Hiro development journal

Repair the autonomous upgrade implementation path

2026.09.08 at 10:07:55 America/Los_Angeles Published after journal tests and production build validation Machine-readable JSON

Executive summary

This continuation addresses the user's goal of a demonstrated autonomous improvement discovery, code patch, independent testing, and implementation loop. Work remains within the existing central model, CandidateBuilder, evaluator, canonical controller, and deployment process.

A new bounded source-request capability was implemented inside the existing CandidateBuilder. The original attached review and patch package were not accessible; no claim is made that the supplied patch was applied. The new implementation follows the user's subsequent instruction to repair the pipeline from the available Windows checkout.

An actual local Qwen construction fixture passed in 43.06 seconds. The model requested a complete pinned source symbol, proposed a production patch, and reached candidate_ready with zero repairs through the existing baseline-assertion-failure and candidate-pass gate. The fixture harness owned the exact test oracle throughout.

Focused checks also qualified source-scope restrictions, repair feedback, evaluation evidence validity, tested-versus-promoted revision identity, incident intake ordering, and independent audit observations. These results are construction and component evidence; they do not demonstrate a fresh autonomous promotion.

The complete Windows suite passed 1,020 tests with 4 skips in 960.58 seconds at maintenance revision f3b1cd2. The subsequent final revision changed only a portable test fixture, which passed native and Linux rechecks. At final revision 9fdc481, the complete WSL suite passed 1,014 tests with 10 skips in 465.21 seconds, and all five frozen qualification scenarios passed, totaling 24 tests. Final source and tree identities were unchanged and clean.

Maintenance integration completed at 17:15:32 on September 8, America/Los_Angeles. Hiro process PID 13852 reported loaded_revision and checkout_revision both equal to 9fdc481b815a6fdc7f1804fddf40be502ddcbc9d, with revision_matches true. The existing canonical campaign started with no manually selected or seeded synthetic candidates. The root session is tracing fresh Qwen audit and scheduler work. Maintenance activation is verified; a fresh autonomous candidate promotion and probation completion remain unverified. No GitHub source push is claimed.

Work completed

Pinned-source candidate investigation

Implemented; focused and live construction checks passed

Added model-requested literal searches, complete Python symbols, and inclusive line ranges before patch application inside the existing CandidateBuilder. Source requests and patches use separate responses, so inspection does not write files or consume a repair attempt.
Reads resolve from the already-pinned Git commit and a bounded tracked-source manifest. Production dependencies can be inspected without expanding the existing patch write allowlist. Read eligibility excludes tests and held-out material, hidden or runtime content, configuration and secret material, symlinks, and oversized blobs.
Each patch attempt permits at most three inspection rounds and six requests. Returned observations and retained context have explicit limits. Oversized complete symbols are refused with guidance to request smaller line ranges rather than being silently labeled complete after truncation.
Selected observations replace bulky static excerpts and survive later repairs alongside existing assertion diagnostics. Prompt compaction preserves the frozen fixture and latest failure evidence. Existing patch editing, test ownership, scope auditing, targeted baseline contrast, and promotion gates remain in place.
Inspection requests, pinned source identity, observations, and refusal or budget receipts are retained in the existing immutable candidate packet. The exact requested live test node now resides in tests/test_candidate_investigation_path.py.
Added CANDIDATE_SOURCE_INSPECTION.md as durable implementation context: actual protocol and read bounds, private receipt and repair behavior, trust boundaries, reproducible Windows qualification command, and the explicit distinction between local construction evidence and a completed autonomous loop.
The native full suite exposed a repair-context boundary: long pytest warnings displaced the concrete assertion from the retained output tail, causing the scripted author to consume an extra repair. The builder now reserves part of its existing output budget for the pytest failure section. The fixture still requires exactly one repair and explicitly verifies the concrete assertion feedback.

Frozen-oracle construction evidence

Passed

The scripted fixture requested source search and complete-symbol observations before producing a patch. A second scripted case deliberately proposed a wrong first implementation, received an assertion failure, and repaired it while retaining the same pre-frozen oracle.
The test harness strips author-proposed target-test replacements and injects the same oracle bytes on each attempt. The oracle exercises negative and floating-point inputs plus a changed dependency policy, so a hardcoded numeric answer cannot satisfy it.
The actual Qwen fixture requested a complete source symbol and reached candidate_ready with zero repair attempts. Its targeted baseline contrast reported improvement_demonstrated. Readiness inference for that run completed in 0.61 seconds; total live test time was 43.06 seconds.
The preserved live receipt contains oracle SHA-256 8813447d2c9ddb298f28f4de9cb9269123dd69ed70d51f8c10070d77d7506b60, model readiness, the frozen candidate packet, and the source observation. This is live construction qualification, not a canonical autonomous-loop result.

