alkstore/docs/plans/implementation.md

---
status: draft
last_updated: "2026-10-11 (wave 8 implemented + reviewed — the release
gate passed and the pre-release general review (004) followed it,
fixing one high-severity slot-poisoning defect, two contract-observable
divergences, and their suite/test/doc pins; all gates re-run green;
**published**: v0.1.0 shipped 2026-10-11 — core first, then the three
engines, per `tasks/release-publish-prep.md`'s checklist of record,
tag `v0.1.0` created and pushed; the class-1 contract-change window
(ADR-017 §2) is closed permanently.)"
---

# alkstore — Implementation plan

Wave-based decomposition of the architecture
(`docs/architecture/`) into units of implementable work. This is a
deliberate deviation from the SDD process's decompose-everything-upfront
step: the architecture is large, early waves change the shape of later
ones (the fork's outcomes feed the SQLite engine tasks; the contract
suite's harness shape feeds both engines' verification work), and
decomposing only the next wave or two at a time keeps each session's
task set reviewable and lets later decompositions absorb earlier waves'
course corrections.

Rhythm: decompose a wave → implement it → review gate → decompose the
next wave. Task files live in `tasks/` (taskgraph-managed; frontmatter
carries the categorical estimates). Wave boundaries are also review
boundaries.

## The waves

Dependency logic in one line: core → (substrate fork ∥ postgres
engine) → sqlite engine → contract suite → mem engine → fuzzing →
release readiness. The substrate fork is contract-blind (ADR-012 §2),
so it needs only the workspace scaffold from wave 1; the Postgres engine
needs only the core crate. Waves 2 and 4 are therefore independent of
each other and could run in either order (or in parallel, if agents
are ever available in parallel). The mem engine (wave 6) needs the
core crate plus the finished suite (wave 5) — born pinned, per
[ADR-024](../architecture/decisions/024-mem-engine.md). The fuzzing
wave (wave 7) needs the mem engine finished (its campaigns precede the
release freeze; the targets ride in-process surfaces — core payloads,
the three per-engine parsers, name validation — see
[docs/research/fuzzing.md](../research/fuzzing.md)), and release
readiness is wave 8.

| Wave | Contents | Depends on | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| [1](#wave-1--foundations) | Workspace scaffold; core crate (errors, value types, full trait surface); contract-suite scaffold | — | implemented + reviewed (2026-10-08) |
| [2](#wave-2--sqlite-substrate-fork) | honker-core fork into `alkstore-sqlite/src/substrate/`: port, deltas, provenance, test floor | wave 1 (workspace scaffold only) | implemented + reviewed (2026-10-08) |
| [3](#wave-3--sqlite-engine) | SQLite engine: connection architecture, re-derived queue ops on contract v1, scheduler/outbox, tx seam, SQLite backlog column | waves 1 + 2 | implemented + reviewed (2026-10-08) |
| 4 | [Postgres engine](#wave-4--postgres-engine): schema bootstrap, pool/open, listener/forwarder, all mechanisms, tx seam, pg backlog column | wave 1 | implemented + reviewed (2026-10-08) |
| 5 | [Contract suite](#wave-5--contract-suite): the cross-engine equivalence properties (core-contract.md §Verification backlog), version-stamped per ADR-017 | waves 3 + 4 | implemented + reviewed (2026-10-10) |
| 6 | [Mem engine](#wave-6--mem-engine): separate `alkstore-mem` crate, full contract v1 over in-memory mechanisms (tx overlay, queue/scheduler/streams/locks/wakes), the suite's third factory column (born pinned), wasm32 compile-clean acceptance | waves 1 + 5 | implemented + reviewed (2026-10-10) |
| [7](#wave-7--fuzzing) | [Fuzzing](#wave-7--fuzzing): the `fuzz/` sidecar workspace (cargo-fuzz targets over the payload codec, the three `@every` parsers, name validation), committed seed corpora + the corpus-replay gate, detached campaigns | wave 6 | implemented + reviewed (2026-10-10) |
| [8](#wave-8--release-readiness) | [Release readiness](#wave-8--release-readiness): crate docs, deployment matrix final pass, README (written last, honestly), publish prep | wave 7 | implemented + reviewed (2026-10-11) |

## Wave 1 — Foundations

The core crate is contract v1 in code: the error taxonomy (ADR-008 §5),
the value types (ADR-019 §3, ADR-020), the full trait surface
(ADR-008 §1–§3/§8, ADR-014, ADR-019, ADR-021), and the payload encoding
posture (ADR-020 §4). Nothing engine-specific lives here — no
resolution arithmetic, no SQL. The equal-jitter curve, opts-stamping
resolution, and boundary math are deliberately *not* core: ADR-012 §2
pins each engine as the owner of one implementation, with equivalence
pinned by the contract suite (wave 5).

The contract suite gets scaffolded now (not in wave 5) because its
harness shape — a `Store`-factory-parameterized property crate — is
easier to grow row by row as engines land than to retrofit onto two
finished engines. Wave 5 fills it with the cross-engine equivalence
rows; waves 3 and 4 adopt the harness for their own backlog columns.

## Wave 2 — SQLite substrate fork

The fork per ADR-011/012/013: port honker-core at `f4e53c6` into
`alkstore-sqlite/src/substrate/`, apply the three watcher port deltas
and the bootstrap re-keying, drop cron/experimental/cut-flag machinery,
re-own the table family as `__alkstore_*`, carry `PROVENANCE.md` and
the dual-license notice in-tree (ADR-018), and stand up the inherited
test suites as the floor. The substrate stays sync and contract-blind;
the engine layer that maps it onto the core contract is wave 3, not
here. Reviewability against the lineage (ADR-012 §3) is a property the
wave-2 review gate checks explicitly.

## Wave 3 — SQLite engine

The engine layer that maps the forked substrate onto the core
contract: the `open` constructor (connection architecture — writer
slot, reader pool, watcher spawn — per engine-sqlite.md), the
`spawn_blocking` seam, the full `Store`/`TxHandle`/mechanism-handle
trait impls over the substrate's ops, the scheduler leader loop and
outbox helper, and the engine's backlog column in the contract suite
(the ADR-023 rows among them, factory-parameterized so wave 5 runs
them against both engines).

