections/
inject()), and the llm/stream JSDoc stating the frozen-request
contract. RFC index and all generated catalogs regenerated.
The loop is now transmission-stateless; a request is a pure function of
(session log, this step's rendered assembly, current AgentOptions):
- The reconstruction boundary is step/start: the messages snapshot is
taken in the same synchronous frame immediately before the step/start
append, so the request's messages are exactly the derivation over
events[0..stepStartSeq) — an inject() from an agent/request listener
(or any concurrent task) lands after the boundary and joins the NEXT
request. This changes behavior for a synchronous step/start
session/event listener that appends content (master derived after the
append, so such a listener could reach the current request):
agent/pre-step is the sanctioned seam for current-request content.
- agent/request is re-typed to config-only: (agent, turn, step,
config: LlmCallConfig, next) → LlmCallConfig. The frozen seed comes
from AgentOptions on a loop instance's first request (explicit options
beat the logged baseline — fork overrides and resume reconfiguration
stay correct) and from the log's folded header afterwards; listeners
return a replacement to switch. Content shaping through the request is
no longer expressible — model-visible content flows through the log
channels.
- recordRequestHeader appends whatever header event the request owes the
log before dispatch: an 'initial'/'resume' snapshot anchoring each
loop instance, a round-trip-verified delta on change, a 'fallback'
snapshot when the encoding cannot express it. Session.requestHeader()
is the log's incrementally-folded baseline.
- Requests are deep-frozen before dispatch (deepFreeze exempts the
AbortSignal — freezing one breaks AbortController.abort() outright);
frozen + sessionId is the loop-built marker the dev invariant keys on.
Ported from #162 and re-anchored on the log: the append-extension /
frozen-end-to-end / compaction-resend / prompt-change property tests,
plus new specs for the boundary semantics, resume anchoring, and the
end-to-end theorem (every recorded request rebuilds byte-equal from the
log alone). Live cache-hit e2e (request-cache.e2e.ts) verified against
the real DeepSeek API. Snapshot goldens intentionally stale until the
single re-record after the compact/summary envelope lands.
The call configuration (model + sampling scalars) becomes named
vocabulary: per-conversation state that the session log records as part
of the request header (the reconstructability RFC on this branch), with
callConfigEquals as the real-change detector behind logged header deltas
and deepFreeze as the ownership helper the loop applies to every built
request. dsh-llm stays stateless — request in, chunks out; no
conversation object lives here.
gen-cordis-catalog now hard-errors (aggregated, not fail-fast) when an
event lacks description prose or a payload @param, or a public service
method lacks JSDoc, a @param per parameter, a @returns on a non-void
result, or an explicit return type annotation. The this receiver and the
trailing waterfall next are exempt on events (mode machinery owned by
@mode); a stale @param naming no real parameter errors, mirroring the
@mode contradiction check. parseJsDoc now ends prose at the first block
tag (standard JSDoc semantics), so the tags never change the rendered
catalog — only Source: line pointers moved.
Fills the ~139 gaps found across the 15 surface files, extends the spec
with negative-path fixtures for every new guard plus the exemptions,
records the decision as an implemented process RFC, and extends the
AGENTS.md typed-events bullet with the authoring rule. Runs inside
verify-cordis-catalog -> doc-sync, so CI and pre-push enforce it with
zero new wiring.
GenerateOptions.prefill had no production setter and both adapters
rejected it with LlmError('UNSUPPORTED') — its entire observable
behavior was two throws, each pinned by one adapter test. DeepSeek's
chat-prefix completion is a Beta feature on a base URL neither adapter
targets. ToolSchema.strict was threaded through defineTool, the
registry's schemas() allowlist, the deepseek wire mapping, a per-tool
payload-patching pass in the pi-ai adapter, and a tool-catalog render
row, yet no shipped tool set it and the internal endpoint story for
strict mode was never built.
Remove both fields end-to-end: the vocabulary in dsh-llm, the adapter
guards and wire branches, the dsh-tools threading, the tool-catalog
Strict row, the pinning tests, the core.md pastes, the adapter README
rows, and the cookbook line that used prefill as the UNSUPPORTED
example (now stated generically). The pi-ai payload fixup keeps the
half with a job: pi-ai stamps strict:false on every serialized tool,
so the fixup scrubs it unconditionally for wire parity with the
hand-rolled twin (per-tool set/delete machinery gone). temperature/
stop/maxTokens are untouched — honored end-to-end by both adapters.
Each knob returns with its first real producer: prefill with an
adapter that implements chat-prefix completion, strict with a tool
that wants it and a beta-endpoint story.
RFC: docs/rfc/implemented/simplification/2026-07-04-drop-inert-request-knobs.md
(moved from proposed/, amended to shipped reality); the content-block
vocabulary RFC's consequence line now records prefill as producer-gated.
dsh-llm owns the vocabulary (attribution.ts): AppIdentity with the version
read from the package manifest, userAgent(), and attributionHeaders(target,
identity) over a closed AttributionTarget union ('generic' | 'openrouter').
