fix(agents): break the hedging-at-the-root pattern — deferred(unclear), impacts field, reviewer detection

Address the root cause of rework-causing hedging: the architect was
put in a logical bind where it couldn't express justified uncertainty
('the pieces exist but the shape isn't clear yet'). The only options
were 'decide now' (premature) or 'deferred(scope)' (false — the
information isn't missing, it's un-synthesized). The agent picked
deferred(scope) with a circular blocking condition (OQ-64 blocked on
OQ-55, OQ-55 needs OQ-64) because there was no honest way to say 'I
can see the pieces but I can't see the shape.'

Changes to the architect role spec:
- Add deferred(unclear) state: the pieces exist but the composition
  isn't clear; resolution requires investigation (work through
  examples, POC), not waiting. Has an investigation target and an
  impacts field.
- Add 'Impacts' field to the OQ format: what does this block
  downstream? Be specific ('blocks the first hub deployment because
  the hub dials workers' not 'blocks the hub crate'). The triage
  signal that makes deferral urgency visible — the field that would
  have made the AlknetClient circular hedge visible.
- Add circular-reasoning guard to self-review: 'check that your
  blocking condition isn't a prerequisite of the thing you're
  deferring.'
- Trim anti-patterns #9-#11 (hedging synonyms catalog, ~40 lines):
  detection belongs in the reviewer, not the architect's self-review.
  The architect is too close to its own reasoning to see its own
  circular hedges.
- Trim door-types section (30→10 lines): keep the one-paragraph
  summary, cut the elaboration.

Changes to the architecture-reviewer role spec:
- Add Decision Quality (F) category: false-deferral check
  distinguishing three cases — (1) hedging on a resolved decision, (2)
  false deferral / circular hedge (the blocking condition is a
  prerequisite of the thing being deferred), (3) legitimate deferral.
- Add Impacts Field Coverage (G) category: check that unresolved OQs
  have specific impacts fields.
- Note: the Decision Quality category is often the highest-value
  check on poorly-defined projects — the architect cannot self-review
  it (circular reasoning is invisible from inside the circle).

Retrofit existing OQs:
- Add Impacts field to all 16 unresolved OQs (10 deferred, 6 open).
- Update OQ-63 (TlsError shape) to reflect ADR-087's client-side
  addition — the error type now covers both server and client
  variants.
- Move OQ-65 (WebSocket carrying channels) to alknet-http theme
  (done in prior commit; this commit adds its impacts field).
- Verified: no circular reasoning found in existing deferrals. The
  AlknetClient hedge (OQ-64) was the circular one; it's already
  resolved by ADR-087.
This commit is contained in:
glm-5.2 committed 2026-07-15 07:35:55 +00:00
1 parent bd9ae3cb68
commit 5941280bca
19 files changed
+300 -111