The waves-1–2 general review
(`docs/reviews/001-waves-1-2-general-review.md`) and its
resolution ([ADR-023](../architecture/decisions/023-fourth-review-round.md))
shaped this wave's task set:

- **Already landed pre-decomposition** (commit `44637ee`, not wave-3
  tasks): `encode_payload` is fallible (`Result<Vec<u8>, Error::Codec>`,
  ADR-023 §1); `open_conn` drops `SQLITE_OPEN_URI` (§3, register
  D-29); the numeric-argument domain table is pinned in
  core-contract.md (§2); the 1 ms watcher default stands with the
  cadence documented in deployment.md (§4).
- **Folded into wave 3's tasks** (the review's §7 wiring items): the
  trait-impl extent/duration guards (the contract-side domain rule,
  enforced at the engine's trait-impl entry — the `sqlite-engine-*`
  tasks carry it per mechanism), the two `#![allow]` lint removals in
  `substrate/mod.rs` (the integration task — they can only lift once
  every substrate surface is wired), and `SqliteOpts::poll_interval`
  wiring (the constructor task).
- **Staying put as ordered**: M-1's retention-failure test and N-5's
  panic probe → wave 5's contract-suite rows; N-1's growth-posture
   review → wave 8.

## Wave 4 — Postgres engine

The second engine: the core contract implemented on tokio-postgres +
deadpool-postgres per engine-postgres.md — schema bootstrap (one
engine-owned schema, default `alkstore`, ADR-010 §8), the pool/open
constructor, the hand-rolled LISTEN forwarder (dedicated non-pooled
listener connection, bounded broadcast fanout, exponential-backoff
reconnect with re-LISTEN, the synthetic reconnect-wake on
`__alkstore_listener_reconnected__`), the full `Store`/`TxHandle`/
mechanism-handle trait impls (natively async — no `spawn_blocking`
seam; the tx handle holds the pooled object directly, ADR-007's pg
arm), the re-derived queue machinery (`FOR UPDATE SKIP LOCKED` claims,
LISTEN-driven wake with re-poll safety net), the scheduler leader loop
and outbox helper, and the engine's backlog column in the contract
suite (factory-parameterized; wave 5 runs the same rows against both
engines).

The wave is deliberately shaped as wave 3's structural twin — same
task rhythm (constructor → seam → mechanisms in parallel →
scheduler/outbox → integration → review gate) — because the two
engines implement the same contract and the wave-3 task set's
boundaries proved clean. The deltas are the engine's own: no
substrate (the pg machinery is re-derived greenfield per ADR-004/005,
with the pg-boss schema family as design reference), a natively-async
seam (Send+Sync client, POC #2 compile-probe), the forwarder as the
wake substrate (with its two POC-pinned deadlock pitfalls owned as
test-pinned failure modes), and the `PayloadTooLarge` client-side
check (this engine *produces* the variant — the one runtime carriage
of an engine asymmetry, ADR-016 §5).

Wave-3 outcomes absorbed into the task set:

- **The `#[doc(hidden)]` constructors** (`Job::from_row`,
  `StreamEvent::from_row`, `Schedule::new`, `Wake::new`) already
  exist — wave 3's pre-work task built them engine-agnostically; wave
  4 consumes them as-is (no wave-4 equivalent needed).
- **The engine-side arithmetic is re-owned, not shared**: the
  equal-jitter backoff curve, the opts-resolution rules
  (delay-over-`run_at`, relative-`expires`, the derived stamp sets
  300/3/5/none and 60/5/5), and the outbox backing-queue derivation
  are each engine's own implementation (ADR-012 §2's one-owner rule
  applied per engine); the pg tasks re-implement them from the ADR
  text, and the contract suite (wave 5) pins the two engines'
  arithmetic to identical outputs. The SQLite engine's `resolution.rs`
  is reference, not a dependency.
- **The `@every` spec grammar has no shared parser on this side** —
  the SQLite engine reuses the substrate's `parse_every_interval`
  (one-line delta D-31's neighbor); the pg engine owns its parser
  (the grammar is small and pinned: `@every <n><unit>`, `s|m|h|d`).
  Equivalence of *behavior* (what fires, when) is suite-pinned; the
  parsers themselves are per-engine.
- **The wave-3 review's deferred notes** (reader-pool close path,
  commit-error-arm coverage) stay SQLite-scoped — the pg engine's
  pool is deadpool-managed (no hand-rolled close path to review) and
  its commit-error arm gets coverage in the pg tasks' own tests.
- **The suite's factory contract** (isolation + idempotent teardown)
  is what the pg factory implements — a fresh schema per `open` per
  the SQLite factory's precedent (fresh temp file there); the
  POC's shared-server parallel-interference caveat (findings,
  invocation note) is answered by exactly that isolation, not by
  sequential-only harnesses.

Test posture: the engine's tests need a live Postgres server. The
harness convention is the POC's (dockerized `postgres:16-alpine` on
:15432, the `pglo-poc` container — still running in the dev
environment); connection settings ride environment/config, never
hardcoded. Tests that cannot reach a server skip cleanly (the
`SKIP`-posture), so the workspace gates stay green server-less — but
the wave's acceptance requires the suite green *against* the server.

One design point the architecture leaves to implementation (pinned in
the wave-4 tasks, flagged here for visibility): **the queue/stream
wake-channel naming**. The contract pins LISTEN as the pg wake
trigger and pins the channels/queues shared namespace, but no doc
names the channel an enqueue/publish notifies on. The tasks pin the
natural realization — the mechanism name *is* the wake channel
(`listen(queue_name)` receives that queue's enqueue wakes; same for
streams), legal by construction under the shared namespace — with
the reserved reconnect-wake channel staying the only reserved string.

## Wave 5 — Contract suite

Filling the scaffolded suite (`alkstore-contract-suite`) with the
remaining verification-backlog rows and running the compatibility
gate. Waves 3 and 4 each landed a nine/ten-row backlog column; the
wave-5 decomposition started from an audit of what those columns
already discharge versus what the backlog still lacks.

