tegwick
1b9860a8ee
All four gate criteria met. False Adaptation Rate 0/7 with 12 of 13 mechanical mutations absorbed. 178 tests pass. TD-WP-0002 finished. Fitness loop closed via F-0003: actor isolation was a property of scenarios written to expose it, not of runs. Actors now carry an automatic private marker and the runner examines all of them on every scenario, with two permanent regressions behind it. Compression - six abstractions removed, each declared and never used: Verdict.SUSPICIOUS (a verdict no oracle could emit), Step.expect_refusal, ActorIsolationError, World.seed, EvidencePack.latest, Trajectory.method. F-0008: Temperature may be redundant. Crystallization was built without it ever being consulted; measured stability of realization did the work, and is observed rather than declared. Gated for removal alongside energy.py. INTENT_CHANGED and REALIZATION_FAILED had never run. Both now have purpose-built cases and a test that fails if a seventh outcome is added without one. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Assistant: claude-code Assistant-Model: opus Assistant-Process: 1629012@bnt-lap001 Assistant-Session: 78d4fb13-8a1e-474b-87a3-9b9261c49a39
98 lines
4.2 KiB
Markdown
98 lines
4.2 KiB
Markdown
---
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id: F-0003
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type: framework-finding
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class: FRAMEWORK_LIMITATION
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status: resolved
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discovered: "2026-08-22"
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discovered_by: TD-WP-0002-T06
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workplan: TD-WP-0002
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task: TD-WP-0002-T06
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resolved: "2026-08-23"
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resolved_in: TD-WP-0002-T10
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---
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# F-0003 — Actor isolation is only observable if the scenario plants canaries
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## Observation
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Writing `td://self/actor-isolation` out-of-band exposed something the concept
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model does not acknowledge: **an isolation violation leaves no trace in ordinary
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evidence.**
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The self-test only detects a shared memory store because the test harness first
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gives each actor a distinguishable private secret and then looks for it in the
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wrong places. Remove that instrumentation and a run in which Alice, Bob and Carol
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share one memory dict produces an Evidence Pack indistinguishable from a correct
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one — same observations, same verdicts, same everything.
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So the guarantee holds in the reference scenario *because it was instrumented to
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be checkable*, not because runs generally reveal it.
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## Why it matters
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`INTENT.md` and the Concept Model treat actor isolation as a property of the
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framework. As implemented it is a property of a *scenario that was written to
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expose it*. Every ordinary scenario — the ones users will actually write —
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carries no canaries, and for those the framework's central multi-user claim is
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asserted rather than verified.
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This matters more once actors are agentic (T07). A shared session, a cached HTTP
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client, or a module-level default is exactly how isolation breaks in practice,
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and none of those announce themselves.
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## A second, related limitation
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`td://self/oracle-independence` has a mirror-image problem. The framework
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*prevents* an actor from collecting S2/S3 evidence — `Runner` raises
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`CollectorIndependenceError` — so no real run can produce the violating artefact.
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The check is therefore exercised against a hand-built pack.
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That is the right architecture and a weak self-test at once: **a guarantee
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enforced by construction cannot be verified by observing real runs.** The suite
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now asserts both halves — that the door is locked, and that we would notice
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someone coming through the window — but the second half tests the check, not the
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system.
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Worth stating plainly rather than counting four green self-tests as four
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equivalent proofs. They are not equivalent.
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## Resolution (T10)
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Candidate 3 — **both**.
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Every `Actor` is seeded at construction with an automatic private marker
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(`Actor.canary`), and `Runner._isolation_violations` examines every actor on
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**every** scenario, recording the verdict as S3 evidence. An isolation violation
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now leaves a trace whether or not anyone thought to look for one.
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Two permanent regressions stand behind it:
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- `tests/test_reference_scenario.py::test_every_run_records_a_verdict_on_isolation`
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- `tests/selfverification/test_checks_can_fail.py::test_a_leak_is_caught_without_the_test_planting_anything`
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— an actor holding another's marker is caught by the ordinary run, with the
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harness planting nothing.
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The second limitation stands as recorded: oracle independence is enforced by
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construction, so it is verified once rather than per run. That asymmetry is real
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and is now stated in the fitness map rather than hidden behind two equally green
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self-tests.
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This finding closed the first Concept–Implementation Fitness Loop — see
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`history/2026-08-23-td-wp-0002-gate-review.md` § 4.
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## Candidate resolutions considered
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1. **Automatic canaries** — the runtime seeds each actor with a unique private
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marker at construction and the isolation check runs on every Evidence Pack,
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making isolation continuously observable rather than specially tested.
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Cheap, and the obvious first move.
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2. **Accept and document** — isolation is enforced by construction, and the
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self-test covers the construction rather than each run. Honest, but leaves the
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multi-user claim resting on code review.
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3. **Both** — canaries for observability, plus an explicit statement that some
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guarantees are structural and are verified once rather than per run.
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Carried to `TD-WP-0002-T10`, where it should be answered together with the wider
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question of which guarantees are structural and which are observed. Reassess
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after T07, when agentic actors make the failure mode concrete rather than
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theoretical.
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