Task-context compiler and generic work-receipt arc

Disposition: shelved / moot by Human direction. Delivery: five bounded REQs were fulfilled; fulfillment does not keep the product arc live. Evidence: useful observations survived, but the compiler never earned a real-diff accuracy claim and the generic work-receipt instrument did not earn revival in the later independent trial. Opened: 2026-08-22. Shelved: 2026-08-24. Last observed: 2026-08-24T19:51:21-04:00. Git base observed: 2fbcf791c3d39a2fbda6286c335f13bd65d76299.

This page is a readable account, not a lifecycle, acceptance, source-custody, or disposition authority. The owning SQLite rows, Tendril ties, Git, and the cold archive remain behind every statement below.

Identity and boundary

Navigation slug: task-context-compiler.

No BANNER or single controlling FIND exists for the whole combined arc. FIND-665 controls the bounded compiler cut; FIND-620 begins the provider session / receipt rail that later met it. FIND-722 records the Human shelf and names the cold forensic packet as controlling that disposition. This dossier does not invent one root after the fact.

The arc span is declared from the cold packet and checked against direct Tendril lineage:

• compiler and binding delivery: PROP-139 / REQ-253 / CHANGE-253, PROP-140 / REQ-254 / CHANGE-254, and PROP-145 / REQ-255 / CHANGE-255;
• generic receipt delivery and mend: PROP-147 / REQ-258 / CHANGE-258 and PROP-155 / REQ-261 / CHANGE-261;
• material evidence turns: FIND-620, FIND-665, FIND-676, FIND-677, FIND-679, FIND-681, FIND-695, FIND-697, FIND-698, and FIND-699;
• disposition and later merits evidence: FIND-722, FIND-769, FIND-770, FIND-772, FIND-774, and FIND-775.

The rule is explicit naming in the forensic boundary or a direct material tie to one of those work movements. Similar titles, nearby timestamps, shared tool paths, and later citations do not enroll an object.

Several useful movements grew from the same evidence but are not members of the shelved product arc: host-witness capture (PROP-148 / REQ-265), typed PATCH lineage (PROP-160 / REQ-269), and provider-aware historical session recovery (PROP-161 / REQ-272). They survive as independent branches.

What it attempted

The arc tried to give Hands and Eyes a compact, deterministic context capsule for one accepted job. Static repository structure would identify a bounded working set; provider-native session evidence would show what a worker was actually told, read, changed, and tested; a generic work receipt would join that evidence to TRACE; replay would then measure omitted context, excess context, widening, and review misses.

The intended future was not merely a smaller prompt. It was a recoverable seam between accepted intent, actual worker attention, implementation movement, review behavior, and accepted result.

Why it began

FIND-620 observed that Codex and Claude retained provider-native child execution streams while Corpus left the corresponding Hands/Eyes close rows unbound. FIND-665 observed that the static compiler and the work-evidence rail could meet at replay while remaining separately addressable.

The initial design depended on four assumptions:

1. provider sessions could be joined to institutional executions reliably enough through post-hoc convention and time evidence;
2. a provider-neutral receipt could describe worker movement without losing the evidence seam;
3. TRACE was a suitable home for that generic receipt;
4. replay against existing REQs could establish more than the compiler’s internal consistency.

Later evidence broke or narrowed each assumption.

Where the material lives

Cold originals and the controlling forensic account:

• forensic packet: git show 8fb5e22:archive/compiler-arc-shelved-2026-08-24/FORENSIC_PACKET_REQ253-261.md (the file left the tree on 2026-08-25; no marker is kept)

The former shelf directory was retired by 7bbce09. Its complete bytes remain recoverable at the exact Git anchor 8fb5e22; for example, git show 8fb5e22:archive/compiler-arc-shelved-2026-08-24/README.md retrieves the shelf README without pretending that the retired path still exists.

Surviving implementation surfaces:

• task_context_compiler.py
• work_receipt.py
• session_backfill.py
• compiler tests
• work-receipt tests
• session-backfill tests

Commit 2fbcf79 first checked in the compiler, work receipt, session backfill, and their tests as part of one 58-file durability checkpoint. Git therefore cannot supply a per-REQ implementation diff for REQ-253 through REQ-260.

At the last observation, task_context_compiler.py and its focused test were clean relative to 2fbcf79; work_receipt.py, session_backfill.py, and their tests had later uncommitted shared-worktree changes. Those later file revisions are wet paint, not attributable source custody.

Standing

Disposition

Shelved / moot. The authority is the Human direction preserved in the cold shelf and FIND-722, observed again in the live Code Troll baton. The source files remaining in tools/ do not reverse that disposition.

Delivery

The owning store reported the following at 2026-08-24T19:51:21-04:00:

The forensic packet observed REQ-261 as proposed on 2026-08-23. That statement remains correct for its observation time; the later owning-store state moved. Neither the later fulfillment nor surviving code raises the shelved product.