**Already discharged by the engines' columns** (the wave-5 review
gate verifies each claim by reading the pinning row, not by trusting
the audit): name validation (the exemplar, incl. `schedule()`'s
queue-argument validation), the numeric-domain rows (extents +
durations), `encode_payload` typed failure + round-trip, the
`PayloadTooLarge` occurrence asymmetry (both engine-scoped arms),
drop-=-rollback no-ghosts, in-tx read-your-own-writes (which also
discharges the `save_offset_tx` exactly-once backlog row across
itself and the drop-rollback row), receiver close/save arms + monotone
composition (both columns), and — pinned engine-side rather than as
suite rows, per the sqlite-engine-integration task's scoping call —
plain-path SQLite open and the watcher-cadence knob
(`open_tests.rs`; SQLite-scoped backlog rows).

**Wave 5's task set** (the gaps):

- Queue depth: the job-handle validity predicate, the ADR-010 depth
  properties (reclaim-eats-attempt, dead-letter moves, the
  no-stranded-rows sweep), and M-1's retention-failure pin
  (`suite-queue-depth-rows`).
- Scheduler: boundary fires, bounded catch-up, leadership discipline —
  with a documented extension of the suite's determinism posture to
  admit runner-driving rows (`suite-scheduler-rows`).
- Tx seam: `outbox_enqueue_tx` and `publish_with_key_tx`
  commit-atomicity, plus N-5's `with_tx` panic-disposition probe —
  the panic path pinned against real engines for the first time
  (`suite-tx-commit-atomicity-rows`).
- Streams: the cross-engine ordering-equivalence row and the full
  `trim_to` semantics row (`suite-stream-rows`).
- Locks: TTL/expiry re-acquisition and the concurrent-`try_lock`
  loser posture — the SQLite busy-path is the open question the row
  exists to answer (`suite-lock-rows`).
- Wakes: the pinned `WakeReceiver` shapes, tolerance-bounded
  (`suite-wake-rows`).
- Arithmetic equivalence: the backoff-curve row and the two
  wall-clock-adjacent opts-resolution legs the existing row deferred
  to this wave (`suite-opts-backoff-rows`).
- Engine-side hardening riding the window: the wave-3 review's
  deferred SQLite commit-error-arm coverage (`sqlite-commit-error-arm`)
  and F-1's defense-in-depth candidates — explicitly not load-bearing
  since `pg-fix-tx-wake` retired the flake's root cause
  (`pg-suite-infra-hardening`).
- The review gate (`review-wave-5`): the backlog discharge audit,
  stamp verification, green-on-both-engines, the parked-disposition
  audit — and the gate that flips `engine-sqlite.md` /
  `engine-postgres.md` to `stable`.

Judgment calls the decomposition parked in task Notes (the review
gate audits each): where the M-1 retention-failure pin, the
beyond-64-cap skip-forward leg, and the backoff 1-hour-cap leg land
when the public surface cannot express them (engine-side is the
expected answer, recorded per case); whether the scheduler rows
demand the pg fire-wake parity the wave-4 fix-batch gate recorded;
and what the SQLite lock busy-path actually returns under contention.

## Wave 6 — Mem engine

The third engine ([ADR-024](../architecture/decisions/024-mem-engine.md),
2026-10-10): a separate `alkstore-mem` crate implementing the full
contract v1 over guarded in-memory mechanisms — the honest-ephemeral
tier (no durability, single-process, ephemeral by design, never
fleet-valid), adopted for the wasm/sandbox and downstream-adapter
economics the consumer inventory's engine-tier row records
(operator-authority, 2026-10-10 — the row-first gate satisfied before
this wave was assumed). Release readiness moved to wave 7, and again
to wave 8 when the fuzzing wave inserted at 7 (2026-10-10).

The wave's shape mirrors the engine waves' rhythm: constructor + tx
overlay → mechanisms in parallel → scheduler/outbox → suite
integration → review gate. What mem carries: the queue state machine
(visibility/reclaim/dead-letter/sweep), scheduler boundaries +
catch-up + leadership (trivially owned single-instance, still run —
engine-uniform per ADR-009 §4), streams with per-consumer offsets and
trim, TTL locks, wakes. What it does not carry: no pooling, no schema
bootstrap, no forwarder, no `spawn_blocking` seam, no reconnection
concept — the distributed machinery that made wave 4 build-heavy
doesn't exist here. The wave is estimated at pg-wave scale or
somewhat smaller.

The load-bearing artifact is the **tx overlay**: `*_tx` effects stage
in a handle-private overlay; commit merges it atomically and fires
the overlay's pending wakes; drop discards it — read-your-own-writes
easy, drop-=-rollback trivial, and *wake-at-commit* structural. That
last property is the seam review 002 found broken pg-side
(`pg-fix-tx-wake`); mem gets it pinned from birth by the suite's
existing tx-commit-atomicity rows.

Born pinned: [ADR-022](decisions/022-contract-suite-layout.md)'s
`StoreFactory` is reused verbatim as a third factory column wired
onto already-authored, version-stamped rows — no re-derivation. The
engine re-owns its own copies of the backoff curve, opts resolution,
and the `@every` parser ([ADR-012](decisions/012-forked-substrate-design.md)
§2's one-owner rule, third owner); the suite now pins that arithmetic
three-way.

**Acceptance items** ([ADR-024](../architecture/decisions/024-mem-engine.md)
§5): the crate compiles clean for `wasm32-unknown-unknown` (target
already installed in the dev environment); workspace host gates stay
green; the suite's mem column passes on the host, run under a
**current-thread runtime flavor** — the test that keeps internals
wasm-clean (no `spawn_blocking`, tokio sync + time only). The
current-thread flavor rides one harness pre-task: the suite's
`past_stamp_sleep` blocking sleep (review 003's posture note at
`properties.rs:1683`) becomes an async sleep — the only suite-side
change the wave carries. Running the suite itself *on* the wasm
target is scoped out with a named collapse condition (a
wasm-bindgen-test adapter crate) — a scope decision recorded in
ADR-024 §5, not a pending-client hedge.

Deliverables beyond code: `engine-mem.md` (the spec — drafted with
this wave's adoption), the deployment matrix's mem rows (landed with
ADR-024), and the mem factory's suite wiring.

Riding the window: review 003's Finding 1 (the pg scheduler
transient-error retry loop, MEDIUM — engine-side, small,
mem-independent); Findings 2–3 follow their park recommendation into
the pre-release pass (now wave 8).

