diff --git a/OPSTACK-HANDOFF.md b/OPSTACK-HANDOFF.md index c1d05ac..a6c86ec 100644 --- a/OPSTACK-HANDOFF.md +++ b/OPSTACK-HANDOFF.md @@ -1,339 +1,103 @@ -# Handoff — VoxelForge operator stack, updated 2026-08-16 (four things queued on ONE build) +# VoxelForge handoff — the operator stack is DONE. Read this, not the old jargon. -> Paste the block below into a fresh session. Everything it refers to is on disk and in git. -> -> **State:** 8 of 8 archetypes ported and green. Tile-skipping is measured **in the automation -> harness** (11 of 40 tiles proved `AllSolid` at production defaults, 14641 voxels brute-forced, -> 0 violations) and **still unobserved in the running game**. `AUDIT §C2` is **fully closed** (both -> halves — verified 2026-08-16, don't reopen). `experimental` is pushed. -> -> ## ⛔ FOUR unbuilt things are stacked on `experimental`. Build once, read four numbers. -> -> | # | commit | what to read | -> |---|---|---| -> | 1 | `e002bd4` VerticalShafts connector capsules | `Box verdicts over 60 VerticalShafts tiles` — **0 has been the number for the project's whole life**; `violations` must stay 0 | -> | 2 | `eb317d9` `stat VoxelForge`, 8 counters | baseline `TilesOpStackSolid` = 0 → tick one `TunnelNetwork` strate → **non-zero**. That is the production proof of T1.d, which has never existed | -> | 3 | `7dbdf51` `ExtraReach` × `VF_PerlinAbsBound` | Maze/VerticalShafts may prove **FEWER** tiles. **That is correct, not a regression** | -> | 4 | `eaa44bf` `Max3` radius envelope | **a NO-OP at shipped defaults is the correct result** — any moved number means the diff did more than intended | -> -> In all four: the eight equivalence tests must stay green, and `violations` must stay 0. -> -> **⚠️ 3 and 4 are CORRECTNESS fixes to box verdicts, found by auditing all 28 `EffectOverBox` -> implementations.** Both were the same mistake: *a bound taken from the parameter that reads like -> the maximum instead of the supremum of what `Eval` actually produces* — and both times a correct -> instance of the same reasoning already existed elsewhere in the same file. See -> `OPSTACK-PROGRESS.md` 2026-08-16 (e) and (f); the sound-and-checked ops are listed there so they -> are not re-audited. +> Paste this into a fresh session. Written 2026-08-16, deliberately in plain language: the previous +> version of this file had become a private dialect that Jahni could not read, which is a failure of +> the document, not of the reader. --- -You're picking up the VoxelForge UE5 voxel plugin on branch `experimental` (already checked out — -do not create another). I'm Jahni. The design and the history are written down so you don't -re-derive them. +## 1. What the operator stack was, in one paragraph -## Read first, in this order +Cave generation used to be one big `switch`: each cave type (tunnels, maze, shafts, floating +islands, surface…) was its own hardcoded ~200–1000 line C++ function. The refactor replaced that with +small composable pieces ("operators") that stack up to produce the same terrain. **The promise was +that you could eventually invent new world types by combining pieces in the editor instead of asking +for another thousand-line function.** -1. **`CLAUDE.md`** — project rules. **Rule #1 is absolute: never build, compile, or run the editor.** - I build everything myself. When code is done, stop, say "ready to build", list the likely - compile-error spots, and wait. -2. **`OPSTACK-PROGRESS.md` — THE LAST ENTRY FIRST.** Append-only log; the resume point. -3. **`OPSTACK-PLAN.md`** — the plan. **§2.6.1 is the acceptance bar** and supersedes §2.6. -4. **`OPSTACK-DECOMPOSITION.md`** — per-archetype breakdown. **§0.2** (the amplitude bound) is now - *implemented*, not pending; §2 TunnelNetwork and §8 Underwater are history, not instructions. -5. **`AUDIT-2026-07.md`** — **§C2's SDF-cache half is FIXED (2026-07-28)**, its live-edit half - (`OC_Chunk` / `BM_Chunk` / `FChunkBiomeCache`) is still open; §C10 is SOLVED, don't reopen; - §C9's library half is the top open theoretical risk with 0 measured exposure. -6. **`CODEMAP.md`** — navigation. Trust symbol names over line numbers. +**That promise — "Phase 3", ops as data assets — was never built, and is NOT being built now.