ColumnStore silently skipped a manifest-listed segment it could not load: a
corrupt or missing segment dropped every one of its entities out of
filter/rangeQuery/sortTopK with no error, so an inconsistent index read as a
merely short result. It now throws a typed ColumnSegmentLoadError when a listed
segment yields undecodable or no bytes, and lets a genuine storage IO fault
propagate verbatim. Only a field with no manifest at all stays benign (nothing
was ever written for it).
baseStorage.getNoun_internal / getVerb_internal likewise caught every error and
returned null, reporting a present-but-unreadable entity as "not found". They
now return null only for genuine ENOENT-class absence (via isAbsentError) and
rethrow real faults and deserialize errors.
Pattern-B (blind catch) hardening: absence -> null, fault -> loud.
Write/index-spine hardening, first batch of Pass 1. Each fix restores an
invariant the surrounding code already intended; every one has a
fail-before/pass-after test.
- Pattern C, finding 5 (baseStorage): delete now decrements the user-facing
scalar total symmetrically — deleteNounMetadata was decrementing only the
per-type bucket, deleteVerbMetadata neither the bucket nor the scalar, so
getNounCount()/getVerbCount() inflated permanently (the stale scalar wins
pagination via Math.max and is persisted). Invariant now holds:
scalar total === Σ per-type across add/update/delete and reopen.
- Pattern A, finding 3 (graph/lsm/LSMTree): a partial SSTable-load failure no
longer publishes the manifest's full relationship count as healthy. Any
per-SSTable load failure throws after the batch, which resets to honest-empty
and lets the existing size()===0 self-heal rebuild run — size()/isHealthy()
can no longer lie about a partial load.
- Pattern B, finding 6 (hnsw/hnswIndex): deferred flush() no longer clears
dirty nodes whose connections failed to persist — failed nodes stay in the
retry set, and flush() throws HnswFlushError instead of returning a lying
node count. The immediate-mode first-noun saveHNSWSystem is un-swallowed, so
addItem() rejects rather than returning an id for a rootless index.
- Pattern B, finding 11 (part — storage reads): new shared isAbsentError()
helper (utils/errorClassification, ENOENT-only absence) applied to
loadBinaryBlob and readObjectFromPath — a real IO fault (EIO/EACCES/EMFILE)
now propagates loudly instead of masquerading as "absent", which had driven
needless rebuilds / empty reads (loadBinaryBlob feeds the native provider).
Regression: 78 green across the 3 new suites + db-mvcc, generationStore,
temporal-vfs, rollback-trapdoor, restore-nondestructive. Full gate runs before
the Pass-1 release (David-gated). Remaining Pass 1: finding 11 getNoun/getVerb
legs, finding 4 (ColumnStore), finding 8 (pending-flush), finding 10 (degraded),
finding 7 (clear). Pattern A guards (1,2,9) as a follow-up release.
The temporal model had a hole exactly where files were concerned: every
entity write is an immutable generation with before-images, but VFS content
BYTES lived under an eager refCount GC left over from the pre-8.0 design —
unlink could physically destroy bytes that in-window history still
referenced, and overwrite never released the old hash at all (an unbounded
silent leak whose accidental byproduct was the only thing "preserving"
history). Reading the past could therefore return a stale field, a dangling
hash, or nothing, depending on luck.
Fix: blob reclamation becomes a HISTORY decision instead of a LIVENESS
decision. Each blob's metadata now carries historyRefCount alongside the
live refCount:
- The commit seam counts one history reference per persisted before-image
record carrying a content hash (commitTransaction staging and the
group-commit flush), recorded BEFORE the record-set persists and carried
in the generation delta (blobHashes — always present on new deltas, so
compaction only falls back to reading records for pre-contract
generations). An aborted transaction compensates best-effort.
- unlink/rmdir/overwrite drop ONLY the live reference (BlobStorage.delete →
release; overwrite finally releases the superseded hash — cancelling the
dedup increment on same-content rewrites and closing the leak), and only
AFTER the canonical mutation commits, so a failed delete can never leave a
live file whose bytes compaction might reclaim.