**Wave 6's task set** (the decomposition, 2026-10-10 — the pg wave's
rhythm: foundations → seam → mechanisms in parallel → scheduler/outbox
→ integration → review gate):

- `mem-engine-foundations` — crate scaffold (core + tokio sync+time
  only), `MemStore::new()` isolation, guarded state core, wake-routing
  substrate, clock accessor; the wasm32 compile gate starts here and
  stays green onward.
- `mem-engine-seam-tx` — the load-bearing task: the tx overlay (all
  eleven `*_tx` staged, commit-merge + wake-at-commit, drop =
  discard, `with_tx` panic posture) + the `Store` trait surface +
  entry-point numeric-domain guards (`suite-tx-commit-atomicity-rows`
  is what consumes it once integrated).
- `mem-engine-notify-listen` — channels wake substrate surface,
  three recv forms, close-at-engine-drop, no-replay, never coalesced;
  depends on the seam (tx-staged notify).
- `mem-engine-queues` — the ADR-010 state machine driver-free;
  equal-jitter curve and opts resolution as the third owner.
- `mem-engine-streams` — in-memory log, per-consumer offsets,
  `trim_to`, receiver arms.
- `mem-engine-locks` — TTL registry; the SQLite busy-path question
  has no mem analog (loser is a clean `None`).
- `mem-engine-scheduler-outbox` — tick/boundary/catch-up/leadership
  through the reserved scheduler lock; outbox over queues.
- `suite-harness-current-thread` — the wave's one suite-side pre-task
  (async `past_stamp_sleep`); engine-independent, required before the
  mem column's current-thread flavor.
- `mem-engine-integration` — full-surface wiring, the suite's third
  `StoreFactory` column green on host under the current-thread
  flavor, the wasm32 acceptance items, `engine-mem.md` to
  implementation-complete.
- `pg-fix-scheduler-tick-seam` — review 003 Finding 1, riding the
  window (engine-side, mem-independent; the last uncovered wave-4
  hardening arm).
- `review-wave-6` — the born-pinned gate: conformance read, third-
  column discharge audit, wasm acceptance audit, spec disposition;
  depends on integration + the rider so the window closes everything.

Parallelism note: the foundation task blocks the seam; the seam blocks
the mechanisms; the mechanisms are mutually parallel. The suite pre-task
and the Findings-1 rider are independent of the mem chain entirely and
can run any time in the window (the rider must close before the gate).

## Wave 7 — Fuzzing

**Decided 2026-10-10, before release readiness decomposed** — the
plan's one decided-at-implementation deferral is discharged here rather
than folded into the release pass: adoption (the family pattern per
alkcall/alktunnels/alksocks/alktty), inserted as this wave with release
readiness renumbered to wave 8, so campaigns run before the release
freeze. The rationale, target inventory, invariants, campaign posture,
and inherited tooling are written up in
[docs/research/fuzzing.md](../research/fuzzing.md) — this section
carries only the plan-level shape.

Scope (wave 1 of the doc's two-wave framing; `mem_opseq` is the
deferred wave 2, post-release): the `fuzz/` sidecar workspace laid out
per the upstream pattern — nightly pinned inside `fuzz/` only, the
stable-toolchain `fuzz/shared` crate whose corpus replay is the fuzz
gate (`cargo test --manifest-path fuzz/shared/Cargo.toml`), the
detached runner copied from alksocks — and three targets:
`payload_codec` (core payload encode/decode invariants),
`every_parse` (the three per-engine `@every` parsers, driven
differentially — the wave-6 overflow-finding class), and
`name_validation`. Campaigns run detached per target.

Named design points the decomposition resolves (each already sketched
in the doc): §3.2's parser-exposure decision — the three parsers are
`pub(crate)`, the family posture prefers already-`pub` surfaces, and
the doc leans (b) `#[doc(hidden)]`-style narrow exposure (the
`Job::from_row` precedent) with a public-`schedule()` companion;
the AGENTS.md posture flip (already done at adoption — the no-fuzzing
line now records the decision; the corpus-replay gate joins the
verification list only when the wave lands); and the
workspace/publish-exclusion verification. Committed crash-input seeds
promote into the corpus
(the alksocks seed-900/901 posture); grown corpora stay gitignored.

**Wave 7's task set** (the decomposition, 2026-10-10 — the doc's §4
sequencing: scaffold → exposure → targets in parallel → campaigns +
gate wiring → review gate):

- `fuzz-scaffold` — the `fuzz/` sidecar workspace per §2's layout,
  copied from alksocks (nightly pin inside `fuzz/` only, the stable
  `fuzz/shared` skeleton, `run-detached.sh` verbatim, `json.dict`,
  `gen_fuzz_seeds.py` skeleton, the `fuzz/.gitignore` corpus pattern),
  plus the root workspace's defensive `exclude = ["fuzz"]`.
- `fuzz-parser-exposure` — §3.2's design point, resolved: **option
  (b)**, `#[doc(hidden)]` narrow re-exports of the three
  `parse_every_interval` implementations + the three `skip_forward`
  boundary functions at each engine crate root, with (a) as the
  recorded in-suite companion and (c) rejected per the family's
  no-`#[cfg(fuzzing)]` experience. Amended at implementation
  (2026-10-10, user-confirmed): `pub use` requires item-level `pub`
  (E0364 — the original "substrate untouched" criterion was
  unsatisfiable), so the substrate delta is visibility-only — two
  keywords in the *re-derived* `queue_ops.rs` (which
  `substrate/mod.rs` itself classifies as owned contract-v1 code, not
  lineage body), registered as a PROVENANCE.md delta entry; the
  lineage body stays untouched.
- `fuzz-target-payload-codec` — the §3.1 target (core payload
  encode/decode invariants: no-panic, the typed-failure partition,
  deep-input loudness, Value + typed round-trips) + its seeds.
- `fuzz-target-every-parse` — the §3.2 differential target over the
  three parsers + boundary arithmetic (three-way agreement, overflow
  posture, the giant-`n` arms) + its seeds; the wave's load-bearing
  target (the wave-6 finding class lives here).
- `fuzz-target-name-validation` — the §3.3 target (totality,
  determinism, typed rejections, reserved-prefix rule, cap-boundary
  exactness) + its seeds.
- `fuzz-campaigns-and-gate` — detached campaigns per target (§5's
  rule, §7's flags), findings dispositioned (crate-side fixed +
  promoted to seeds; harness-model into the research doc's
  implementation log), the corpus policy's final state, the
  AGENTS.md verification-list flip (the corpus-replay gate joins the
  merge gates), `fuzz/README.md` finalized.
- `review-wave-7` — the gate (campaigns audit, replay-gate re-run,
  corpus policy, the named design points audited resolved, the wasm
  posture, records).