** -## How we work now — Codex writes, you orchestrate +## 2. Status: done. Stop refactoring. -From 2026-07-29 this project runs **in tandem with Codex (Model Luna, xHigh)**. **Codex handles most -of the coding; you orchestrate.** Concretely: +- **8 of 8 archetypes ported**, running in production (`bUseOperatorStack` is ticked on the game's + strate assets), and **bit-for-bit identical** to the old path. Verified by a 115 000-sample field + digest plus eight per-archetype equivalence tests. +- **14/14 automation tests green, 0 violations anywhere.** +- **39 % of tiles are skipped in the running game** (`Tiles Meshed` 1.15 vs `Tiles Classified` 1.88). + It was 0 % on the morning of 2026-08-16. Each skipped tile avoids ~43 000 density evaluations plus + marching cubes. -- You read the code and decide *what* to do; you write **precise specs** Codex executes; you **review - what comes back against the real code, not against its description**; you own the docs - (`OPSTACK-PROGRESS.md`, `CODEMAP §3`, this file) and the measurements. -- **Hand Codex the INVARIANT, not just the task.** This codebase's traps are invisible in a diff — - density sign, `Identity` meaning `Sdf ≥ T` (below), cache keys needing params + `LayoutVersion`, - inserting classes above the anonymous-namespace end marker. A spec that omits these gets code that - compiles and deletes collision. -- `CODEX-TASK-*.md` at the plugin root are the specs. Each carries a **Why**, the **exact site**, the - **invariants**, an **acceptance** section, and **notes for the reviewer**. Write the next one the - same way. -- Unchanged: **never build** (Jahni does), and a plausible patch is not a verified one until a - measurement says so. +**Decision taken 2026-08-16, with Jahni:** the op stack is finished. **Do not start Phase 3. Do not +start another refactor.** The old `switch` stays in place as the correctness oracle — deleting it +buys nothing today. Next work should be things Jahni can *see*: see `fable-idea.md` (F7 set-pieces, +F9 audio were queued before this started). -## Where things stand +### The honest ledger, so nobody re-litigates it -All 8 archetypes have an operator-stack twin, per-strate opt-in, each equivalence-tested **bit for -bit** against its original density function. The `switch` and the stack are two complete, -interchangeable implementations. +Three weeks, 120 commits, from 2026-07-27. Every `feat:` commit in that window is a *port* of +something that already worked. **The world did not change by a single voxel — that was the +acceptance criterion.** What Jahni actually got: the 39 % perf win, two genuine pre-existing bugs +found (a use-after-free on every strate-asset edit while streaming, and an under-bounded room +collection that could make two multiplayer peers generate different geometry), and a number of fixes +to bugs the refactor itself introduced. That is a thin return for three weeks, and it is why the +direction changed. -Everything sits behind `UVoxelStrateDefinition::bUseOperatorStack`; the ported list lives **only** in -`UVoxelStrateManager::UsesOperatorStackForChunk` (all 8). `GetDensityAt` and `ClassifyTile` build the -stack through the **same** factory, `VF_BuildOpStackForChunk` — a second copy would be a hole. +## 3. The jargon, translated -> ### ⚠️⚠️ CORRECTED 2026-08-16 — **THE FLAG IS ON IN THE GAME'S DATA ASSETS.** -> -> This section used to say *"No strate asset has the box ticked — that is my call and I still -> haven't made it."* **That is false and was believed for a whole session.** Jahni: *"the data assets -> in game have the switch on."* -> -> **Everything downstream of that premise flips:** -> - The operator stack is **the production density path**, not a dormant twin. The measured perf -> regression is a regression players feel, not a lab result. -> - Any unsoundness in an op's `EffectOverBox` is a **live** hole, not a latent one. Two were found -> and fixed on 2026-08-16 (`7dbdf51`, `eaa44bf`) and **both of those commit messages say "nothing -> in the running game was affected" — that sentence is WRONG, for this reason.