replicator-boundaries.md: Archiver produces content.fetch-policy; link the cohort charter

Update the producer named in docs/contracts/replicator-boundaries.md (Watcher → Archiver; payload unchanged plus optional generation) and link cannobserv/docs/BOUNDARIES.md as this document's parent.

Phase: Phase 1 — build additive and dark
Epic: #135
Blocked by: CannObserv/cannobserv#562
Design: 2026-10-14-headless-watcher-and-cohort-boundaries-design.md (watcher)

Pre-flight note (coordinator, epic #135, 2026-10-17). No brief yet. This child follows #140, because both edit AGENTS.md.

Unblocked. CannObserv/cannobserv#562 merged as d107e8ff on 2026-10-16. cannobserv's docs/BOUNDARIES.md exists and names docs/contracts/replicator-boundaries.md as its annex [stated, #562's shipped comment].
Keep the producer change phase-aware. Watcher stays the producer until F1 (F1: stop the content.fetch-policy producer watcher#374), so a flat "Archiver produces" would be false on merge day. CannObserv/cannobserv#566 uses the same framing in co-core's docstring: Watcher until F1, then Archiver through an outbox.
Sites that name Watcher as the producer [measured, grep]:
- docs/contracts/replicator-boundaries.md:65, :165-172 and :208-215
- the src/worker/policy.py module docstring
- docs/POLITENESS.md

Brief (coordinator, epic #135, 2026-10-17)

Edited 2026-10-17 (coordinator): reordered. This child now follows #136 (operator decision 2026-10-17, after co-core v0.37.0 published). Hazard 1 is settled: once #136 has shipped, say that Replicator applies generation through co-core's fetch_policy_supersedes, and link src/worker/policy.py as the code of record. Re-run the pre-flight against origin/main once #136 has merged.

Pre-flight run against origin/main at 3abaa81. The pre-flight note above still stands; this adds to it.

Authorities. This issue's body. The design of record, "Replicator" under "Sibling-repo work" (CannObserv/watcher docs/plans/2026-10-14-headless-watcher-and-cohort-boundaries-design.md). cannobserv's docs/BOUNDARIES.md as merged (d107e8ff, its status line rewritten by CannObserv/cannobserv#566). Where they disagree, stop and ask.

What changed since filed:

The charter exists, and line 5 already names this doc as its annex [measured]. Its "Where the cohort stands" section says fetch-policy frames are ordered only once Archiver produces them.
CannObserv/cannobserv#566 shipped generation and fetch_policy_supersedes. The release is CannObserv/cannobserv#568 (v0.37.0, being cut now).
Catch up co-core 0.19.6 → 0.36.0 ahead of the generation release #140 put AGENTS.md at 5991 of 6000 tokens (exact).

Blockers: none.

Hazards, to weigh

Say what's true on merge day. Watcher is the producer until F1 (F1: stop the content.fetch-policy producer watcher#374), and Replicator doesn't apply generation until Apply FetchPolicyState.generation only if newer #136 ships. [Operator decision: this child names the producer change, phase-aware, and the charter as parent; the sentence saying Replicator applies generation lands with #136, which changes the consumer — recommend this]. The design's "payload unchanged plus optional generation" can be stated now, as the wire.
The header contradicts the annex role. Lines 3–6 say "Status: normative. Home: this file … Sibling repos link here rather than copying" [measured]. Make the charter the parent: cohort-wide rules live there, and this doc applies them to Replicator. Keep the three tests and tests/test_boundaries.py as this doc's own. Don't copy charter text in. Link it.
Sites that name Watcher as the producer (from the pre-flight note):
- replicator-boundaries.md: :65, :165-172 ("Producer: Watcher for Phase 4 … can later move to Archiver", now decided) and :208-215
- docs/POLITENESS.md
src/worker/policy.py's docstring is Apply FetchPolicyState.generation only if newer #136's, because Apply FetchPolicyState.generation only if newer #136 edits that file. A grep for Watcher together with policy|producer|min_interval finds them all. Past-tense history (#245, watcher#272) stays as it is.
AGENTS.md has 9 tokens of headroom. The charter asks each sibling to link it from its own AGENTS.md, and this is replicator's docs issue for that. A new line won't fit. [Operator decision: reword the existing Detail Docs line for replicator-boundaries.md so it names cannobserv's charter as its parent, holding the token count — recommend; the alternative is a trim elsewhere, which needs a curating-context pass]. Measure exactly. The context-budget guard warns on growth.
The curation ledger. .skills/context-loss-ok has tighten/retarget entries scoped to replicator-boundaries.md lines (:302-312, :413-417, :609) [measured]. If you rewrite a line one of them matches, the entry goes stale. That's harmless, but prune what you orphan.
Link form. The charter is in a private repo. Link it by its GitHub URL, repo-qualified, the way the charter links this doc.