Parallelism note: the scaffold and the exposure task are independent
of each other; the three targets are mutually parallel once their
dependencies land (payload-codec and name-validation need only the
scaffold; every-parse needs scaffold + exposure); campaigns gate on
all three targets.

## Wave 8 — Release readiness

The original wave 6, renumbered twice: wave 7 when the mem engine
inserted at wave 6 ([ADR-024](../architecture/decisions/024-mem-engine.md)),
wave 8 when the fuzzing wave inserted at 7 (2026-10-10, the section
above): crate
docs, the deployment matrix final pass (across all three engines now),
the crate README (written last, honestly), publish prep, N-1's
growth-posture review. Decomposes after wave 7's review
gate, with review 003's Findings 2–3 riding the pre-release pass, and
the wave-5 gate's flake-watch flag carried
(`tasks/review-wave-5.md` §Notes 6 — the two unreproducible pg row
failures; if either reproduces, a dedicated investigative session
before any postulate-and-fix).

Historical note for records written before this second renumber
(review 001/002/003, the wave-3..6 task files): their "wave 7"
references to the release pass mean what is now wave 8; per the
family's renumber-annotation precedent (`tasks/review-wave-5.md`'s
ADR-024 annotations), affected records get swept (or annotated) when
wave 8 decomposes — history is not rewritten in place.

**Wave 8's task set** (the decomposition, 2026-10-10 — the carried
items ride as their own tasks; the gate closes the wave):

- `docs-frontmatter-cleanup` — the user-flagged easy win: 11 docs
  carry invalid YAML frontmatter (unquoted multi-line `last_updated`
  values containing `: ` sequences — plain scalars can't carry them;
  verified by a PyYAML parse sweep). Quote the values, prose verbatim;
  parse sweep green.
- `release-renumber-sweep` — the historical note's mandate, executed:
  the stale "wave 7"-means-release-pass references in review
  001/002/003 and the wave-3..6 task files annotated (or reworded
  where the reference is a live pointer), genuine fuzz-wave
  references untouched.
- `release-crate-docs` — the four published crates' public-API
  rustdoc: `cargo doc` warning-free, missing-docs audit, accuracy
  spot-checks against core-contract.md / deployment.md (core's docs
  are contract text), the doc-hidden fuzz re-exports documented as
  fuzz/test-only, the example-carrier decision.
- `release-contract-window-close` — ADR-017 §2's class-1 window
  terminates at first release, so the wave-6 gate's recorded
  observations dispose now or never: the multi-thread publish→wake
  ordering tolerance (documented-tolerance vs ADR amendment — raised
  with the user), the ADR-023 §2 classifications (`heartbeat(extend)`,
  `save_offset`), the `EventReceiver::try_recv` closed shape, the
  `get_job` prose fix, the mem-arithmetic note's disposition.
- `release-n1-growth-posture` — review 001's N-1 consciously accepted
  (or a user-approved hygiene scope change) against the implemented
  engines; the notify prune-cadence note lands in the SQLite engine's
  docs.
- `release-findings-2-3-disposition` — review 003's parked pair: the
  cheap seams land (Finding 2's death-during-LISTEN arm; Finding 3's
  rollback-fault arm on the existing commit-fault seam), the
  race-shaped arm stays parked with its disposition recorded.
- `release-flake-investigation` — the wave-5 ledger's trigger fired
  (the lock row's second failure, 2026-10-10): the dedicated
  investigative session the ledger prescribes — instrument the
  output-capture blind spot first, focused repro loop across the
  conditions matrix, disposition recorded (repro → follow-up fix
  task; no-repro → bounded-investigation record + watch posture
  updated).
- `release-deployment-matrix` — deployment.md row-by-row against the
  three implemented engines as release text; the env-variable
  boundary re-check (review 003's prepublish item) + the pinning
  sentence; N-1's acceptance folded; internal task/wave pointers
  leave the release-facing text.
- `release-readme` — the root README (written last, honestly — its
  dependencies are the wave's doc-shaped tasks), LICENSE-MIT +
  LICENSE-APACHE (the family pattern; none exist yet), the CHANGELOG
  seed, the per-crate readme wiring decision.
- `release-publish-prep` — package metadata (descriptions are missing
  on all four published crates), `cargo package` verification per
  crate, the wave-7-parked publish-exclusion *verification* (no
  published package leaks the sidecar), path-dep version bounds +
  publish-order records, the substrate's PROVENANCE/license packaging
  check, the manual publish checklist of record (the actual
  `cargo publish` is the user's post-gate action).
- `review-wave-8` — the pre-release gate: docs honesty audit, the
  contract-window closure audit + the class-1 termination record, the
  N-1/findings dispositions, the flake outcome, the publish-prep
  audit, the hygiene sweeps re-run, all gates green (incl. the fuzz
  replay + wasm + doc gates), and the remaining `draft` architecture
  docs flipped `stable`.

Parallelism note: six tasks are independent entry points (frontmatter,
renumber sweep, crate docs, contract window, N-1, findings 2–3, flake
investigation — seven counting them all); the deployment matrix
depends on N-1; the README depends on the doc-shaped tasks (written
last); publish prep depends on the README + the flake outcome; the
gate depends on everything. The flake investigation and the findings
disposition are the only code/test-side tasks — everything else is
docs, records, and packaging.