Evaluation evidence validity

Implemented; focused suite passed

Fresh and resumed paired reports are checked against the expected immutable manifest, suite, case IDs, repetitions, visibility, and complete workload coverage before aggregation. Interrupted reports may contain only a valid subset before observation resumes.
Execution-invalid observations are rejected for either comparison role. Recorded scores and aggregate metrics are checked against the frozen cases and observations, and reused aggregate content must match the verified source reports.
Aggregation requires nonempty completed reports from distinct source runs with matched, nonduplicated coverage. Existing targeted baseline-fail/candidate-pass proof and the global non-regression policy remain unchanged.
Completed but semantically wrong responses remain valid comparison evidence. The change does not require semantic perfection or replace the separate targeted improvement gate. Child-process trace propagation was identified as a separate concern for future tool- or grounding-dependent suites and was not changed in this workstream.

Promotion revision identity

Implemented; focused governor and controller checks passed

The existing governor checks that active and candidate Git roots resolve to their intended repositories and that the candidate worktree's revision and cleanliness match the frozen candidate identity.
The same validation is repeated after testing and immediately before the existing promotion operations. Promotion results retain the tested revision and resolved worktree identity.
Passing governor and canonical-controller fixtures now use genuine detached candidate worktrees. The existing promotion transaction and scheduling model are preserved; no new global locking framework was introduced.

Incident intake and audit evidence

Implemented; focused regression checks passed

Incident harvesting now drains the oldest pending bounded prefix of the quality log. The watermark advances only after that prefix is processed, so bursts larger than the scan limit are not skipped.
Stable incident identities permit retry after a partial batch interruption without duplicating previously written queue items. Excluded sessions advance only through the reviewed prefix.
Audit execution now carries independent observation identity. Replayed observations do not add independent support, while separately executed identical answers can contribute distinct evidence.
Additional audits preserve existing candidate lifecycle state rather than reopening a candidate already progressing through testing, canary, activation, or later states.

Existing isolated runtime and central model access

Qualified and active through the existing runtime

The existing WSL/Bubblewrap readiness check received a bounded cold-start allowance after the earlier short timeout proved insufficient on this Windows host. Readiness remains a prerequisite for isolated execution.
A bounded transport connects isolated evaluation work to the existing central model while retaining the current runtime and isolation design. Transport, message bounds, cleanup, and wrapper behavior have native regression coverage.
Two real isolation tests passed in 23.73 seconds before the latest transport and snapshot changes. That earlier result is preserved with its scope; it is not presented as final validation of subsequent edits.
The latest native transport/wrapper/cleanup run passed 37 tests with one explicit live-model skip. A subsequent live central-model transport and isolation group passed five tests in 30.49 seconds, supplying actual existing-Qwen inference through the isolated execution path. Combined repository qualification remains separate.
A normal WorktreeProcessAgent evaluation requested 7,168 completion tokens and exposed a mismatch with the transport admission limit. The bounded correction passed 36 focused tests with one explicit live skip in 15.47 seconds. The actual default-entrypoint retry ran two prompts in 35.516 seconds: 6+6 returned literal 12, while 2+2 returned an internal execution error. The failed product case remains a potential fresh improvement workload.
The production cleanup correction and subsequent portable test-fixture correction qualified through the complete Windows anchor, native and Linux fixture checks, the passing complete final WSL suite, and all five frozen pipeline scenarios. Final revision and tree matched before and after qualification, and the existing production launcher loaded the same tested revision.

Fresh autonomous arithmetic workload

Frozen; live audit and scheduler being traced

The actual isolated evaluation revealed a single-character arithmetic response becoming an internal-error answer. Product behavior was preserved as a meaningful next autonomous workload.
The workload and its acceptance contract were frozen before candidate authoring. Positive and negative controls passed scripted qualification, separately from the actual-inference failure receipt.
After verified maintenance activation, the root session is tracing two new real observations through existing interaction-audit intake and the canonical scheduler. No completed fresh autonomous candidate promotion or probation result is claimed here.