Expected: docs only. CI runs anyway. Check whether tests/test_boundaries.py reads this file; on origin/main it doesn't reference it by name [measured].

Post-merge: no host steps. If you edit .socraticodecontextartifacts.json, run codebase_update from the main checkout.

Out of scope:

the generation apply rule and policy.py (Apply FetchPolicyState.generation only if newer #136)
the charter's own text (cannobserv)
the post-F1 cleanup of "until F1" wording, which is a follow-up after F1: stop the content.fetch-policy producer watcher#374

Template: #139 / #141's docs commits, for curation hygiene.

Addendum to the brief: pre-flight re-run after #136 (coordinator, epic #135, check-in 2, 2026-10-18). Against origin/main e3cb04f. This is the epic's last child.

For #137, from #136's build report [stated]: src/worker/policy.py's module docstring is now the code of record for ordering, and docs/POLITENESS.md's "Arrival order" bullet states the rule. Link to them; don't restate them in replicator-boundaries.md.

What #136 changed for this brief [measured]:

Hazard 1 is settled as written. Replicator applies generation through fetch_policy_supersedes, deployed on build e3cb04f since 2026-10-17T23:07Z. For frames without a generation, it keeps the occurred_at guard (operator decision).
Hazard 3 is narrower. policy.py's docstring and docs/POLITENESS.md already say which producer publishes in each phase (Watcher until F1, then Archiver). What's left is replicator-boundaries.md itself: :65, :165-172 and :208-215.
Hazard 4 is unchanged. Apply FetchPolicyState.generation only if newer #136 changed only AGENTS.md's pin digits (0.36.0,<0.37 → 0.37.0,<0.38), so it's still about 5991 of 6000 tokens. Measure exactly before and after.
The manifest. Apply FetchPolicyState.generation only if newer #136 edited three descriptions and the index has been refreshed (2026-10-18). If this child edits the replicator-boundaries.md description, run codebase_update from the main checkout after the merge.

Brief review (implementer, 2026-10-18)

Checked against origin/main e924f97 (e3cb04f plus a skills-submodule bump), the charter as merged, and the design's C-d and "Replicator" sections. No disagreement among the authorities, so nothing to stop on. These corrections change what I build.