- History compaction is the ONE reclamation point: after deleting a
generation's record-set it releases that set's references and physically
reclaims any hash at zero live AND zero history references. Pins are
exempt automatically. Crash ordering is over-count-only in every path
(record before persist, release after delete), so a crash can leak until
the scrub recounts but can never reclaim bytes a retained generation
needs. scrubBlobHistoryRefCounts() restores exactness; existing stores get
a one-time marker-gated backfill on open, failing into leak-safe mode
(reclamation disabled) rather than guessing.
On top of the protected history, the temporal API the generational model
always implied:
- vfs.readFile(path, { asOf }) — the exact bytes as of a generation or Date,
materialized from the history (pinned view released so compaction is
never blocked by a read).
- vfs.history(path) — FileVersion[] ascending ({ generation, timestamp,
hash, size, mimeType? }), the newest entry being the live state.
- Overwrites now refresh the file entity's data/embedding text — semantic
search and the data field previously served the FIRST version's text
forever (the stale-field defect a consumer's incident recovery depended
on by luck).
Integration suite (temporal-vfs.test.ts): per-version exact reads +
history listing, leak-fix + history protection on overwrite, rm keeps bytes
readable, compaction reclaims past-window bytes and preserves in-window
(including the cross-file dedup case where an old file's history and a
newer file's removal share one hash), data freshness, and scrub exactness.
The 7.x branch system stored Virtual Filesystem content as blobs in its
copy-on-write area (`_cow/`). 8.0 removed that system and stores content blobs
in the content-addressed store (`_cas/`), but the one-time layout migration only
moves entities — it never adopted the `_cow/` content blobs. A store that used
the VFS was left with every VFS-backed read throwing "Blob metadata not found"
and its pages 500ing, with no first-party recovery and the pre-upgrade backup
already removed on entity-migration "success".
Add an on-open recovery pass (`autoAdoptLegacyVfsBlobsIfNeeded`) that runs right
after the layout migration and adopts every orphaned `_cow/` blob into `_cas/` —
copying both the bytes and the metadata via the raw object primitives,
idempotently and non-destructively (the `_cow/` originals are never deleted). It
is a separate phase, not folded into the migration, so it also heals a store
already upgraded by an earlier 8.0.x that stranded the blobs (whose layout-
migration marker is stamped): it is gated on the presence of `_cow/` and its own
`_system/vfs-blob-adoption.json` marker. Filesystem-only; native-8.0 and non-VFS
stores no-op on a cheap existence check.
- `BaseStorage.adoptLegacyCowBlobs()` — the scan/copy primitive, returning
`{ cowBlobs, adopted, alreadyPresent, incomplete }`; skips (does not half-adopt)
a blob missing its bytes or metadata.
- `brain.vfs.adoptOrphanedBlobs()` — the explicit force path; self-initializes.
- Backup retention: the automatic pre-upgrade backup is now kept if any blob
can't be fully adopted (`incomplete > 0`), instead of being removed on
entity-migration success alone — a blob-parity gate the migration signal
cannot provide.
Adds an end-to-end integration test (storage-level adopt with idempotency and
incomplete handling; self-heal on reopen; the explicit API) and an upgrade guide.
A production deployment measured ~48 seconds on EVERY reopen of an
11k-entity brain. Root cause: brainy's rebuild gate decided from in-memory
size()/count, which read 0 for a durable-but-not-resident index, so it
re-read every entity file to rebuild from scratch. At GA we gave only the
GRAPH provider a readiness contract (init() eager cold-load + isReady()
honest signal) so it would never eat that spurious rebuild; the vector and
metadata providers never got it, and brainy never even eager-inited the
vector provider.
Complete the contract symmetrically:
- plugin.ts: VectorIndexProvider gains optional init()+isReady();
MetadataIndexProvider gains isReady() — mirroring GraphIndexProvider.
Additive and optional; a provider that exposes nothing keeps today's
behavior.
- brainy.ts: eager-init every provider that exposes init() (after metadata
init() so the id-mapper is hydrated first), then decide per leg in
precedence order — migrating (skip) -> epoch drift (rebuild) -> isReady()
-> a per-leg empty fallback. The old instant fast-path keyed off
this.index.size()>0, a dishonest proxy that skipped the metadata/graph
checks whenever the vector was warm and never fired on a real cold process
anyway; removed.