## Decided points

- **Contract-suite layout — option (a)**: a small internal
  `alkstore-contract-suite` crate (not published) exposing property
  tests parameterized over a `Store` factory; each engine crate takes
  it as a dev-dependency. One normative owner per property, mirroring
  ADR-012 §2's one-owner rule. This discharges ADR-017 §4.2's
  "decided at implementation" deferral; recorded as ADR-022 by the
  scaffold task.
- **Engine tests vs. contract suite**: each engine wave carries its own
  mechanism tests (does the engine work); wave 5 carries the
  cross-engine *equivalence* properties (do the engines agree). The
  verification-backlog rows are mostly equivalence-shaped, so this
  split keeps wave 5 from re-testing engine internals.
- **CI**: none, deliberately. CI and publishing are run manually
  (self-hosted Gitea; supply-chain posture). No CI-wiring task exists;
  the merge gates (`cargo test`, `cargo clippy --all-targets --
  -D warnings`, `cargo fmt --check`) are run coordinator-side.
- **Mem engine** (ADR-001 §4): **decided 2026-10-10, pre-decomposition
  ([ADR-024](../architecture/decisions/024-mem-engine.md))** — a
  separate `alkstore-mem` crate, full contract v1, honest-ephemeral
  posture, wasm32 compile-clean acceptance; wave 6, with release
  readiness renumbered to wave 7 (later 8 — see the fuzzing decision
  below). The deferral discharged: its
  collapse condition ("implementation time") was reached early via
  the consumer pause + the wasm/sandbox motivation, with the row-first
  gate satisfied by the consumer inventory's engine-tier row
  (operator-authority, 2026-10-10).
- **Fuzzing adoption** (the alkcall/alktunnels/alksocks/alktty
  pattern): **decided 2026-10-10, before wave 8 decomposed — adopted,
  inserted as wave 7** (release readiness renumbered to wave 8). The
  deferral is discharged: the rationale, target inventory, invariants,
  and campaign posture live in `docs/research/fuzzing.md`; the
  decomposition resolves the named design points (parser exposure,
  gate wiring, publish exclusion). AGENTS.md's no-fuzzing posture line
  flipped at adoption; the corpus-replay gate joins the verification
  list when the wave lands.

## Review gates

Each wave ends in a review task (`review-wave-N`) before the next wave
decomposes. Specific gates:

- **Wave 1 review** — the trait surface is versioned contract surface
  from the first release (ADR-017); a shape error found here is cheap,
  found in wave 5 it is a migration. Review checks the code against the
  pinned ADR text line by line.
- **Wave 2 review** — diff reviewability against the honker lineage
  (ADR-012 §3's fidelity posture), provenance register completeness
  (ADR-018), floor tests green.
- **Wave 3/4 reviews** — engine-vs-contract conformance; the backlog
  columns each engine owns.
- **Wave 5 review** — the suite as compatibility instrument: every
  backlog row present, version-stamped, green on both engines; this is
  the gate that flips the engine specs to `stable`.
- **Wave 6 review** — mem-engine-vs-contract conformance (the
  born-pinned gate): the suite's third column green on the host, the
  wasm32 compile gate clean, the current-thread-flavor column run
  (harness pre-task disposed), the engine's own mechanism tests, and
  the `engine-mem.md` spec read against the pinned ADR-024 text —
  the gate that flips the mem spec toward `stable`.
- **Wave 7 review** — the fuzz wave's gate: the targets' campaigns run
  clean via the detached runner (or their findings fixed and promoted
  to seeds), the corpus-replay gate green on stable, the seeds
  committed per the corpus policy, the harness-model findings
  (if any) documented in the research doc's implementation log, and
  the named design points (parser exposure, publish exclusion)
  audited as resolved.