Corrections

:208-215 stays as it is. That passage is the watcher#245 / watcher#272 history, which the brief also says to leave alone. It's true on merge day too: Watcher's limiter really was replaced by its producer. The phase-aware producer sentence goes in the "Producer" paragraph (:165-168) only.
:172 stays. It says the 1.0 s fallback is "Watcher's own DEFAULT_MIN_INTERVAL". That's where the number came from, and it's still true: the constant exists on watcher origin/main, src/core/models/domain.py [measured, git grep]. docs/POLITENESS.md:185 says the same thing. Both go stale when Watcher deletes the constant, so they're noted below for the post-F1 cleanup.
A site the grep missed: :139, "Last-write-wins per host key". It doesn't name Watcher, but since Apply FetchPolicyState.generation only if newer #136 the order is generation, with an occurred_at guard and a ratchet. Following the addendum, I'll keep "LWW" (it's the charter's channel-rule wording) and link POLITENESS.md's Applying a policy section rather than restate the rule. The manifest's boundaries-charter description repeats the same phrase and calls the doc "sibling to the issuer contract". I'll edit that too, so there is one post-merge host step: codebase_update from the main checkout.
Hazard 5 has nothing to prune. None of the .skills/context-loss-ok entries scoped to replicator-boundaries.md (:302-312, :413-417, :609) matches a line on origin/main, and neither does the old-form AGENTS.md :: tighten :: entry at :381 [measured, exact line comparison]. They warrant lines that Adopt the shared SocratiCode index on co-index #92 and Five docs are over the 10k per-doc context budget; AGENTS.md has 49 tokens of headroom #111 already removed. prove-no-loss.sh checks warrants against the base's lines, so this change can't orphan them.

Confirmed as written

AGENTS.md is 5991 of 6000, exact (measure-context.sh --exact, 252 lines). replicator-boundaries.md is 9167 of 10000.
tests/test_boundaries.py doesn't read the doc. It only cites it, in its module docstring and in a comment at :160. test_destinations.py and worker/test_handler.py also cite it only in docstrings.
The cohort charter's :5 names this doc as the annex. Watcher stays the producer until F1, watcher#374.

What I'll build

Header :3-6. Normative as the cohort charter's Replicator annex. Cohort-wide rules live and change there, and this file applies them. The three tests and test_boundaries.py's invariants stay this file's own. The charter is linked by its repo-qualified GitHub URL.
:65. The numbers sit in Watcher's Domain table until F1, then in Archiver, which owns all operator intent under the charter.
Producer :165-168. Phase-aware. The payload is unchanged apart from the optional generation. Replicator applies it through fetch_policy_supersedes, with links to POLITENESS.md and src/worker/policy.py, not restated. Nothing branches on which producer sent a frame.
:139. See correction 3.
Refs. Add the charter, cannobserv#566, Apply FetchPolicyState.generation only if newer #136 and watcher#374.
AGENTS.md Detail Docs line. Reworded so it names the charter as parent, held at ≤ 5991 exact.

An accepted limit, flagged now. The doc calls itself "charter" (in the title and about eight self-references), and so do STREAMS.md, CONVENTIONS.md, AGENTS.md's "enforces the charter in CI" and the test docstrings. With a cohort charter above it, that word is now ambiguous. I'll keep the title and those references: renaming them all is wider than this issue. The header and the AGENTS.md line say "annex", which is what disambiguates.

Build report (implementer, 2026-10-18)

Branch 137-boundaries-charter-parent, 6 commits on e924f97, not pushed yet: paused before shipping. Docs and ledgers only, no runtime code.

Operator decision, taken mid-build. Hazard 4's recommended path didn't fit. The charter URL alone costs about 33 tokens against 9 of headroom: the best reworded line measured 6024 of 6000, and naming the charter without a link measured 6003. The operator chose a curating-context pass in this PR over a follow-up or a separate curation child.