Evidence

• REQ-255 established a deterministic standalone compiler with focused tests. FIND-695 narrowed the claim: its replay showed internal consistency, not session-derived accuracy, and no accepted real diff made diff_bound=True. The proposed real-diff trial, PROP-153, was withdrawn.
• FIND-677, FIND-679, and FIND-681 showed that post-hoc convention binding could alias siblings, fail to bind child work, and reconstruct identity after the spawner had already possessed a better witness.
• FIND-697 and the forensic source read established that REQ-258’s uniqueness gate was asymmetric and that its claimed receipt relation could not hold the historical closed-TRACE case it was meant to serve.
• FIND-698 proposed removing the receipt event kind; FIND-699 eclipsed most of its reasoning. Later PATCH-specific receipts independently earned that event name, so the old zero-row result cannot justify wholesale removal.
• FIND-770 initially judged the stale generic receipt unnecessary, but FIND-772 suspended that merits inference because Troll had selected and judged its own evidence. Scout then independently reproduced the store and native facts in FIND-774; Troll reran the same merits test in FIND-775 and returned NULL on repairing or reviving work_receipt.py.

The current evidence therefore supports the shelf. It does not establish that compact task context is a bad goal; it establishes that these product and evidence choices did not earn continuing authority.

Movement

1. FIND-620 found unbound provider-native work evidence. PROP-139 and PROP-140 became REQ-253 and REQ-254 for forward discovery and historical backfill.
2. FIND-665 separated the static compiler from the receipt rail. PROP-145 / REQ-255 delivered the standalone compiler.
3. FIND-677, FIND-679, and FIND-681 showed that reconstruction was ambiguous or aimed at the wrong identity layer. Direction initially kept extending reconstruction instead of changing course.
4. PROP-147 / REQ-258 delivered a generic work receipt. FIND-697 found its central uniqueness clause under-met; PROP-155 / REQ-261 later mended that bounded gate and was fulfilled.
5. FIND-695 narrowed the compiler’s validation claim. Its proposed real-diff successor did not run and was later withdrawn.
6. The Human shelved the compiler / generic-receipt product arc. FIND-722 and the cold archive preserve that disposition and the forensic backtrack.
7. Better-bounded consequences moved independently: direct host-witness capture, typed PATCH lineage, and provider-aware historical binding were delivered without reviving the compiler product.
8. The later TRACE-399/400 trial exposed stale generic-receipt seams. FIND-772 forced independent evidence; FIND-774 supplied it; FIND-775 retained the shelf and sent distinct needs toward an existing job-audit repair and a separate TRACE evidence proposal.

Outcome and what survives

The task-context compiler survives as an inert standalone experiment. It has focused tests but no production caller and no earned real-diff accuracy claim. The generic work-receipt tool also remains in source, but current evidence does not authorize repair, deletion, or revival.

What still earns keep independently:

• the distinction between authoritative source and derived readings;
• the observation that static topology is partial and revision-bound;
• exact source coordinates, accepted lineage, and source revision as separate facts;
• checksummed provider-session preservation and honest evidence grades;
• provider-aware historical binding through REQ-272;
• direct host-witness capture through REQ-265;
• typed PATCH execution lineage through REQ-269;
• the separate Code Troll topology and refactoring drawings named by the cold shelf.

Former next-step documents do not survive as a backlog. Existing line count, tests, and code presence confer no right to continued use.

Reopening condition

Do not reopen by continuing the former plan or repairing stale code because it is present. Reopening requires all of the following:

1. a fresh, bounded problem that current Tendril, TRACE, job-audit, session join, and repository instruments cannot answer;
2. a named authority and evidence model for the missing relation;
3. an existence judgment showing why a compiler or generic receipt is the smallest useful instrument;
4. a trial against real accepted diffs and commands, with independent review;
5. an explicit decision about what, if anything, may be reused from the shelved code.

Until then the correct frontier is no product work. The shelf remains recoverable evidence.

Refresh

Use the owning mouths rather than editing this account from memory:

python corpus.py ops tendril roots REQ-255
python corpus.py ops tendril roots REQ-258
python corpus.py ops tendril roots REQ-261
python corpus.py ops tendril shoots FIND-770
python corpus.py ops req get REQ-253 --json
python corpus.py ops req get REQ-254 --json
python corpus.py ops req get REQ-255 --json
python corpus.py ops req get REQ-258 --json
python corpus.py ops req get REQ-261 --json
python corpus.py ops prop get PROP-153 --json
python corpus.py ops find get FIND-722
python corpus.py ops find get FIND-774
python corpus.py ops find get FIND-775
git status --short
git rev-parse HEAD

Recut this page only when the whole reading changes: disposition, accepted delivery, evidence sufficient to reopen, or the identity of what survives.