The per-leg fallbacks differ because "empty" means different things: the JS
vector's rebuild() IS its load, so size()===0 correctly triggers it; the
id-mapper backs metadata, so totalEntries===0 (past the empty-store return)
is a real load failure; but entities do not imply edges, so a graph
size()===0 is a valid empty state, not a load failure.
- The JS graph now COLD-LOADS its durable LSM instead of re-deriving from a
full canonical verb scan on every boot (baseStorage._initializeGraphIndex
loads the persisted SSTables via a new GraphAdjacencyIndex.init(); it
self-heals from canonical only when the durable state is genuinely missing).
This removes an O(E)-per-open cost every filesystem consumer paid.
- LSMTree.loadManifest loads its SSTables BEFORE publishing the relationship
count, and resets to an honest-empty state on load failure — a tree can no
longer claim persisted relationships while holding none (the silent-empty
cold-load class the query-time guards exist to prevent).
Verified end-to-end against a built brain: a warm reopen (with edges and
edgeless) reloads only the JS vector; the graph and metadata cold-load with
no rebuild, and queries return correct results. New tests in
cold-open-rebuild-gate.test.ts pin the contract (isReady() defers, self-heal
still fires); migration-deference updated to drive size-based deference
through the vector, the leg where empty->rebuild remains correct.
Pairs with the native provider's isReady()/init() implementation — brainy's
gate defers only to a signal the provider exposes.
Consumer-invisible modernization pass — no public API or runtime-behavior
change; dist for the override-only files is byte-identical.
Toolchain:
- CI: GitHub Actions matrix — Node 22/24 (test:unit) + Bun latest (test:bun).
- engines: node ">=22" (was "22.x"), bun ">=1.1.0".
- tsconfig: isolatedModules + noImplicitOverride; add the 33 `override`
modifiers the flag requires across storage/integrations/vfs/transaction.
- deps: @types/node ^22; add prettier; drop dead standard-version,
@rollup/plugin-* and the redundant embedded eslintConfig (flat
eslint.config.js is the active config — verified identical lint output).
paramValidation: replace the top-level `await import('node:os'/'node:fs')`
with static ESM imports. The top-level-await form poisoned the module graph;
static imports also drop the browser/edge fallback branches no supported
runtime reaches (8.0 is Node/Bun/Deno-only).
Bun positioning: recommend Bun as a runtime (`bun add` / `bun run`), which is
green (test:bun 8/8). Drop single-binary `bun build --compile` as a target —
native addons cannot embed into it, and Bun 1.3.10 has a `--compile` codegen
regression around top-level await. Rename the Bun test to bun-runtime-test.ts
and correct docs that overclaimed single-binary support.
Gates: typecheck 0, build 0, test:unit 1743/1743, test:bun 8/8.
The storage layer held five id-keyed Maps (nounTypeByIdCache + the subtype and
visibility caches) resident for the writer's lifetime — one entry per live
entity, present even when a native provider is registered (it swaps the indexes,
not the storage adapter). At billion scale that is hundreds of GB of writer RAM,
breaking the "nothing O(N)-resident" invariant.
Eliminate all five. Per-type/subtype counts are attributed at the metadata-save
site where the type is already in hand, and the delete path re-derives the prior
values by reading the record before removing it. O(1) writer RAM on both the
native and standalone paths; the latent rebuildTypeCounts staleness edge is gone
by construction. Unit 1718 + integration 607 green.
- Version-coupling cold-init: getBrainyVersion() returned a stale build-time
default ('3.14.0') on the FIRST synchronous call — the one loadPlugins() makes
to build context.version — because the package.json read was async. A native
provider declaring a realistic `>=8.0.0` range was therefore rejected on cold
init. version.ts now reads package.json synchronously (8.0 targets Node-like
runtimes only); added a cold-init coupling regression with a `^8.0.0` plugin.
- No-silent-failures on the highest-fan-in read path: getNouns()/getVerbs()
converted a storage read failure into a success-shaped empty page, which the
cold-start rebuild then read as "store empty" and skipped the rebuild — booting
a permanently-empty index with no signal (the same silent-failure class as the
phantom bug). Both now re-throw a named BrainyError; the rebuild path re-throws
read failures (fail loud) and records a queryable degraded state, surfaced via
checkHealth(), for non-fatal rebuild hiccups.