What changed

replicator-boundaries.md (9167 → 9726 of 10000, exact):
- Header. Normative as the Replicator annex to cannobserv's docs/BOUNDARIES.md, linked by its repo-qualified URL. Cohort-wide rules live and change there. The three tests and the test_boundaries.py invariants stay this file's own.
- :65. The numbers sit in Watcher's Domain table until F1, then in Archiver.
- :139. LWW, "ordered as applying a policy states (Apply FetchPolicyState.generation only if newer #136)".
- Producer paragraph. Watcher until F1 (watcher#374), Archiver after it. The payload is unchanged apart from the optional generation (cannobserv#566). Replicator applies it through fetch_policy_supersedes, with links to POLITENESS.md and src/worker/policy.py, not restated.
- Refs. Added the charter, Apply FetchPolicyState.generation only if newer #136 and watcher#374.
- :172 and :208-215 are untouched, per my brief review.
.socraticodecontextartifacts.json. The boundaries-charter description names the parent charter, the generation ordering and the phase-aware producer.
AGENTS.md: 5991 → 5990 exact.
- New line: - [cohort charter](<URL>) — its parent, nested under the boundaries line so "its" has one referent.
- Extending the boundaries line in place was refused by prove-no-loss.sh's index check, which counts only docs inside the repo. So the charter gets its own line and the old line stays verbatim.
- Ten class-C tightenings pay for it, each warranted in .skills/context-loss-ok. The --claims check passes with no atom dropped. No relocations, no deletions. One context-counts-ok entry is retargeted to its tightened line.
Telemetry:
- Baseline row at e924f97 (5991 exact), measured from a detached branch-point worktree.
- Curation row at 37f693e (5990): relink:cohort-charter plus prune: ×8, no_loss ok, 12 warranted, seams 0 (39 acknowledged), counts 0 (4 acknowledged).

Code review: one round, two fixes

Item	Action	Result
1	Fixed	`82b0d98`: the curation row's tags were off-vocabulary (`tighten:`, `add:`); retagged to `relink:`/`prune:` with `--amend`
2	Fixed	`37f693e`: "— its parent" read ambiguously; the line is now nested, and the indent's token is paid by one more warranted tighten
3	Stet	`4b4dc48`'s message says 9793 → 9733, but the doc landed at 9726 because a reflow went into the same commit. The ledger is right; not rewriting history for it
4	Stet	The boundaries doc is NEAR budget (9726 of 10000); noted below

Verification run

uv run pytest: 1421 passed, 1 skipped, 71 deselected, coverage 99.89%. ruff check and ruff format --check are clean. That's the epic baseline of 1408 plus Apply FetchPolicyState.generation only if newer #136's tests.
prove-no-loss.sh --base e924f97 --claims: lost 0, claims dropped 0. check-seams.sh: 0. check-counts.sh: 0.
measure-context.sh --exact: no dead links, dead anchors, orphans or unindexed docs.
Both issues linked resolve: watcher#374 (open, "F1: stop the content.fetch-policy producer") and cannobserv#566 (closed). The charter was read through the contents API.

Skipped verification

CI hasn't run, because the branch isn't pushed.
codebase_update hasn't run. It's a post-merge step from the main checkout.
validate-manifest resolved to the main checkout's manifest, not the branch's. The branch's edited JSON was only parse-checked (json.loads).
Not checked on GitHub: how the external links render, and whether the private-repo charter URL opens for a reader without cannobserv access.
The boundaries doc got no --file seams or counts sweep: it was edited, not curated.

Accepted limits

The doc keeps the name "charter", in its title and about eight self-references, as do STREAMS.md, CONVENTIONS.md, AGENTS.md and the test docstrings. With a cohort charter above it, the word is now ambiguous. "Annex" in the header and in the nested AGENTS.md line is what disambiguates.
The boundaries doc has 274 tokens of headroom.
A charter wording point, left to cannobserv. The charter's "Where the cohort stands" says Watcher's frames "apply in stream order". Replicator applies them in arrival order, guarded by occurred_at >= (POLITENESS.md Applying a policy). The charter's text is cannobserv's, so I didn't touch it.