** See -> `OPSTACK-PROGRESS.md` 2026-08-16 (h) for the corrected severity. -> - The T1.d prize is already being collected in-game; `CODEX-TASK-001`'s counters measure how much. -> -> **Never state the flag's state from memory again — it lives in `.uasset` data, which is not -> greppable from here. Ask, or read it in the editor.** +Almost all of it means one thing: **can we prove a chunk of world is entirely rock or entirely air +without checking every point in it, so we can skip the expensive work?** -### ✅ T1.d — the tile-skipping prize — is real and measured **in the harness** (not yet in the game) - -`FRoomGraphSource::EffectOverBox` answers **spatially**. The result, brute-forced voxel by voxel: - -``` -[production defaults] 11 of 40 tiles proved AllSolid — 14641 voxels checked, 0 violations -[dense fixture] 0 of 40 — correct, and structurally inevitable -``` - -One function's verdict is inherited by `FSdfConvertOp`, the twelve detail modifiers (via -`VF_NoCaveOverBox`) **and** `FWormFieldSource` — fourteen operators from one place. That is what the -C1 wiring was built for. - -### ⚠️⚠️ THE ONE INVARIANT THAT CAN DELETE COLLISION — read before touching any op - -**`FRoomGraphSource::EffectOverBox` returning `Identity` now means `Sdf ≥ T`, NOT `Sdf == FLT_MAX`**, -where `T = max(3·SDFBlendRadius, WormNetworkRange)`. That is sound only because all three consumers -of the SDF channel were read one by one: - -| consumer | threshold | +| term | plain meaning | |---|---| -| `FSdfConvertOp::Eval` | `Sdf >= Blend`, and the tunnel stack passes `MakeSdfCarve(P.SDFBlendRadius, …)` ⇒ **K** | -| the twelve modifiers | `VF_NearCaveSurface` ⇒ **3K** | -| `FWormFieldSource::Eval` | `CaveSDF >= WormNetworkRange` ⇒ **WormNetworkRange** | +| **T1.d / tile skipping** | that idea. The single biggest perf item in the plan. | +| **box verdict / `ClassifyBox`** | "is this whole box uniform?" → `AllSolid`, `AllAir`, or `Mixed` (don't know) | +| **`Mixed`** | "can't prove it" — always safe, just means we do the work | +| **`ClassifyTile`** | the function that decides, per tile, whether to skip meshing | +| **operator / op stack** | one generation step (rock, carve, roughness…) and the list of them | +| **equivalence test** | proof the new path produces byte-identical terrain to the old one | +| **`violations`** | ⚠️ **the only number that means danger.** A tile wrongly proved uniform has *no geometry and no collision* — a player falls through the floor. Must always be 0. | -**Any new consumer of `InOut.Sdf` must have a threshold ≤ `T`, or be added to that `max`.** An op -reading `Sdf < 100` would see false `Identity` verdicts and produce tiles with no geometry **and no -collision**. The warning is written at the site you land on when you add one. +## 4. What is verified, and what is not -(The `−K` slack covers *any* number of primitives because `SmoothMin`'s penalty is exactly zero once -`|A−B| ≥ K`, so the running minimum saturates at `K` below the smallest term. Without that -observation the slack would scale with the ~88 tunnels in a cache and the criterion would be dead.) +**Verified:** everything through commit `871ca19` — tests green, digests unchanged, 39 % measured +in game. -## First actions — one build to read, two tasks to hand Codex +⚠️ **Built but NOT re-verified:** `4d33321` (Sol's boundary fold — lets a tile that straddles cave and +open air still resolve) and `91585ea` (a test-only warning demotion). Jahni built these and says the +game *looks* fine, but **the test suite has not been re-run and the counters have not been re-read +since.** Before trusting them: -### (a) Hand Codex `CODEX-TASK-001-tile-skip-stats.md`, then `-002-` — 001 first, they chain +1. run the `VoxelForge` automation filter — **`violations` must be 0 and all eight equivalences + bit-identical**; +2. `stat VoxelForge` in game — the accounting must close: + `Tiles Meshed + Skipped All Air + Skipped All Solid = Tiles Classified`. -Everything in this refactor has been proved in an automation harness on 40 sampled tiles, and -**nothing has ever been observed in the running game.