## Review rounds so far

- **Wave 1 review gate** (`review-wave-1`) — trait surface vs pinned
  ADR text; validation coverage fixes landed.
- **Wave 2 review gate** (`review-wave-2`) — lineage diff clean, one
  re-derivation defect found and fixed (D-27).
- **General review, waves 1–2** (2026-10-08,
  `docs/reviews/001-waves-1-2-general-review.md`) — M-1 fixed
  inline (sweep savepoint scope); M-2/N-2/N-4/N-6 resolved as ADR-023
  pre-decomposition; lint removal + suite adds folded into waves 3/5;
   N-1 recorded for release readiness (now wave 8).
- **Wave 3 review gate** (`review-wave-3`) — engine-vs-contract
  conformance code-read clean; two findings fixed inline (the
  `open_writer_connection` boundary move out of `substrate/mod.rs`;
  the writer-slot error-arm stranding in
  `with_writer`/`begin`/`commit`); two minor notes deferred to
  wave 5/6 (reader-pool close path, commit-error-arm coverage).
- **Wave 4 review gate** (`review-wave-4`) — engine-vs-contract
  conformance code-read clean (0 findings); the flagged
  `tx_publishes_compose_with_the_handle` flake reproduced twice and
  recorded as F-1 (test-infra, wake-subscription under load — root
  cause unresolved at gate time; candidate dispositions in the task's
  Notes for wave 5's suite hardening); three no-action notes
  (F-2..F-4). F-1's root cause was later found engine-side by the
  general review below and retired by `pg-fix-tx-wake`.
- **General review, wave 4** (2026-10-09,
  `docs/reviews/002-wave-4-general-review.md`) — two live-proven
  consumer-facing bugs (the forwarder's permanent death after one
  failed reconnect — an untested failure arm the gate's test never
  covered; the tx enqueue/publish paths' missing `pg_notify` wake —
  F-1's root cause, engine-side), a `max_size: 0` open-hang, two
  narrow robustness gaps, doc mismatches, decode-duplication smells.
  Fixes recommended before wave 5 decomposes. The tx-wake fix landed
  (`pg-fix-tx-wake`, 2026-10-09): the tx producer paths now wake
  commit-atomically, retiring F-1's engine arm (record updated in
  `tasks/review-wave-4.md`) and making `tx_publishes_compose_with_the_handle`
  deterministic (20 consecutive solo runs green); the remaining fixes
  ride the wave-4 fix-batch decomposition below.
- **Wave 5 review gate** (`review-wave-5`, 2026-10-10) — the suite as
  compatibility instrument, gate passed: the backlog discharge map
  verified row-by-row against the pinning tests (all 25 mechanism rows
  per column stamped, wiring confirmed in both engines' suite targets;
  the engine-side pins — SQLite open row, watcher-cadence knob, M-1
  sweep-rollback (SQLite trigger seam + the pg frame's code-read),
  beyond-64 skip-forward, cap-curve — read and confirmed); stamps
  cross-checked against the cited ADR § texts (the
  `enqueue_opts_resolution` amendment accumulation rides ADR-023 §2 per
  the convention); parked dispositions audited (all six recorded;
  scheduler fire-wake parity left as-is, the lock busy-path answered
  with no divergence); green on both engines (SQLite server-less; pg
  vs the harness server, three full runs incl. one concurrent with the
  SQLite column, plus focused stress). Engine specs flipped to
  `stable`. Two unreproducible pg row failures from development were
  recorded in the task's Notes (both rows' assertions are
  state-outcome-shaped; flagged for watch, not blocking the gate) —
  see `tasks/review-wave-5.md` §Notes.
- **Wave 5 decomposition** (2026-10-10) — audit-first: the engines'
  backlog columns already discharge most of the §Verification backlog
  (map recorded in `tasks/review-wave-5.md`'s appendix for the gate to
  verify); the wave fills the gaps with seven suite-row tasks grouped
  by mechanism, two engine-side hardening tasks, and the gate. See the
  Wave 5 section.
- **Wave 4 decomposition** (2026-10-08) — shaped as wave 3's
  structural twin; wave-3 outcomes absorbed (constructors exist;
  arithmetic re-owned per engine; per-engine `@every` parser;
  SQLite-scoped deferred notes stay put). See the Wave 4 section.
- **Wave 6 review gate** (`review-wave-6`, 2026-10-10) — the
  born-pinned gate passed: the conformance read clean (queue state
  machine, scheduler collapse, outbox, streams, locks, clock,
  validation, tx overlay, wake substrate each verified against the
  contract and the pinned ADRs; guard-order discipline audited across
  every section-guard site); the suite's third column read row-by-row
  and green (the 24 engine-shared rows + mem's
  `payload_too_large_never_produced_on_mem` arm + the factory-shape
  test, 25 green under the per-test current-thread flavor);
  three-way arithmetic equivalence green (backoff curve, opts
  resolution on all three columns); the wasm32 acceptance items
  verified (compile-clean, tokio sync+time subset, no blocking calls,
   flavor enforced); the rider's arms verified (Finding 1 discharged;
   Findings 2–3 confirmed still parked for the release pass — wave 8
   since this renumber). Three edge-domain
  fixes landed inline at the gate: the stream cursor read's `i64::MAX`
  overflow (`Bound::Excluded`), `trim_to`'s `i64::MAX` horizon
  endpoint (`Bound::Included`), and the scheduler register path
  aligning with SQLite on rejecting a parseable interval whose first
  boundary overflows (`InvalidSpec`). Unpinned contract-adjacent
   observations recorded in the task's Notes for the pre-release pass
   (wave 8 since this renumber): the multi-thread publish-to-wake
   ordering tolerance (same
  shape implied for the SQL engines; nothing pins wake-fire order vs
  offset order), the `heartbeat(extend)`/`save_offset`/
  `EventReceiver::try_recv`-closed classifications missing from the
  ADR-023 §2 table, and the mem arithmetic being a transplant of the
  SQLite implementations (equivalence suite-pinned; ownership letter
  satisfied). `engine-mem.md` flipped to `stable`.
- **Wave-6 decomposition** (2026-10-10) — ADR-024 adopted the mem
  engine the same day the wave-5 gate closed; the task set follows the
  pg wave's rhythm with the tx overlay as the load-bearing task, the
  suite's third column as the born-pinned deliverable, the harness's
  async-sleep pre-task, and review 003 Finding 1 riding the window.
  See the Wave 6 section.
- **Wave-5 residue decomposition** (2026-10-10) — the wave-5 review's
  outstanding items audited post-gate: the one recorded "for a later
  task" gap (scheduler fire-wake latency parity) decomposed as
   `pg-fix-scheduler-fire-wake` (pre-wave-6, standalone); the flake-watch
   flag carried into the release-readiness section above (now wave 8);
   review 003's Finding 1
   already decomposed (`pg-fix-scheduler-tick-seam`, the wave-6 rider)
   and Findings 2–3 already parked to the release pass. See the
   Wave 8 section for
   the watch carriage.
- **Wave-5 residue closure** (2026-10-10) — the remaining
  "recorded for a later task" item landed: `pg-fix-scheduler-fire-wake`
  closed the scheduler fire-wake latency-parity gap (the tick's
  in-tx fires now issue their commit-atomic `pg_notify` wake, one
  coalesced wake per firing schedule per tick); the three gap records
  (`review-wave-4-fixes`'s recorded-for-later note, `suite-scheduler-rows`'s
  disposition note + Notes bullet, `review-wave-5` §Notes 4's audit row)
  retired with pointers, keeping the mem engine's fire posture written
  against a closed gap before wave 6.
- **Wave-7 decomposition** (2026-10-10) — the fuzzing decision's
  task set: scaffold → exposure (§3.2 resolved as option (b) with the
  (a) companion) → three targets in parallel → campaigns + gate
  wiring (the AGENTS.md flip) → review gate. Seven tasks; the
  every-parse differential is the load-bearing one (the wave-6