- LSM SSTable leak: graph compaction wrote a merged SSTable but only dropped the
old ones from the manifest, orphaning their payloads forever ("In production
we'd add a cleanup mechanism"). Added StorageAdapter.deleteMetadata() and now
reclaim each compacted-away SSTable.
- Documented the two headline methods add() and find() (the only undocumented
public methods on the class).
Full gate green: build, unit 1512, integration 607.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
brain.graph.export() streams the WHOLE graph in one O(N+E) pass — node chunks
then edge chunks, async-iterable — the right primitive for visualizing all data
(vs. paging per node). Native snapshot-consistent graphCursor when present, else
a TS cursor walk over nouns + verbs. Building it surfaced two latent noun bugs,
both fixed here (each a correctness win beyond export):
- getNounsWithPagination IGNORED its cursor ('offset-based, cursor planned') —
the noun mirror of the verb bug fixed in the cursor-pagination commit. Latent
because the only multi-page consumer (aggregate backfill) uses one big page; a
small chunkSize needed page 2 and, trusting the returned-but-ignored nextCursor,
re-fetched page 0 forever (infinite loop). Ported the proven verb cursor:
opaque cn1:<shard>:<id> token, stable within-shard id order, resume-after,
O(N) at any chunk size. (Generalized verbIdFromVectorPath → idFromVectorPath.)
- hydrateNounWithMetadata DROPPED 'visibility' (noun mirror of the Fix#1 verb
hydration bug) — so getNouns-fed visibility filters saw nothing and leaked
system (VFS root) / internal nodes. Now hydrated.
- New: GraphApi.export + GraphExportOptions (chunkSize, includeInternal/System,
includeNodes/Edges). hydrateNativeSubgraph extracted + shared by subgraph+export.
Test: graph-export.test.ts — full-graph completeness incl. isolated nodes,
default-hides-internal, node/edge include toggles, chunkSize chunking (the
case that exposed the cursor hang). Full gate green.
getVerbsWithPagination was offset-only: it re-scanned from shard 0 on every page
and early-terminated at offset+limit, so a full edge walk was O(N²) (a consumer
measured ~19k edges → 27s paging at 900/page). It now accepts an opaque resume
token (cv1:<shard>:<verbId>) that resumes the shard walk immediately AFTER the
last returned verb — O(N) total at any page size, no scale cliff.
- Stable within-shard order (sort by verb id); ids come from the path so verbs
skipped by the cursor are never read.
- Cursor supersedes offset when present; offset path preserved for back-compat,
and offset callers now get a usable nextCursor so they can switch to cursor
paging. Foreign/malformed tokens decode to null → offset fallback (no throw).
- The relationships stream generator now uses cursor (was offset → O(N²)).
- Parity with the noun side (getNounsWithPagination already cursored).
Test: tests/unit/storage/verb-cursor-pagination.test.ts — a full cursored walk
visits every edge exactly once (no dup, no skip), matches the offset walk's set,
and a foreign cursor falls back gracefully.
related({from/to}) routes through storage.getVerbs, which has O(degree)
GraphAdjacencyIndex fast paths (getVerbsBySource/Target/Type_internal). But
those fast paths were disqualified whenever excludeVisibility was set —
and every default related() sets it, because visibility defaults to excluding
internal+system. So the common per-node edge lookup fell through to a full O(E)
shard scan (multi-second per node on large graphs; a consumer measured
1.4-4.6s/node and an O(N^2) whole-graph walk).
Root cause two-parter, both fixed here:
- hydrateVerbWithMetadata dropped 'visibility' (mapped subtype but not the
reserved visibility field), so fast-path results couldn't be visibility-filtered
AND related({includeInternal}) couldn't even report which edges were internal
(latent correctness bug — verbsToRelations already mapped it). Now hydrated.
- getVerbs disqualified the fast paths on subtype/excludeVisibility. Now the
fast paths apply both filters on their already-hydrated O(degree) candidate set
via applyVerbMetadataFilters() — matching the full-scan fallback's semantics —
so default related() stays on the index instead of scanning the whole graph.
Filtering semantics are unchanged (same result set as the scan); only the path
that computes it changes. Test: related-visibility-fast-path.test.ts (default
excludes internal both directions, includeInternal surfaces + reports visibility,
subtype filter on the fast path).
Two independent restart/multi-instance correctness bugs.