** Task 001 adds a `stat VoxelForge` group with -`TilesClassified / TilesSkippedAllSolid / TilesSkippedAllAir / TilesMeshed`, **plus -`TilesOpStackSolid / TilesOpStackAir` at a second site**. Task 002 adds `ColumnMemoHit / Miss` to the -same group; it needs 001's header to exist, and both should land in one build. +If either fails, `git revert 4d33321` — the 39 % win does not depend on it. -Its deliverable is a **before/after that constitutes the production proof of T1.d**: after ticking -`bUseOperatorStack` on one `TunnelNetwork` strate and flying the same route, **`TilesOpStackSolid` -must go non-zero**. The spec carries the invariants — most importantly that `bTrivialEmpty` decides -whether a tile has **collision**, and that `GenerateTileResult` runs on **worker threads** so a plain -`static int32++` is a data race. +## 5. Rules that still prevent real bugs -⚠️ **Corrected 2026-08-16 — the earlier version of this bar was unmeasurable.** It said -`TilesSkippedAllSolid` would read 0 underground with no strate opted in. It will not: `ClassifyTile` -also proves `AllSolid` on its **hand-written** path (a bedrock-gap chunk sets `bCanAir = false`, -`VoxelGenerator.cpp` ~2835), which fires with nothing ticked at all. That is the same "~84 %" caveat -below, which the old bar quoted and then contradicted. The op-stack-only counters are zero **by -construction** — the cave branch returns `Mixed` at `UsesOperatorStackForChunk` — so they are the -ones that prove anything. +- **Never build.** Jahni builds; he has the editor open and it costs him real time. Say "ready to + build" and list likely compile-error spots. +- **`violations` 0 and the eight equivalences bit-identical** — the only non-negotiable results. +- **A bound used to skip work must be PROVED, not observed.** Use `VF_PerlinAbsBound` (= 1.5); + `FMath::Lerp(A,B,t)` spans `[min(A,B), max(A,B)]`, so a radius envelope is `max(Min,Max)`. +- **Never change `ClassifyTile`'s conditions or return values casually.** Every `return` there fails + safe to `Mixed`. +- **Never state a `.uasset` value from memory** (like `bUseOperatorStack`). Ask, or read it in the + editor. This sent a full day sideways. +- `FindSlotIndexForChunkZ` is **protected**; `GetStrateChunkZBounds` is the public equivalent. +- Push `experimental` freely. **Never push `main`.** -Interim answer if Jahni wants it before that lands: **Unreal Insights already shows this.** The trace -scopes `VoxelForge_ClassifyTile` and `VoxelForge_GenerateMesh` exist at the site; a skipped tile is a -`ClassifyTile` with no `GenerateMesh` after it. ⚠️ But ~84 % of tiles were *already* being rejected by -the hand-written SurfaceWorld/bedrock paths long before this work, so surface skips will drown the -cave ones — you must be **underground in an opted-in `TunnelNetwork` strate** for the number to mean -anything. +## 6. Two lessons that generalise beyond this plugin -### (b) Build `e002bd4` (VerticalShafts) and read ONE line +- **A signal that always says the same thing measures nothing.** A counter that can fire for two + reasons is not a measurement — splitting one such counter is what finally cracked T1.d after a day + of wrong inference. A warning that fires every run and always means "this is fine" is noise that + trains the reader to ignore warnings; one of those quietly worried Jahni for several sessions. +- **Verify the premise, and verify it completely.** Multiple confident chains reversed on checking + this month. Twice the failure was a *partial* read — grepping a symbol and reporting it as checked + for something else. A grep that finds a declaration has not checked its access specifier. -Everything before it is built and green. +## 7. The open question, which matters more than any of the above -> Build, run the `VoxelForge` filter, and read -> **`Box verdicts over 60 VerticalShafts tiles`**. -> -> **0 was the number for the whole project's life.