For later issues

For F1: stop the content.fetch-policy producer watcher#374 (the post-F1 cleanup it triggers):
- Drop the "until F1" wording at replicator-boundaries.md :65 and in the Producer paragraph, in src/worker/policy.py's docstring, and in POLITENESS.md's "Without one (all of Watcher's frames)".
- "Watcher's own DEFAULT_MIN_INTERVAL" (replicator-boundaries.md The fallback default, and POLITENESS.md:185) cites a constant Watcher deletes at the jump. Keep it as provenance, but say "was".
- :208-215 stays as history.
- The boundaries doc is at 9726 of 10000, so split before adding.
For cannobserv (no issue yet): the "stream order" phrasing above. Worth a one-line issue if the coordinator agrees; it needs GH_TOKEN_CANNOBSERV.
For gregoryfoster/skills (curating-context, no issue yet): prove-no-loss.sh's index warrant refuses an index line extended to link a doc in another repo. Every sibling that links the charter from its AGENTS.md will hit the same refusal.
For [Epic] content.fetch-policy producer moves to Archiver (parked until F1) #135 (the epic): AGENTS.md is 5990 of 6000. Three docs were already over the per-doc budget at e924f97: COMMANDS.md 10378, SKILLS.md 10059 and ENVIRONMENT.md 10014. This change didn't cause that.

Post-merge host steps (co-replicator)

Land it on main:
- If merged on GitHub: git -C /home/exedev/replicator pull --ff-only.
- If merged locally from the main checkout: git push origin main.
- Then git status -sb must show ## main...origin/main, clean.
No uv sync and no restart. Nothing the worker imports changed, so the service stays on its current build.
Refresh the index, because the manifest description changed:
- In a Claude Code session whose cwd is the main checkout, run codebase_update.
- The pre-check, offline and capped by nature: node "$SOCRATICODE_DRIVER" validate-manifest .
- If you use the driver instead of the MCP tool, use the systemd-run --user --scope -p MemoryHigh=1200M -p MemoryMax=1536M -p CPUQuota=100% choom -n 500 -- cap from docs/COMMANDS.md.
Remove the worktree: git worktree remove --force .worktrees/137 and git branch -d 137-boundaries-charter-parent.

Code review round 2 (implementer, 2026-10-19). Corrects the build report above.

Item	Action	Result
5	Fixed	`c0e781c`: round 1's STREAMS.md index tighten said "Bus Conventions in full". That's false, because the cross-stream rules are CONVENTIONS.md's. It now reads "what each stream carries, and why each one-liner here holds", which is STREAMS.md's own opening. The `--claims` check had passed only because the `AGENTS.md` atom appears elsewhere in the file.
6	Fixed	`19955ac`: the #137 warrant block in `context-loss-ok` now states the final count, and is reflowed

Figures now.

AGENTS.md is 5991 → 5991 exact, holding the branch-point count. The curation row was amended to 19955ac in 1c53ea4.
No-loss: lost 0, 12 warranted, claims dropped 0. Seams 0. Counts 0. No dead links or anchors.
uv run pytest: 1421 passed, 1 skipped. Ruff check and format are clean.

Branch tip 1c53ea4, 9 commits on e924f97, still unpushed. The post-merge host steps above are unchanged.

Shipped (implementer, 2026-10-19)

PR #143 was fast-forwarded to main: e924f97..1c53ea4, 9 commits.

The boundaries doc is normative as the Replicator annex to CannObserv/cannobserv docs/BOUNDARIES.md. Its producer statement is phase-aware: Watcher until F1 (watcher#374), Archiver after it, with the payload unchanged apart from the optional generation (cannobserv#566). The rule is linked to POLITENESS.md and src/worker/policy.py, not restated. Commits 67c3888 and 4b4dc48.
AGENTS.md links the charter under the boundaries line and holds 5991 → 5991 exact. Twelve class-C tightenings in place pay for it. Commits 300ad55, 37f693e and c0e781c, with ledgers in 8cca88a, 82b0d98, 19955ac and 1c53ea4.
The SocratiCode manifest's boundaries-charter description is updated to match.

Verification

CI by job is green on 1c53ea4, both as PR #137 docs: the boundaries doc is the cohort charter's Replicator annex; Archiver produces content.fetch-policy after F1 #143 and as the push to main: test, lint and gcs (T4 against the test bucket).
Locally: 1421 passed and 1 skipped, coverage 99.89%. Ruff check and format are clean.