VFS path cache (A.3): PathResolver keyed the PROCESS-GLOBAL path cache on
`vfs:path:<path>` with no instance scope. Multiple Brainys per process (a
supported pattern) over DIFFERENT storage collided — instance A's `/x → id_A`
satisfied instance B's `stat('/x')` against unrelated storage → stale id →
"Entity not found" (surfaced by metadata-only-comprehensive's VFS stat() once
another VFS test had seeded the cache). Scope every `vfs:path:` key by a
monotonic per-process instance token (the VFS root id is a fixed sentinel, so it
can't disambiguate; the global cache is itself process-scoped so the token
suffices). Scoped the invalidate/prefix-delete paths too, so a branch-switch /
clear / fork on one brain no longer wipes another brain's cache. Cross-instance
sharing was only an optimization and was the collision itself; each instance
keeps its own local pathCache.
Verb totalCount (verb mirror of b2005ff): getVerbsWithPagination returned
`collectedVerbs.length` (the peeked page size, bounded by offset+limit+1) as
totalCount, so getVerbs({limit:1}).totalCount read 1/2 for any non-empty brain
on the unfiltered path. Now returns the authoritative O(1) totalVerbCount
(isNew-gated, visibility-filtered, rehydrated on init); filtered scans keep the
collected length. Regression: tests/unit/storage/getVerbs-totalCount.test.ts
(warm + cold reopen, mirrors the noun test).
metadata-only-comprehensive + vfs-api-wiring integration green; 1471 unit green.
nounCountsByType (read by stats().entitiesByType / counts.byTypeEnum) was
incremented in saveNoun_internal(), which runs on every noun write — including
the HNSW index re-saving a node whenever its neighbor links change. So per-type
counts grew with graph connectivity instead of entity count (an internal report
saw 8 documents read as 44). Moved the increment into saveNounMetadata_internal(),
gated on isNew + visibility, exactly parallel to the authoritative total; the
visibility-flip path adjusts it in lockstep too.
Tests: tests/unit/storage/stats-count-accuracy.test.ts (30 dense-type entities ->
exactly 30 across stats/counts/getNounCount) + de-theatricalized the >=2 assertion
in brainy-core.unit.test.ts to exact equality. Build green; 1455 unit green.
Part of the 8.0 readiness audit Phase 1; cold-reopen count rehydration is still WIP.
getNounsWithPagination returned collectedNouns.length as totalCount, but the
type-first shard scan early-terminates at offset+limit+1 (peeks one for hasMore)
— so getNouns({ pagination: { limit: 1 } }).totalCount was the page size for any
non-empty brain. The index-rebuild gate calls exactly that, so cold starts
mis-logged "Small dataset (N items)". Now reports the authoritative O(1) noun
counter (rehydrated on init) as the unfiltered total; 8.0's peek-based hasMore is
already correct and unchanged. Filtered scans unchanged.
Regression: tests/unit/storage/getNouns-totalCount.test.ts. Full 8.0 unit suite green (1453).
Three of the five bugs the rot pass surfaced (correct inputs → wrong output), fixed:
1. where-filter dropped all but the last operator on a field. getIdsForFilter()'s
per-operator loop overwrote fieldResults each iteration, so
{ year: { greaterThan: 2009, lessThan: 2020 } } kept only lessThan. Now each
operator's match set is AND-intersected (multi-operator-per-field works).
(metadataIndex.ts)
2. related({ offset }) ignored the offset — getVerbs() zeroed it and smuggled it via
an unimplemented cursor, so every page returned items [0, limit). Now the real
offset is passed through to getVerbsWithPagination (which slices [offset,+limit)).
(baseStorage.ts) — verified: get-relations-fix pagination test passes.
3. relate() never persisted updatedAt, so reads fabricated a fresh Date.now() each
call (non-idempotent). Now createdAt and updatedAt share one timestamp at create.
(brainy.ts) — verified: get-relations-fix equivalence test passes.
Follow-ups (precisely diagnosed, not papered over): exclusive range bounds —
ColumnStore.rangeQuery(field,min,max) is inclusive-only, so getIdsForRange() drops
includeMin/includeMax (metadataIndex.ts:996) and lessThan/greaterThan behave as
lte/gte when the column store is active (the dual-bound test's popularity:95 boundary
stays red); counts not rehydrating after restart; unscoped VFS path-cache.