Both adapters send the headers on every provider request — llm-deepseek in
its fetch headers, llm-pi-ai through pi-ai's StreamOptions.headers — behind
an explicit attributionTarget config (never inferred from baseURL), with
mock-server tests asserting exact wire arrival and the absence of the
OpenRouter set by default.
The RFC moves to implemented/ amended with the settled identity (the
deepseek-harness token, the DeepSeek Harness title, the planned
deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness-sdk URL behind a FIXME until that repo exists)
and the explicit-config OpenRouter decision.
The vocabulary maps grow by declaration merging, and the admission policy
stated on TurnEndReasonMap is that a variant lands with its first emitter.
Three declared items had no producer and no consumer:
- CacheHint and the cache?: CacheHint fields on TextBlock/ToolResultBlock:
nothing constructs a block with cache:, and neither adapter reads .cache —
DeepSeek prompt caching is automatic (hints map OUT of responses, never IN).
- MessageSourceMap.agent: zero constructors; the subagent backends send the
parent prompt with no source (logs as user), and the envelope renderer
interpolates source.kind without routing on it.
- TurnTriggerMap.continuation: the loop structurally cannot emit it —
continuation is further steps within a turn, never a new turn — and its only
writer was an llm-replay test fixture that needed any non-message trigger
(now an injection trigger).
Each variant returns the day it gains a real producer, via the same
merge-extensible maps. Docs updated in the same change: the MessageSourceMap
paste in core.md, the TurnTriggerMap paste in session.md (manifest untouched —
both symbols survive), the content-block vocabulary RFC's cache-hints
consequence line, and the RFC moved to implemented/ and amended to shipped
reality (the image block's own cache field had already left with the
drop-image RFC).
ImageBlock had no production producer and every consumer dropped it:
the deepseek serializer skipped it, the pi-ai converter skipped it as
unrepresentable, the ACP bridge neither advertises image prompt
capability nor forwards image blocks, and compact-basic charged a flat
85-token estimate and rendered an [image] placeholder. A block
constructed today would silently vanish from the wire — the vocabulary
advertised a capability no path honors, the silent-data-loss shape the
defensive patterns warn against. The only constructors were tests
pinning the skip/estimate branches.
Remove ImageBlock and its ContentBlockMap entry (its cache?: CacheHint
field leaves with it; CacheHint itself and the other two cache? fields
are out of scope). compact-basic loses its explicit image estimate and
placeholder arms (the merge-extensible default arms absorb the case);
the deepseek serializer, pi-ai converter, and ACP codec already handled
image in their default arms, so only their image-naming comments
change. The codec's inbound rejection of ACP-protocol image prompt
content stays — that guards wire content a client can send regardless
of our vocabulary.
Tests that constructed harness image blocks to pin the removed branches
are dropped (the 85-token estimate pin) or retargeted onto plugin-added
block types / other non-text blocks, which the surviving default arms
own. Docs, the type-equiv pastes, and the content-block vocabulary
RFC's block list and multimodal-home consequence are updated in the
same change; the RFC moves to implemented/ and the index is
regenerated. A real multimodal feature reintroduces image via
declaration merging together with the adapter mapping, ACP
advertisement, and compaction pricing that honor it.
The snapshot tier was built single-session: dsh-llm-replay served calls from
one global positional cursor, and the harness harvested one session log. A
subagent runs as a second agent with its own session, so a parent→child
scenario could neither replay deterministically nor harvest the child's log.
This resolves the TODO(subagent-snapshots) deferral from the subagent RFC.
- Stamp the calling session id onto the model request: GenerateOptions.sessionId
(typed Branded<'SessionId'> to avoid the dsh-llm↔dsh-session cycle), set by the
agent loop from agent.session.id. Adapters ignore it; an llm/stream listener
routes by it.
- Key replay per session: dsh-llm-replay loads the parent log plus one per child
(childFiles / $DSH_SNAPSHOT_CHILD_FILES), derives a script per recorded session,
and binds each live (freshly-random) session to a recorded script by first-call
order — parent first (earliest createdAt, first to stream). Keys by WHO calls,
so it survives a future concurrent/backgrounded subagent; a global cursor would
not. An unrecorded extra session fails loud.
- Harvest every log: the harness collects all .jsonl across cwd buckets, ordered
primary-first (top-level, then children by createdAt), and RunResult exposes the
plural sessionLogs. The spec writes each back on record (session.jsonl +
session.<n>.jsonl) and diffs each against its fixture on replay.
- Wire the subagent seam + spawn + fork + tool into the acp-agent example (both
cordis configs) and add two nested scenarios recorded against the real API:
subagent-spawn (parent + 1 child) and subagent-multi (parent + 2 children, 3
sessions). Both replay keyless in the default gate.
A new RFC documents the design (docs/rfc/implemented/testing/). Single-session
replay is unchanged (a call with no sessionId is one anonymous primary session).
TODO follow-up: a dedicated branded-ids package could own the SessionId brand and
dissolve the cross-package cycle note; out of scope for this testing PR.