Post-merge host steps, done

The main checkout is on main at origin/main 1c53ea4, clean.
No uv sync and no restart: no runtime code changed. The service stays on its running build.
codebase_update from the main checkout. The first call was skipped because another session held the index lock. The retry updated 2 files (26 chunks), and codebase_context_search on boundaries-charter now returns the new header and Refs.
The worktree and branch are removed (next step).

Follow-ups. They're unchanged from the build report; none is filed.

The post-F1 "until F1" cleanup belongs to watcher#374. The boundaries doc has 274 tokens of headroom left, so split it before adding.
The charter's "stream order" wording is cannobserv's.
Two curating-context notes for gregoryfoster/skills:
- index refuses a cross-repo link added to an existing index line.
- Short, unscoped tighten entries match later lines as substrings and warrant them silently. That happened to two lines in this change: the Project Layout comma and the Conventions STYLE.md line.

Follow-ups filed (2026-10-19).

After F1: state the fetch-policy producer as Archiver, retire the "until F1" wording #144: after F1, state the fetch-policy producer as Archiver. It's blocked by F1: stop the content.fetch-policy producer watcher#374. It lists every "until F1" site in the two docs and in policy.py, the DEFAULT_MIN_INTERVAL provenance lines, and the boundaries doc's 274 tokens of headroom. It also raises the open question of when the unordered occurred_at path can go, which ties to cannobserv#579.
curating-context: no warrant shape for linking a doc in another repo from an index line (the cohort charter's ask) gregoryfoster/skills#433: index has no shape for a link to a doc in another repo. Every sibling following the charter's AGENTS.md ask will reach it.
curating-context: prove-no-loss charges a lost line to the first matching warrant, so a stale prefix entry shadows the specific one gregoryfoster/skills#347 (comment): this run's two tightenings that older unscoped #94 entries warranted as substrings. The specific entries were then reported as "redundant; prune".

Dropped: the cannobserv "stream order" item. On a closer read it isn't a defect. co-core's fetch_policy_supersedes itself answers "stream order" between two unordered frames (src/worker/policy.py:238-242). So the charter states the cohort-level rule correctly. Replicator's occurred_at guard is a stricter local addition, documented in POLITENESS.md, and doesn't belong in the charter. cannobserv#579 already removes that status line at F1.

Navigation Menu

Repository navigation

replicator-boundaries.md: Archiver produces content.fetch-policy; link the cohort charter #137

Brief (coordinator, epic #135, 2026-10-17)

Hazards, to weigh

Brief review (implementer, 2026-10-18)

Build report (implementer, 2026-10-18)

What changed

Code review: one round, two fixes

Verification run

Skipped verification

Accepted limits

For later issues

Post-merge host steps (co-replicator)

Shipped (implementer, 2026-10-19)

Metadata

Assignees

Labels

Type

Projects

Milestone

Relationships

Development

replicator-boundaries.md: Archiver produces content.fetch-policy; link the cohort charter #137

Description

Activity

gregoryfoster commented on Oct 17, 2026

gregoryfoster commented on Oct 17, 2026

Brief (coordinator, epic #135, 2026-10-17)

Hazards, to weigh

gregoryfoster commented on Oct 18, 2026

gregoryfoster commented on Oct 18, 2026

Brief review (implementer, 2026-10-18)

gregoryfoster commented on Oct 18, 2026

Build report (implementer, 2026-10-18)

What changed

Code review: one round, two fixes

Verification run

Skipped verification

Accepted limits

For later issues

Post-merge host steps (co-replicator)

gregoryfoster commented on Oct 19, 2026

gregoryfoster commented on Oct 19, 2026

Shipped (implementer, 2026-10-19)

gregoryfoster commented on Oct 19, 2026

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

Labels

Type

Projects

Milestone

Relationships

Development

Issue actions