** Its `EffectOverBox` used to return `CarveOnly` -> because a shaft merely *existed* within a `Spacing*1.6` halo — true almost everywhere at -> `ShaftSpacing 55 / ShaftDensity 0.6`. It now rebuilds the connectors the way `GetCells` does and -> tests the real capsules, with **Z exact** and XY conservative. -> -> - **Non-zero, and `violations` still 0** ⇒ it worked; record it and move on. -> - **Still 0** ⇒ the warning in that test names what to check **first**: `ExtraReach` inflates both -> remaining tests, so compare it against `ShaftMaxRadius` before touching either test. **Do not -> re-derive from scratch** — that is exactly what cost three rounds on TunnelNetwork. - -## Then, in order - -1. **PERF — the biggest open item, and now AIMED (2026-08-16). Read this before touching it.** - The op path is measurably slower; one cause was already found and fixed (the column memo - discarded itself every chunk). Three things were worked out since, all still **unmeasured**: - - - **The A/B needs no new code.** `VoxelForge_ClassifyTile` and `VoxelForge_GenerateMesh` already - exist, and the world is deterministic, so two Insights traces — flag off, then on, same seed and - route — are a clean before/after. - - **But it is unreadable without task 001.** With the stack on, tiles get *skipped*, so - `GenerateMesh` runs fewer times; a total conflates "cheaper per tile" with "fewer tiles" and - those pull opposite ways. `TilesMeshed` is the denominator. **⇒ 001 is a PREREQUISITE here, not - a parallel item.** Order: 001 → traces → attribution → fix. - - **The suspects don't share an archetype**, so measure one ticked strate at a time. - *SurfaceWorld* = the hashed column memo. *TunnelNetwork* = **19 virtual calls per voxel** - (16 from `BuildTunnelNetworkStack` + 3 from `AppendStructuralPost`), plus the known 12× gate - re-test (stage B5's deliberate trade). - - `CODEX-TASK-002` tests the SurfaceWorld suspect and **fixes nothing on purpose** — the derivation - says the direct-mapped 4096-slot table evicts ~25 % of columns *every Z plane* (the mesher - pre-samples **Z-outermost**), for a derived ~9× on column work. **Derived, not measured.** - **Measure before optimising** — the §C10 lesson, re-learned the hard way last session. -2. **The warp squeeze — PARKED with its ceiling measured, my recommendation is leave it.** The - `WARP SHARE` line says over half the remaining blocking is the query-box dilation, not geometry - (production: rooms 0.9 → 0.4, tunnels 2.4 → 1.1 with the dilation zeroed). The only remaining - route is proving `sup|Perlin3D|` down from the proved **1.5** toward its apparent ~1.0–1.1, worth - ~27 % of the dilation. Spot-checking a grid is **not** a proof and a wrong sup is a hole. - **A negative result is already recorded so nobody repeats it:** bounding the warp *locally* - (evaluate at the box centre, shift, dilate by the variation) is **worse** — a rigorous per-axis - Lipschitz bound is `4·1.875 + 1 = 8.5` per unit cell, and `8.5 × 0.206` (the half-box in noise - units) `= 1.75` exceeds the global range bound of 1.5. -3. **`AUDIT §C9` library half** — `sinf`/`cosf` are not IEEE-754 specified, so MSVC's CRT and glibc's - libm can differ. Currently **0 samples within 1e-6 of the isosurface**, i.e. no measured risk. Run - `CrossPlatformDigest` on Linux, compare the SHAPE digest, pin it. The real fix if ever needed is a - deterministic in-house sin/cos. -4. ~~**`AUDIT §C2`'s remaining half**~~ — **✅ CLOSED, verified 2026-08-16. Do not re-open, and do - not spec a fix for it — I nearly did.** `OC_Chunk`, `BM_Chunk` and `TC_BiomeCache` all carry a - layout-version guard (`OC_Version` / `BM_Version` / `TC_SeenVersion`), `FChunkBiomeCache` has an - explicit `Invalidate()` that all four `thread_local` instances call on a version change, and the - only other two instances in the tree are **function-local**, so they cannot go stale. Recorded in - `AUDIT-2026-07.md §C2`. The live-edit half was fixed at the same time as the determinism half; - only this list was stale. -5. **Phase 3 — ops as data assets.