Adds a reserved, top-level `visibility` field (mirrors the subtype rollout):
'public' (default, surfaced) | 'internal' (developer app-internal — hidden from
default find/count/stats, opt-in via includeInternal) | 'system' (Brainy
plumbing, library-set only).
Fixes a real leak: the VFS root entity counted in getNounCount() and appeared in
find() (a fresh brain reported 1 entity). It is now visibility:'system' →
excluded from every user-facing surface. Developers also get a first-class
hidden-unless-asked tier (e.g. learned internals vs user-exposed data).
- Reserved (RESERVED_ENTITY_FIELDS / RESERVED_RELATION_FIELDS) — spoof-proof from metadata.
- Threaded through add/relate/update/transact; surfaced top-level on reads.
- Default exclusion in counts (baseStorage), find()/related() (hard candidate
filter via excludeVisibility — keeps topK/limit correct), and stats;
includeInternal/includeSystem opt-ins.
- VFS root marked 'system'.
Tests: visibility.test.ts 17/17 (fresh-brain getNounCount()===0, internal hidden
+ opt-in, verb symmetry, top-level surfacing, metadata-spoof rejection). Unit
1431 green; count-synchronization integration now passes (off-by-one fixed).
Sharding required a 32-hex UUID and threw "Invalid UUID format" on every
non-UUID id, even though add()'s own docs show `id: "user-12345"` and the u64
id-mapper happily assigns ints to any string. So custom ids mapped fine in
memory then threw on save — breaking documented usage and any 7.x consumer
using friendly ids (`'user-123'`, slugs, emails) on upgrade.
getShardId() (renamed from getShardIdFromUuid) now buckets UUID-format ids by
their first byte (on-disk layout unchanged, so existing data never moves) and
hashes any other id via FNV-1a into the same 256-bucket space. The hash is part
of the on-disk contract and must not change. Verbs stay Brainy-generated UUIDs
by contract; only custom noun ids take the hash path.
Adds getShardId unit coverage: dual scheme, determinism, even distribution
across buckets, and the empty-id guard.
The distributed-clustering subsystem never ran in production: it was inert,
orphaned dead code (faked consensus, stub replication, no live wiring, and it
did not interoperate with the 8.0 Db API). Brainy 8.0 is a single-process
library. Scale is single-process + the optional native provider
(@soulcraft/cortex, on-disk DiskANN to 10B+ vectors) + per-tenant pools +
horizontal read scaling (many reader processes, one writer).
Removed:
- src/distributed/ entirely (coordinator, shardManager, cacheSync,
readWriteSeparation, queryPlanner, healthMonitor, configManager,
hashPartitioner, shardMigration, domainDetector, storageDiscovery, http/network
transports). ReaderMode/HybridMode relocated to src/storage/operationalModes.ts
(slimmed to the live surface).
- src/types/distributedTypes.ts; config.distributed field + JSDoc;
coreTypes distributedConfig; memoryStorage distributedConfig persistence.
- DistributedRole enum + src/config/distributedPresets.ts and the orphaned
src/config/extensibleConfig.ts (config/augmentation registry built on removed
cloud adapters + distributed presets), plus their src/index.ts re-exports.
- 13 BRAINY_* cluster env vars; the storage setDistributedComponents hook;
enableDistributedSearch (dead config flag); the metadata partition field;
the distributed_ reserved key prefix.
- Orphaned src/storage/readOnlyOptimizations.ts (zero importers).
- Tests targeting the subsystem: distributed-demo, distributed-cluster helper,
distributed-transactions, sharding-transactions.
- Docs: EXTENDING_STORAGE.md (deleted); scrubbed distributed/cluster/Raft/
shard-manager/multi-node prose from v3-features, enterprise-for-everyone,
augmentations-actual, complete-feature-list, vfs/README, vfs/ROADMAP,
vfs/VFS_CORE, capacity-planning, transactions, MIGRATION-V3-TO-V4,
storage-architecture; reframed scale prose to the 8.0 model.
Kept: src/storage/sharding.ts (local-disk 256-bucket directory sharding via
getShardIdFromUuid — used live by baseStorage, unrelated to clustering);
the multi-process mode: 'reader' | 'writer' roles; semantic/HNSW clustering.
