Hiro development journal

Stage 6C validation is reactivated after a fail-closed bridge repair

2026.08.11 at 07:54:37 America/Los_Angeles Corrected handoff complete; Stage 6C shadow validation running with runtime behavior inactive Machine-readable JSON

Executive summary

The user authorized repair and reactivation of the failed Stage 6B-to-6C handoff.

The retained Stage 6B evidence was not renamed, rewritten, or otherwise modified. A separate R2 bridge was created to consume the producer's exact frozen outcome-sidecar convention.

An explicit repository regression test now records the producer filename contract. The focused bridge suite passed four tests, and the complete repository suite passed 465 tests on the exact corrected target.

A new short-lived, hash-bound R2 packet passed non-mutating preflight against the retained outcome, append-only ledger, runner, launcher, clean source and target revisions, and fast-forward ancestry.

The one-shot bridge reran all 465 tests, fast-forwarded the live branch to the exact corrected target, and created one default-off Stage 6C validation campaign in its shadow-decisions phase.

Hiro was restarted through its checked-in detached launcher so the new control-center and pipeline API code loaded. Health, pipeline, and benchmark endpoints returned success.

The Stage 6C runtime fragment remains inactive. No enablement packet or runtime state exists, and all campaign evidence counters begin at zero.

Work completed

Outcome-sidecar contract repair

Complete

The failure was isolated to a duplicated host wrapper that expected a different sidecar filename from the Stage 6B producer and tracked Stage 6C consumer.
The original expired bridge packet, runner, logs, and retained outcome remain preserved for auditability.
A distinct R2 runner names the exact producer sidecar explicitly and continues to require an exact content hash and byte-for-byte ledger match.
The R2 launcher records native-process failures before returning a nonzero exit code, preventing the previous loss of diagnostic output.
A new test proves that the producer-style sidecar exists, the alternate filename does not, and the retained-outcome consumer still starts a default-off campaign.

Corrected exact-revision validation

Passed

The focused retained-outcome bridge suite passed four tests.
The complete repository suite passed 465 tests in 173.18 seconds on the committed corrected target.
The R2 bridge independently reran the complete suite before cutover; all 465 tests passed again in 170.68 seconds.
The exact corrected target revision includes the prior dormant Stage 6C implementation plus the explicit sidecar-contract regression test.
The R2 preflight verified the frozen retained outcome, append-only ledger, source and target identities, clean worktrees, ancestry, packet validity, and runner and launcher hashes without changing live state.

Fast-forward and campaign start

Complete

The bridge performed only a fast-forward from the retained Stage 6B revision to the exact tested target; no merge commit or rebase was created.
The live and isolated branches now point to the same corrected target and both worktrees are clean.
The Stage 6 ledger contains exactly one campaign-start event bound to the retained outcome hash, Stage 6C policy hash, campaign identifier, and target revision.
The campaign status is running, its phase is shadow decisions, and its next action is the Stage 6C-specific shadow decision campaign.
All counters begin at zero: 30 perfect shadow decisions, ten hot-reload rehearsals, three rollback drills, five interruption boundaries, and final full-suite evidence remain required.

Live service reload and observability

Complete

The verified pre-cutover Hiro process was stopped and restarted through the checked-in detached Windows launcher with normalized child-process environment handling.
The restart created no console window and did not create Stage 6C enablement or runtime state.
The health endpoint, improvement-pipeline endpoint, and benchmark page all returned success after restart.
The benchmark page now serves the Improvement Control Center, and the pipeline API reports the Stage 6C campaign as running in shadow-decisions mode.
The failed original bridge task and successful one-shot R2 bridge task were disabled after completion; the running campaign is durable state and is not dependent on either completed task.

Decisions and reasoning

Preserve immutable Stage 6B evidence and repair the consumer instead of renaming the frozen sidecar.
Create R2 artifacts and authority rather than editing the expired bridge packet or obscuring its failed history.
Require the complete target suite both before freezing the replacement handoff and again inside the live bridge transaction.
Start only the Stage 6C validation campaign; keep runtime-fragment activation fail-closed until the separate readiness and policy gates pass.
Reload Hiro only after the exact fast-forward succeeds, using the checked-in detached launcher and verifying all local endpoints afterward.
Disable completed bridge tasks to prevent accidental retriggering while leaving the durable campaign running.

Validation and evidence

Check	Status	Result
Focused sidecar and bridge regression	passed	Four focused tests passed, including the explicit producer-sidecar filename contract, retained campaign start, non-retained rejection, and premature runtime-activation rejection.
Exact corrected target suite	passed	465 tests passed in 173.18 seconds on the committed corrected target.
R2 preflight	passed	The new packet, exact retained outcome, sidecar, append-only ledger, source and target revisions, worktree cleanliness, ancestry, runner, and launcher all validated without mutation.
Transactional bridge suite	passed	The one-shot bridge reran 465 tests in 170.68 seconds before performing the exact fast-forward.
Post-cutover Git and ledger state	passed	Live and isolated branches point to the same exact target, both are clean, and the Stage 6 ledger contains exactly one campaign-start event.
Default-off campaign state	passed	The campaign is running in shadow-decisions mode. No Stage 6C enablement or runtime-state file exists, and runtime_fragment_active is false.
Restart and control-center endpoints	passed	Hiro restarted successfully through the detached launcher; health, improvement-pipeline, and benchmark requests all returned HTTP 200, and the Improvement Control Center is served.

Current state

Stage 6B remains retained with its original frozen evidence unchanged.
The live branch now contains the dormant Stage 6C implementation and the corrected sidecar-contract test.
Stage 6C validation is active with status running and phase shadow_decisions.
The continuous evidence-driven improvement loop reports running.
The Stage 6C runtime fragment is inactive and has no enablement or runtime state.
The Improvement Control Center and pipeline API are live after the service reload.
Both completed bridge tasks are disabled and have no future runs.

Next steps

Run and record the 30 Stage 6C-specific shadow decisions with perfect classification and zero false allows.
Run ten hot-reload rehearsals, three rollback drills, and five interruption-boundary rehearsals against the designated fragment only.
Bind a final complete repository test result to the exact campaign revision.
When every readiness deficit reaches zero, freeze the exact Stage 6C policy activation and begin the eight-hour fragment probation under post-action reporting.
Keep arbitrary code changes, authority expansion, service control, and external actions outside the first Stage 6C fragment scope.