** A design conversation, not a transcription. Don't start it - unprompted. What makes it possible is already in place: ops depend on capabilities - (`IVoxelBiomeField`), never on `UVoxelGenerator`. - -## Debts — status changed, read this before acting on the old text - -1. **"Box bounds read STRATE params but a per-room op can raise them" — DORMANT, not urgent.** - Checked rather than paid, and the check reversed the premise: when the source proves `Identity` - the twelve modifiers are `Identity` **soundly** (their `bNearCaveSurface` gate never opens, so no - room op can enable anything), and when it answers `Both` it supplies no `MaxCarveOverBox`, so the - default `FLT_MAX` kills every hypothesis regardless of what the modifiers claim. **It goes live - the day `FRoomGraphSource` gains a `MaxCarveOverBox`** — bounding the converter's `2·BaseDensity` - would make the modifiers' own numbers matter for the first time. Written at the site. -2. **`AUDIT §C2` — FIXED on the `switch` path.** `GetDensityWithParams` now takes **required** - `ParamsFingerprint` + `LayoutVersion`. Required, not defaulted, so a caller that forgets fails to - compile. The CRC is taken **once per chunk** where the params memo already lives (`CP_TunnelFP`) — - a `MemCrc32` per voxel on the hottest path would have been a real regression. Note the audit's own - suggested alternative ("add chunk Z to the key") is both insufficient (`Interleaved` makes `Alpha` - depend on chunk **XY** too) and destructive (chunk XY is deliberately absent so `WorldX ± 1` - gradient probes don't thrash the box — `ARCHITECTURE §8.10`). - -## Hard rules that prevent real bugs - -- **Density sign:** negative = solid at the mesher. Inside the op stack the convention is INTERNAL - (**positive = solid**), negated once by the caller. The SDF channel uses standard SDF convention. -- **`Identity` from the room source means `Sdf ≥ T`.** See the boxed invariant above. This is the - single most dangerous thing in the current code. -- **Never run both density paths in one world.** **Comparing them is legitimate** — §C10 is closed - since `FPSemantics = Precise`, and all eight equivalence tests compare bit for bit. They are - **port-correctness oracles**, not fidelity checks: §2.6.1 requires *same seed ⇒ same world on every - peer*, not resemblance to the pre-refactor world. -- **Every cache key includes `LayoutVersion` AND the params.** See §C2 and the overhang regression of - 2026-07-27, where omitting the params silently deleted the overhang and only 1 sample in 20 000 - crossed the isosurface. -- **A bound in a box verdict must be PROVED, not observed.** `|Perlin3D| ≤ 1.5` is derived from - `GradDot`'s two-distinct-axes form and the per-axis weighted bound of 0.5 — *not* from the header's - "~[-1,1]". Over-estimating costs CPU; under-estimating deletes collision. - **⚠️ USE `VF_PerlinAbsBound` — it is file-scope in `VoxelDensityOpStack.cpp` and it is the ONLY - copy. Never write a bare `1.0` for a noise amplitude in a reach.** `VoxelNoise::FBM` **normalises** - (`return Total / MaxValue`), so `sup|FBM| = sup|Perlin3D|` **exactly** — the octave sum neither - amplifies nor attenuates it, and an `FBM`-driven reach needs the same 1.5. This rule was written - *before* three `ExtraReach` formulas were found violating it (2026-08-16, fixed in `7dbdf51`): - VerticalShafts and Maze were unsound at their shipped defaults, FloatingIslands sound only because - its `SDFBlendRadius` happens to be large. **A rule stated in a doc is not a rule enforced in code** — - when you add a reach, grep for `VF_PerlinAbsBound` and use it. -- `ProcessQueue` stays `EQueueMode::Mpsc`; `Epoch` carries through every async path; don't "optimize" - the `ARCHITECTURE §8.10` invariants. -- Commit per coherent unit with a real message. **`experimental` is pushed and tracked - (`origin/experimental`, since 2026-07-29) — keep it in sync. NEVER push `main`**, which stays the - known-good fallback at the commit it has always been. ⚠️ A pushed commit here is **not** a - "verified green" marker: the branch carries unbuilt work by design, and only `OPSTACK-PROGRESS.md` - says what was actually built. -- Update `CODEMAP §3`, `ARCHITECTURE §8`, tick `OPSTACK-PLAN`, append to `OPSTACK-PROGRESS.md`. -- **When inserting a class into `VoxelDensityOpStack.cpp` / `VoxelHeightOpStack.cpp`, put it ABOVE - the labelled end of the anonymous namespace.