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@@ -4,6 +4,9 @@
- **Status**: deferred(scope)
- **Door type**: One-way (federation model), two-way (mechanism)
- **Priority**: low
- **Impacts**: None currently — the one-hop model covers all current use
cases. Would impact peer-graph routing if a multi-hop topology becomes
needed (e.g., chained hubs).
- **Blocked on**: A concrete use case for multi-hop federation. The one-hop model covers all current use cases (head→worker, runner→hub).
- **Resolution**: The model is **one-hop** — worker A does not transitively
see worker B's ops through the head unless the head explicitly re-exports
@@ -5,6 +5,8 @@
- **Status**: open (scope, not deferral)
- **Door type**: One-way (crate boundary), two-way (mechanism)
- **Priority**: low
- **Impacts**: None — the browser path uses WebSocket (ADR-044). Would
impact a browser-to-P2P-peer relay use case if one arises.
- **Resolution**: There are two distinct "WebTransport proxy" concepts
that must not be conflated:
@@ -6,6 +6,8 @@
- **Door type**: Two-way (additive utility library; no protocol or API-surface
change)
- **Priority**: low
- **Impacts**: None — handlers produce streams today without it. Would
reduce boilerplate in stream-transforming handlers when added.
- **Blocked on**: A handler that needs stream operators and finds the existing
combinators (`Box::pin(stream::iter(...))`, `async_stream::stream!`,
`futures::stream`) insufficient. The operators library is a convenience, not
@@ -6,6 +6,8 @@
- **Status**: deferred(scope)
- **Door type**: Two-way
- **Priority**: low
- **Impacts**: None — the `modes` field is reserved as `{}` and backends
use their defaults, which work for the common terminal case.
- **Blocked on**: a concrete mode-control use case (a deployment that
needs to set echo/raw/canonical/etc. modes on a PTY, beyond the backend's
defaults).
@@ -6,6 +6,9 @@
- **Status**: deferred(scope)
- **Door type**: Two-way
- **Priority**: low
- **Impacts**: None — the runner *mechanism* (pipe mode) is in alknet-tty.
Would impact a future `alknet-runner` crate if job management / log
persistence / task graph integration becomes needed.
- **Blocked on**: a concrete runner-policy use case that forces the API
surface (job management, log persistence, task graph integration).
- **Resolution**: Not yet decidable. The runner *mechanism* (pipe mode —
@@ -6,6 +6,10 @@
- **Status**: deferred(scope)
- **Door type**: Two-way
- **Priority**: low
- **Impacts**: None — dev containers use the default bridge network;
hosted services declare networks/volumes in docker compose. Would
impact a fleet coordinator or dev-container orchestrator if one is
built.
- **Blocked on**: a concrete use case for network or volume management
over the call protocol. The two container use cases (disposable dev
containers, hosted services) don't currently require
@@ -7,6 +7,9 @@
- **Status**: deferred(scope)
- **Door type**: Two-way
- **Priority**: low
- **Impacts**: None — current use cases pull pre-built images. Would
impact any use case that builds images via alknet rather than
operator-side `docker compose build`.
- **Blocked on**: a concrete use case for building images over the
call protocol. The two container use cases (disposable dev
containers, hosted services) pull pre-built images (`docker/image/pull`)
@@ -8,6 +8,11 @@
- **Status**: deferred(scope)
- **Door type**: Two-way
- **Priority**: medium
- **Impacts**: Blocks the full `docker/container/create` input schema —
v1 uses the high-frequency fields; the long tail (mounts, port
bindings, networks, volumes, capabilities) is deferred to the
implementation pass. Does not block the `create` operation itself
(ADR-060 §5 is decided); blocks the schema detail.
- **Blocked on**: v1 implementation. The v1 `create` input schema
accepts the common fields (image, command, env, labels, name) and
the full `CreateContainerOptions` surface (mounts, port bindings,
@@ -4,6 +4,9 @@
- **Status**: open
- **Door type**: Two-way
- **Priority**: medium
- **Impacts**: Blocks clean supervision loop implementation — the hub's
`supervise_worker` currently polls `accept_bi()` until `ConnectionClosed`
(the interim). A `closed()` method would make this event-driven.
- **Resolution**: Not yet decided.
The hub's worker supervision loop needs a way to await connection close so it
@@ -4,6 +4,9 @@
- **Status**: open
- **Door type**: Two-way
- **Priority**: low
- **Impacts**: None — the struct shape is committed and the defaults are
a starting point. Would affect production tuning if operational
experience shows the defaults are wrong.
- **Resolution**: Not yet decided.
The `BackoffConfig` struct provides configurable backoff for worker
@@ -8,6 +8,13 @@
- **Status**: deferred(scope)
- **Door type**: two-way
- **Priority**: medium
- **Impacts**: Does NOT block individual transport dials — each
transport-specific dial helper builds its `TlsClientConfig` (ADR-087)
and its own connector standalone. Blocks only the *shared*
`AlknetClient::dial()` extraction (one entry point that picks the