Gated maintenance integration and running identity

maintenance_active verified

Passing final release checks and matching source/tree identity permitted integration through the existing process. The preserved queue backup was verified before advancing production.
Production fast-forwarded to the qualified maintenance revision, installed the frozen qualification receipt, started the existing canonical campaign, and launched Hiro through its existing launcher.
The health receipt reports PID 13852 and identical loaded/checkout revision 9fdc481b815a6fdc7f1804fddf40be502ddcbc9d. This activates the pipeline maintenance changes; fresh autonomous improvement discovery through probation remains a separate proof obligation.

Decisions and reasoning

Implement the newly authorized repair from the available pinned Windows checkout; identify it explicitly as a new implementation rather than the unavailable supplied patch.
Extend the existing builder and controller components instead of adding another framework, controller, or set of lifecycle phases.
Keep the exact fixture oracle under harness ownership and distinguish scripted construction, real-model construction, independent evaluation, deployment, and autonomous promotion evidence.
Preserve the central Qwen model and runtime. Normalize Windows process Path while retaining other inherited environment values for child execution.
Retain global non-regression for narrow improvements and require separate targeted improvement proof. Reject invalid evidence without requiring all semantic benchmark answers to pass.
Keep the main Hiro service stopped until the intended implementation has completed the existing validation and deployment process and its loaded revision can be verified.
Keep this public journal source local until website validation and authorized publication actually complete; preserve noindex metadata and unlisted journal access when publishing.