** Anchoring on the FACTORIES banner puts it outside, - and the brace added with it closes nothing. Made that mistake twice; both files say so. -- **Match the codebase's spelling of engine macros.** `KINDA_SMALL_NUMBER`, not - `UE_KINDA_SMALL_NUMBER` — the plugin uses the unprefixed form everywhere. - -## Method lessons this refactor actually paid for - -Ordered by how much they cost. - -- **⭐ Instrument what you ASSUMED, not just what you changed.** This is the expensive one, learned - over four rounds in one session. The warp dilation — `CaveWarpStrength · VOXEL_NOISE_SCALE · - PerlinAbsBound`, a constant chosen in the first commit — inflated a 10-voxel tile into a 50-voxel - query box, **125× the volume**. Four separate tightenings (the worm, the columns, the sampler, the - tunnel disjunction) were each individually correct and each landed *around* that untouched term. - The tunnel fix, predicted "an order of magnitude", delivered 25 % — **and the instrument said so, - and I credited the tunnels.** *When a fix under-delivers against its predicted size, suspect the - constant you never measured.* -- **Instrument before hypothesising.** §C10 cost six builds and five refuted hypotheses. In this - session the attribution line (`AllSolid killed by: …`) was written after *two* wrong guesses and - immediately named a third operator nobody had looked at. **A diagnostic that lists candidate causes - without measuring them is still a guess wearing rigour** — my "either the tiles straddle cave or - the source isn't reaching Identity" warning offered two causes and both were wrong. -- **Verify the premise before reasoning from it.** Six times now a confident chain rested on an - unchecked assumption and the check reversed it. Latest three: `RoomSpacing` was **42** (the fixture - overrides it) while I did three rounds of arithmetic with the header default of 80 — *the number - was printing in the report I kept quoting*; "the plugin bets on `|Perlin3D| ≤ 0.8`" was wrong (the - cache **rebuilds** when the warped query leaves the box, so that expansion is a perf heuristic); - and the per-room-op debt "must be paid first" was wrong (it is dormant). **Include the premises you - are confident enough about not to look up — especially a default, when a fixture exists whose whole - job is overriding defaults.** -- **A sampler must cover at least one period of what it samples.** The tunnel test drew tile XY from - **±32 voxels** with `RoomSpacing 80` and a guaranteed origin room at (0,0) — it measured the spine - hub and called it the world. The shaft test had the identical bug (±48 against `ShaftSpacing 55`). - Both now print their own extent **in units of the pattern's period**. -- **A test fixture tuned for coverage can be antagonistic to the thing you are measuring.** - `EnableTunnelFeatures` densifies (`RoomSpacing` 80→42, `RoomDensity` 0.35→0.85) so the equivalence - check isn't comparing solid rock to solid rock — and at that density the room cull radius *equals* - the lattice spacing, so **no box can ever be proved**. `0 proved` there is the correct answer. The - box verdict is therefore measured on **both** densities, and the dense run must stay at 0. -- **Diagnostics report THIS run; history goes in the log.** The test output had accumulated hardcoded - numbers from previous runs beside live ones ("32 of 34 tiles" printed while the live figure was 21 - of 28). Unreadable, and self-inflicted. -- **Read the code, not the comment.** The cliff modifier's comment promises a sampled Z±1 gradient; - the code samples nothing and uses a Z-stretched Perlin it *calls* `VertGrad`. Ported as written — - and written down, so nobody "fixes" it from the comment. -- **A perf change can be a correctness change.** The column-memo optimisation silently deleted the - overhang; the tests caught it the same day. Invisible to inspection, and it produced plausible - terrain. -- **Coverage is a number, not a boolean.