  finding class). See the Wave 7 section.
- **Wave-8 decomposition** (2026-10-10) — the pre-release pass: seven
  independent entry tasks (the user-flagged frontmatter cleanup — 11
  docs with invalid YAML frontmatter, verified by parse sweep; the
  renumber sweep the historical note mandated; crate docs; the
  class-1 window's last dispositions; N-1; Findings 2–3; the flake
  investigation the ledger's fired trigger owes), then the deployment
  matrix → README → publish prep chain, then the gate. Two tasks are
  code/test-side (findings 2–3, flake investigation); the rest is
  docs, records, and packaging. See the Wave 8 section.
- **Wave-4 fix-batch decomposition** (2026-10-09) — the general
  review's findings decomposed into seven `pg-fix-*` tasks + a
  `review-wave-4-fixes` gate: Finding 1 → `pg-fix-forwarder-reconnect`
  (with the failed-connect test seam the gate's blind spot demands),
  Finding 2 → `pg-fix-tx-wake` (retires F-1's engine arm), Finding 3
  + the DSN-options note → `pg-fix-open-path`, Finding 4 →
  `pg-fix-stale-unlisten`, Finding 5 + the scheduler doc fix →
  `pg-fix-scheduler-resilience`, the decode-duplication smell + small
  cleanups → `pg-fix-dedupe-cleanup`, the TLS/QueueOpts doc
  alignments → `pg-fix-docs-alignment`. Sequencing per the review's
  recommendation: **wave 5 decomposes after the two HIGH fixes land**
  (the suite's wake-driven rows would otherwise inherit a hang-shaped
  false failure); 3–7 may trail into wave 5's window if the
  fix-batch gate judges them wake-independent.- **Wave-8 review gate** (`review-wave-8`, 2026-10-11) — the
  pre-release gate passed: the docs honesty audit clean (README trace
  list spot-read true, the deployment matrix's rows read true as
  implemented, crate-doc posture claims consistent with the matrix,
  the env-boundary grep re-run current); the contract-window closure
  audited — all five wave-6 dispositions verified landed with dated
  citations, **the class-1 termination of record landed in ADR-017
  §2** (the window closes permanently at the first `cargo publish` of
  `alkstore`; no undisposed class-1 candidate remains); the
  close-out's registered suite-duty follow-up audited and **landed at
  the gate** — one divergence found: pg's negative-seed clamp
  (`GREATEST(offset, 0)` + the offsets-table `CHECK`) contradicted
  ADR-023 §2's "a negative is stored as the checkpoint" annotation on
  `get_offset`, fixed engine-side (raw seed, no CHECK), with the
  negative-`heartbeat(extend)` and negative-`save_offset` suite legs
  landed in `job_handle_validity_predicate` /
  `receiver_close_and_save_arms` (stamped, uniform, green on all
  three columns); N-1's conscious acceptance and Findings 2–3's
  landed/parked dispositions audited as decisions of record; the
  flake outcome audited (lock row root-caused harness-model,
  test-side fixed, watch retired; the trim row and the new
  stream-ordering observation stay watch-flagged — no live engine
  bug, not blocking); publish-prep evidence re-verified this gate
  session (fresh package listing + exclusion re-run, no leakage); the
  frontmatter sweep + renumber spot-checks re-run green; all gates
  re-run green including the fuzz replay, wasm32, and the doc gate;
   the release-facing spec set (core-contract.md, overview.md,
   queues.md, deployment.md, the architecture README) flipped
   `stable`. Implementation complete pending the user's manual
   `cargo publish` (the checklist of record is in
   `tasks/release-publish-prep.md`).
- **General review, pre-release / wave 8** (2026-10-11,
  `docs/reviews/004-pre-release-general-review.md` — the record is
  004 in the directory's sequence; a whole-workspace pass with four
  parallel per-crate deep reads plus a cross-cutting sweep, distinct
  from the gate) — nine findings fixed inline, sixteen recorded as
  follow-up material, two false positives caught on verification:
  the scheduler tick's failed `COMMIT`/`ROLLBACK` leaving the SQLite
  writer slot wedged with a stuck-open transaction (HIGH — the one
  commit site missing the drop-+-replenish arm; fixed with the
  commit-fault seam reaching the tick and a replenish test); the wave-8
  gate's pg negative-seed fix having missed the **tx seam**
  (`save_offset_tx` still clamped, mem's in-tx merged read clamping
  against a phantom zero — fixed, and the tx-form totality pinned by a
  new stamped suite leg green on all three columns vs the live
  server); the pg `register`-failure refcount leak (both subscription
  call sites now unregister on error); pg's fanout/registry
  poisoned-mutex `expect`s converted to the mem poison-recovery idiom;
  `encode_payload`'s deep-nesting process abort replaced by a typed
  `Codec` rejection at a decode-aligned depth limit (127 containers —
  the fuzz invariant's old "encodes but can never be read back" pin
  corrected, boundary legs added, applied pre-publish within the open
  class-1 window); sleep-deadline `Instant + Duration` overflow caps
  and a `saturating_add` in the sqlite tick's claim stamping; six
  doc-vs-code corrections (core `Error::Closed` scope, validation
  wording, the sqlite lib doc's phantom "durability knobs", pg
  `lock.rs`'s atomicity claim, mem's merge/wake-granularity wording);
  test hygiene in `value_type_tests.rs`; the stale
  `#![allow(dead_code)]` on mem's wakes module. Parked follow-up
  inventory (no release blocker): sqlite seam panic-safety armor, the
  watcher post-death-subscribe hang + initial-stat self-kill, the pg
  forwarder TOCTOU/hang/diagnosability arms, the pg BIGINT
  server-side stamp overflow, the mem growth/outbox notes, the pg
  identifier-truncation doc note, and smaller records. All gates
   re-run green after the fixes (build, workspace tests, live pg
   column, clippy, fmt, fuzz replay 6/6, wasm32, doc gate).
- **Review-004 fix batch** (2026-10-11) — the sixteen recorded findings
  decomposed into sixteen tasks (items 2+3 and 4+6 bundled; item 5
  split into the decision + its implementation; the pg
  scheduler-classification twin added mid-batch at the sqlite task's
  implementation): the sqlite auto-commit seams' panic-safety armor
  (RAII leases, drop-not-release, replenish/abandon dispositions);
  the dead-watcher subscribe fail-closed + the identity-unknown
  baseline; the listen bridge aligned to the stream bridge's
  std-thread shape; the run_schedules loss-vs-failure classification
  landed on both engines (dated ADR-009 §1 annotation, engine-neutral)
  with the `LeadershipLost`-at-a-dead-store misdirection gone; the
  substrate's ten UDF `// SAFETY` comments riding delta D-40; the pg
  forwarder TOCTOU closed (decide-and-queue under the registry guard)
  and both hang arms bounded (`bounded_wait`, the black-hole proxy
  harness test); the pg BIGINT stamp sums saturated server-side (the
  signed decision, `saturating_stamp_expr` at six sites, ADR-023 §2
  annotation); `tracing` adopted engine-only (ADR-025, user sign-off;
  all 19 `eprintln!` sites migrated, D-41) with both forwarder
  diagnosability arms surfaced; core's pre-yield `offset()` verified
  equal across engines and pinned (contract text + trait doc + suite
  row); `Display` made control-char-safe (incl. `Error::Codec`); the
  mem growth/outbox and pg identifier-truncation doc pins; the tokio
  dev-dep features normalized. The batch's review gate (`review-004-fixes`)
  verified every disposition by code-read against the review's failure
  mechanism, re-spot-checked the inline fixes' pinned postures, and
  annotated review 004's recorded-findings items with their
  dispositions; residual task-file hygiene cleaned (stale placeholder
  lines, AC checkboxes).