Validation and evidence

Check	Status	Result
Original complete Windows baseline repository suite	failed initially; environment causes qualified separately	888 passed, 3 failed, 2 skipped, and 6 warnings in 650.16 seconds on unmodified revision 6781ba741b6e47f52d0397d9a372aa7111ecd389. The original baseline suite was not repeated after environment corrections. A later native full suite tested the new implementation and is reported separately.
Original baseline failure rechecks	passed	After making the pinned runtime available to the isolated worktree, the first targeted run recorded 2 passed and 1 failed in 2.27 seconds. Giving nested pytest a writable inherited temporary root then produced 1 passed in 3.69 seconds. All three original failures were resolved by environment-only corrections; this is not a repeated full-suite pass.
Source investigation and existing CandidateBuilder focused tests	passed	69 passed and 1 explicitly skipped live test in 54.36 seconds. This includes scripted source-request construction, repair from a deliberately wrong patch, pinned-revision reads, request and context bounds, and frozen-oracle checks. The final scope-filter adjustment then passed 2 targeted tests in 1.27 seconds.
Requested live node collection	passed	21 tests collected in 0.30 seconds after the fixture file was named tests/test_candidate_investigation_path.py, including test_live_local_author_with_inspection_and_fixture_owned_oracle.
Actual local Qwen source-inspection construction fixture	passed	tests/test_candidate_investigation_path.py::test_live_local_author_with_inspection_and_fixture_owned_oracle passed: 1 passed, 1 non-failing pytest-cache warning, 43.06 seconds. The packet reached candidate_ready with a real model-requested symbol observation, zero repairs, and improvement_demonstrated baseline contrast.
Evaluation validity and existing evaluator integration tests	passed	28 passed in 285.74 seconds. Cases cover execution failures in either role, empty or incomplete evidence, coverage and identity consistency, valid interrupted continuation, aggregation, and completed semantic failures remaining valid non-regression evidence.
Governor revision identity regression and compatibility tests	passed after implementation	Two new regression tests failed against the unchanged governor in 3.15 seconds. After the fix, 19 governor tests passed in 28.46 seconds, followed by 2 canonical-controller and nested-qualification compatibility tests passing in 9.04 seconds.
Incident intake regression tests	passed after implementation	The new reproduction first recorded 3 failed and 1 passed in 9.82 seconds. After the bounded-prefix fix, the focused group passed 32 tests in 2.64 seconds.
Independent audit observations and lifecycle preservation	passed after implementation	15 new regression tests failed against the unchanged implementation in 1.77 seconds. After the fix, the audit and related regression group passed 95 tests in 12.86 seconds.
Earlier real WSL isolation checks	passed for the tested revision of the isolation changes	2 passed, 1 non-failing pytest-cache warning, in 23.73 seconds. These checks preceded the latest model-pipe and snapshot changes and do not qualify those later edits.
Native model transport, wrapper, and cleanup qualification	passed; live transport not included	Latest native run: 37 passed and 1 explicitly skipped real WSL/Qwen model-pipe test in 14.70 seconds. An earlier complete native transport run passed 29 tests in 13.71 seconds. A Windows test-command length issue in the initial fixture was corrected to send the payload over stdin; prior outcomes remain preserved.
Fresh isolated central-model pipe and isolation checks	passed	5 passed in 30.49 seconds in the live central-model transport and isolation group. This establishes live model access with the tested isolation changes, not candidate patch quality, deployment, or autonomous promotion. Combined repository qualification remains incomplete.
Platform integration, running revision, and fresh autonomous cycle	maintenance active; fresh autonomous cycle incomplete	The gated integration completed with maintenance_active and runtime_verified at 2026-09-08T17:15:32.401894-07:00. Production advanced to 9fdc481b815a6fdc7f1804fddf40be502ddcbc9d. Health reported Hiro PID 13852, loaded and checkout revisions both matching that exact revision, and revision_matches true. Existing launcher startup took 4.047 seconds. The canonical campaign started at 17:15:26-07:00 using production-controller-only selection, zero manual candidate selections, and zero seeded synthetic candidates. A fresh autonomous promotion and completed probation are not yet verified. No source push is claimed.
Journal repository tests, build, and publication	passed; publication pending	The two-entry maintenance-active draft passed npm run test:hiro and then npm run build. Generation and validation passed for 216 journal entries, including distinct same-day timestamps, aliases, Atom content, sitemap and noindex checks. TypeScript compilation and Vite production build passed. The earlier diagnostic entry remains separate. No journal commit or push has occurred.
Normal evaluation transport request compatibility	real inference executed; one case remains unsuccessful	A 7,168-token request from the normal WorktreeProcessAgent path exposed a transport limit mismatch. Its bounded correction passed 36 focused tests with 1 explicit live test skipped in 15.47 seconds. The real default-entrypoint retry ran exactly two prompts in 35.516 seconds: 6+6 returned literal 12 (one pass), while 2+2 returned an internal execution error (one failure). The transport executed successfully; the unsuccessful product behavior was left unchanged and preserved as a potential fresh autonomous workload.
WSL repository qualification	failed initial run; subsequent qualification reported separately	5 failed, 621 passed, and 2 skipped in 384.26 seconds. The observed failures involve file-descriptor exhaustion and Windows-specific launcher expectations. This initial run is not a repository-suite pass. Resource-lifecycle corrections and the later complete WSL run are reported separately.
Native full patched-repository suite	one failure diagnosed and fixed; focused requalification passed	1 failed, 995 passed, and 4 skipped in 897.87 seconds. The failing wrong-first-patch source-inspection fixture reached candidate_ready but consumed two repairs instead of the required one. Its preserved packet showed that long pytest warnings displaced the literal assertion diagnostic, causing the scripted author feedback check itself to fail on the first repair. This was addressed without relaxing the exact repair-count requirement. The second complete native run subsequently passed and is reported separately.
Warning-dominated repair feedback regression and qualification	passed after implementation	Two deterministic reproduction cases failed before the correction in 0.37 seconds. After the bounded feedback change, tests/test_candidate_investigation_path.py plus the existing CandidateBuilder suite passed 71 tests, with 1 explicitly skipped live test, in 52.41 seconds. The preserved repaired fixture packet reports candidate_ready, exactly 1 repair across 2 attempts, and improvement_demonstrated baseline contrast. Git diff whitespace validation passed.
Evaluation ledger lifecycle correction	passed	After correcting a ledger resource-lifecycle issue, the focused group recorded 51 passed and 1 platform-specific Linux test skipped in 382.46 seconds. This is focused qualification, separate from the full native rerun.
Audit maintenance regression checks	passed	41 passed in 4.43 seconds after the latest maintenance correction.
Second native full implementation suite	passed	1,019 passed and 5 skipped in 924.95 seconds. This repeated the complete native suite after the repair-feedback and resource-lifecycle corrections; the earlier 995-pass run and its one failure remain reported separately. A subsequent WSL cleanup correction will require its own qualification.
Frozen canonical pipeline qualification	passed	24 tests passed and five qualification scenarios passed against the local frozen implementation revision 975fd424b20d53bfd8b795a17bd3119d9b1ff761. Qualification scenarios do not substitute for a fresh real autonomous improvement reaching activation and probation.
Second WSL full implementation suite	historical failure; later final qualification passed	1,013 passed, 10 skipped, and 1 failed in 478.57 seconds. The remaining failure involved the existing POSIX runtime-link cleanup boundary. Its correction passed nine native tests in 5.94 seconds. A later fixture-only correction and passing final WSL suite are reported separately; this earlier run remains failed.
Runtime cleanup correction	focused checks passed	9 native tests passed in 5.94 seconds after the POSIX runtime-link cleanup correction. It was included in f3b1cd2b3a01a0c31180bed7f0b757324c0dc787. Later exact-revision qualification, including the separately corrected fixture issue, is reported independently.
Verification at maintenance revision f3b1cd2	Windows and frozen qualification passed; WSL failed	The run began at 18:05 UTC at f3b1cd2b3a01a0c31180bed7f0b757324c0dc787, tree 95f6dc0ab7a22a73bd8193f40d42deddb7deee7e. The complete Windows suite passed 1,020 tests with 4 skips and 6 warnings in 960.58 seconds, and frozen pipeline qualification passed. The third WSL full suite still recorded 1,013 passed, 10 skipped, and 1 failed in 481.65 pytest seconds (520.625 seconds including wrapper overhead). The combined release receipt correctly remains failed; the exposed fixture-scope issue was corrected separately.
Portable runtime-link fixture scope correction	passed	A narrow Linux comparison identified a portable test-fixture ignore-rule mismatch that had previously been masked by cleanup failure. The comparison completed in 36.047 seconds, preserving the runtime target and removing the validation worktree. The native fixture then passed 9 tests in 5.87 seconds. The resulting 9fdc481 revision changes only that fixture line after f3b1cd2; production scope checks were not broadened.
Corrected final-revision verification	passed	Final verification completed at 2026-09-08T23:32:06.422892+00:00 on 9fdc481b815a6fdc7f1804fddf40be502ddcbc9d, tree e90bbdfe91128da6c7294e7a340e6c104511dbe7. Starting and final identities matched, final Git status was clean, and all required checks passed. Native fixture: 9 passed in 30.14 seconds. Linux fixture: 9 passed in 1.06 seconds. Complete WSL suite: 1,014 passed, 10 skipped, 6 warnings in 465.21 seconds, with 499.0 seconds wrapper elapsed. Frozen qualification passed 24 tests across all five scenarios. The full Windows suite remains the identical-production-source anchor from f3b1cd2; no full Windows rerun on 9fdc481 is claimed.
Fresh arithmetic oracle before authoring	scripted checks passed; fresh live audit being traced	One frozen arithmetic workload was loaded with SHA-256 2acf99ca57c64e2a084068c21dccadfd8a978c516323237b37b573cac875998b. The exact correct single numeral passed, and wrong or verbose answers failed. Scripted production-boundary replay reproduced the single-character response defect. This replay made no model call, accessed no queue, edited no source, and authored no candidate. The earlier default-entrypoint receipt supplies separate actual-inference evidence. After maintenance activation, the root session is tracing the two fresh real audit observations and scheduler; completed fresh audit and promotion outcomes are not yet recorded in this draft.