transport and calls the right connector). Low impact until a second
transport's dial exists and the duplicated dial boilerplate becomes
worth extracting.
- **Blocked on**: a **second transport's** real dial existing, not just a
second QUIC dial. The blocking condition is met when, e.g., the SSH
crate's raw-TCP dial or the HTTP-wrapped call dial exists — so the
@@ -6,6 +6,10 @@
- **Door type**: two-way (additive — per-channel window tracking does not
change the wire format)
- **Priority**: low
- **Impacts**: None — bounded-buffer backpressure (ADR-076) is the v1
mechanism and handles the intended use cases (TTY, SSH, tunnels).
Would impact high-throughput channel use cases (e.g., file transfer
over a tunnel) if HOL blocking is observed in practice.
- **Blocked on**: a real deployment observes head-of-line blocking on a
saturated channel where the bounded-buffer's stop-reading mitigation is
insufficient. The trigger is specific: a channel whose consumer is
@@ -6,6 +6,9 @@
- **Door type**: two-way (additive — a helper function does not change any
API surface; handlers that inline the pattern continue to work)
- **Priority**: low
- **Impacts**: None — the two-pump *contract* is decided (ADR-078) and
handlers implement it inline. Would reduce ~10 lines of copy-paste
per handler when extracted; not a capability gate.
- **Blocked on**: a second two-pump handler existing, so the shape
convergence is observable. The tunnel handler is the first two-pump
consumer; the SSH `direct-tcpip` channel will be the second. Extracting
@@ -9,6 +9,10 @@
workers are provisioned against them is a breaking change for every
deployment)
- **Priority**: high
- **Impacts**: Blocks worker provisioning — a freshly-provisioned worker
has no way to enroll its key with the hub until the registration
endpoint exists. Blocks the first hub deployment that provisions
workers (web + native use case).
- **Blocked on**: nothing structural — the identity machinery
(`resolve_from_token`, `PeerEntry.auth_token_hash`, ADR-030/034)
and the HTTP substrate (`HttpAdapter` on `h2`/`http/1.1` over
@@ -2,9 +2,10 @@
- **Origin**: `docs/architecture/crates/tls/README.md`
(`TlsError` is referenced as the `Result` error type in
`TlsServerConfig::new`, `for_quinn()`, and the crate's public
signatures, but is never sketched or defined); ADR-082 (same —
`TlsError` in signatures, no shape).
`TlsServerConfig::new`, `TlsClientConfig::new`, `for_quinn()`, and the
crate's public signatures, but is never sketched or defined); ADR-082
(same — `TlsError` in signatures, no shape); ADR-087 (extends the
surface to `TlsClientConfig::new` — the client-side error variants).
- **Status**: open
- **Door type**: one-way (the error type is the public API surface of
`alknet-tls`; changing it after consumers exist is a breaking change
@@ -12,8 +13,14 @@
- **Priority**: high (an implementer cannot write the crate without
deciding this; guessing produces divergent shapes — one thin
`rustls::Error` wrapper vs a 10-variant enum with per-path context)
- **Impacts**: Blocks `alknet-tls` implementation — both
`TlsServerConfig::new` and `TlsClientConfig::new` reference `TlsError`
in their signatures. Blocks the hub's assembly-layer wiring (which
calls both). This is the next decision needed before the TLS crate
can be implemented.
- **Resolution**: Not yet decided. The shape needs to cover the failure
modes across all four identity paths:
modes across all server identity paths **and** the client verifier
paths (ADR-087):
- **Cert/key loading** (`X509`: file read + PEM parse;
`SelfSigned`: rcgen generation) — currently `io::Error`-wrapped in
@@ -30,6 +37,14 @@
returned from `new`), so `new`'s ACME path may only need to cover
"ACME feature not enabled but `TlsIdentity::Acme` configured"
(currently an `io::ErrorKind::Unsupported`).
- **Client verifier construction** (ADR-087) — `TlsClientConfig::new`
builds a `rustls::ClientConfig` with ADR-034's verifier selection.
Failure modes: verifier construction error (bad fingerprint format,
CA store init failure), unknown-remote fail-closed (not an error to
return — it's a `Result::Err` the caller gets for trying to connect
to an unknown raw-key remote), provider init failure. These
overlap with the server-side rustls-build errors but have
client-specific context (verifier selection inputs).
The open question is the granularity: a single `TlsError` enum with
variants per failure category (cert-load, rustls-build, quinn-wrap,
@@ -23,6 +23,10 @@
the simplification is worth the one-way-door commitment now, or
whether the call-protocol-only path suffices until a concrete
browser-needs-a-data-channel use case arrives.)
- **Impacts**: Does not block the browser path (ADR-048 works). Would
simplify the hub relay (one model, not two) and unblock browser
access to data-channel ALPNs (TTY, tunnels) over a single WebSocket
if resolved to "WebSocket carries channels."
- **Resolution**: Not yet decided. The two options:
**Option A — WebSocket carries call only (ADR-048 unchanged).** The