** Four related traps, each producing a green run that proved - almost nothing: - - *A test that prints nothing on success is indistinguishable from one that never ran.* - - *A guard that only trips at zero notices absence, it does not measure coverage.* Use fractions. - - *A success message that **asserts** coverage instead of reporting it reads as evidence while - measuring nothing.* - - *A check can be vacuous as well as a counter.* "Nothing leaked" is worthless unless something - happened. -- **Enabling a feature is not evidence it fired — ask the structure, not the output.** Setting - `PitDensity` did nothing (wrong struct). **Prefer the check that can fail for exactly one reason** - — and when a zero has several possible causes, give each one its own number. -- **An oracle that shares the defect under test proves nothing.** The stale-cache check compares each - stack against *itself evaluated alone*. (Since §C2 was fixed, the test call sites now pass a real - params fingerprint, so the original no longer shares the defect either.) -- **One definition, not two kept in sync.** `VF_BuildOpStackForChunk` exists because a tile skipped on - the verdict of a stack that is not the one producing its density is a hole. The same reasoning is - why `GetLastRoomBoxDiagnostic` **reads back** what the operator computed instead of letting the - test re-derive the criterion, and why the two-density tile scan is one lambda called twice. -- **Don't assert a number you want to improve.** Check 4 asserted `0 proved` — honest when written, - and it would have forbidden the entire T1.d gain. What it asserts now is that **no proved tile is - wrong** (brute force, every voxel); the proved count is *reported*. +**What do you want the world to *do* that it doesn't?** Three weeks went into a pipeline instead of +that question. Start there. diff --git a/OPSTACK-PROGRESS.md b/OPSTACK-PROGRESS.md index 590ac0c..ed73d00 100644 --- a/OPSTACK-PROGRESS.md +++ b/OPSTACK-PROGRESS.md @@ -4566,3 +4566,35 @@ same information, but the severity now carries meaning. ⇒ **General rule for this project's diagnostics:** if a line cannot distinguish a good run from a bad one, it must not be logged at a severity that implies something is wrong. The same defect as the lumped bail counter, one layer out: *a signal that always says the same thing measures nothing.* + +## 2026-08-16 (w) — CLOSED. The operator stack is declared done; direction changes to visible work. + +Jahni built `4d33321` + `91585ea` and reports the game looks fine. He asked for the handoff to be +updated and the thread closed. + +**`OPSTACK-HANDOFF.md` fully rewritten in plain language.** The previous version had become a private +dialect — his words: *"you've started using very unique terminology, i have NO idea what you've been +doing."* That is a failure of the document, not of the reader. The new one leads with what the op +stack was for, states plainly that Phase 3 was never built and is not being built, carries the honest +three-week ledger, and includes a translation table for the jargon (`T1.d`, `box verdict`, `Mixed`, +`violations`). + +### Final state + +- 8/8 archetypes live and bit-identical (115 000-sample field digest unchanged, eight equivalences). +- 14/14 tests green through `871ca19`, `violations` 0 everywhere. +- **39 % of tiles skipped in the running game**, from 0 % that morning. + +⚠️ **`4d33321` (boundary fold) and `91585ea` (warning demotion) are built but NOT re-verified** — the +suite has not been re-run and the counters not re-read since. Recorded in the handoff with the exact +two checks and the instruction to `git revert 4d33321` if either fails; the 39 % does not depend on +it. + +### Direction, agreed + +**No Phase 3. No further refactoring.** The old `switch` stays as the oracle. Next work is whatever +Jahni can see — `fable-idea.md`, F7 set-pieces, F9 audio. The handoff closes on the question that +should have been asked in July: *what do you want the world to do that it doesn't?* + +This log stays append-only and stays the record of what was actually built. It ends here for the +operator stack.