Current state

Active maintenance revision is 9fdc481b815a6fdc7f1804fddf40be502ddcbc9d, with qualified tree e90bbdfe91128da6c7294e7a340e6c104511dbe7. Final release verification passed with unchanged source identity and a clean qualification checkout.
Production is running. Health verified PID 13852, loaded_revision and checkout_revision both equal to 9fdc481b815a6fdc7f1804fddf40be502ddcbc9d, and revision_matches true.
The existing central Qwen service is healthy and has supplied actual local construction inference.
The canonical campaign is running after maintenance activation, with no manual candidate selections or synthetic candidate seeding at startup. The root session is tracing fresh real audit intake and scheduler progression. No fresh autonomous promotion or probation completion is established.
The earlier saved candidate and controller state have not been counted as a fresh autonomous cycle for this work.

Next steps

Preserve the passed release and verified maintenance receipts, including the exact running revision and campaign event boundary.
Trace the fresh real arithmetic audit observations and canonical scheduler selection while preserving the frozen oracle and independent observation identities.
Follow candidate construction, independent evaluation, canary, activation, and real probation checkpoints; fix the first observed boundary without weakening the existing gates.
Update this same timestamped implementation entry with actual outcomes, keep the earlier diagnostic entry separate, and retain all prior failing evidence.
Run the required journal tests and production build after final-state updates, review the exact two-entry publication scope, and publish only when the root session provides the final state.