RELEASES.md: added a removed-surfaces row documenting the cut and the 8.0
scale model.
Brainy-owned field names (noun/verb, subtype, createdAt, updatedAt,
confidence, weight, service, data, createdBy, _rev) now have exactly one
home — top level — enforced by three layers driven from a single source of
truth, src/types/reservedFields.ts (RESERVED_ENTITY_FIELDS /
RESERVED_RELATION_FIELDS, exported):
1. Compile time — AddParams/UpdateParams/RelateParams/UpdateRelationParams
metadata (and the transact() ops that extend them) reject a literal
reserved key as a TypeScript error while keeping generic T ergonomics
(typed bags, untyped brains, index-signature shapes, and a documented
exemption for T-declared reserved keys). Pinned by @ts-expect-error
type tests run under vitest typecheck mode on every unit run.
2. Write time — the 7.x update() remap is ported to 8.0 and extended to
every write path: add/update/relate/updateRelation, their transact()
mirrors, and db.with() overlays. User-settable fields lift to their
dedicated param (top-level wins when both are supplied — closes the 7.x
trap where update({metadata:{confidence}}) silently no-oped), and
system-managed fields drop with a one-shot warning naming the right
path. A remapped subtype satisfies subtype-pairing enforcement exactly
like a top-level one.
3. Read time — every storage combine goes through one canonical hydration
helper (hydrateNounWithMetadata / hydrateVerbWithMetadata over
splitNoun/VerbMetadataRecord), so reserved fields surface ONLY top-level
and entity/relation.metadata carry ONLY custom fields on live reads,
batch reads, paginated listings, getRelations by source/target, streamed
verbs, and historical asOf() materialization alike.
Read-path echoes found and fixed (previously the full stored record —
including the verb type key — leaked inside metadata): noun pagination,
verb pagination, getVerbsBySource/ByTarget (adjacency + shard fallback),
getVerbsBySourceBatch (which also dropped subtype/data), and the
filesystem verb stream. getRelations() results now surface
confidence/updatedAt top-level via verbsToRelations, updateRelation() no
longer erases service/createdBy, relate() persists its top-level
confidence/service params, and the dead convertHNSWVerbToGraphVerb echo
path is deleted. Import paths (CLI extract, deduplicator, coordinators,
neural import) write confidence through the dedicated param instead of the
bag. UpdateRelationParams is now exported from the package root.
Documented for consumers in docs/concepts/consistency-model.md ("Reserved
fields") and RELEASES.md. Regression tests ported from the 7.x fix and
extended to the full 8.0 contract (17 runtime tests + 41 type-level
assertions); full unit suite 1427/1427, db-mvcc integration 24/24.
- brain.fillSubtypes(rules): idempotent subtype back-fill for pre-8.0 data.
One rule per NounType/VerbType (literal default or per-entry function);
fills only entries still missing a subtype through the public update()/
updateRelation() paths; returns { scanned, filled, skipped, errors, byType }.
Full unit suite in tests/unit/brainy/fill-subtypes.test.ts.
- Fix getNouns/getVerbs pagination hasMore (peek one past the window) —
was permanently false, silently truncating every multi-page walk.
- find({ near }) without near.id now throws a teaching error instead of an
opaque storage sharding failure; CLI --threshold without --near applies a
plain score floor.
- CLI init/close audit: every one-shot command init()s, close()s, and exits
explicitly; delete the unmaintained interactive REPL; replace the cloud-era
storage subcommands with status/batch-delete; new types/validate commands.
- requireSubtype JSDoc now documents the 8.0 default-on contract; audit()
recommendation points at fillSubtypes.
- Docs: data-storage-architecture rewritten to the real 8.0 on-disk layout;
README storage section reflects filesystem+memory and snapshots; eli5 and
SEMANTIC_VFS /as-of/ semantics corrected; internal tracker IDs and
.strategy references scrubbed from published files.
The COW version-control surface (fork, branches, checkout, commit,
getHistory/streamHistory, asOfCommit, brain.versions) is gone, along with
its subsystems: src/versioning/, the COW object store (CommitLog,
CommitObject, RefManager, TreeObject), HistoricalStorageAdapter, and the
TypeAwareHNSWIndex path it kept alive. The Db API (now/transact/asOf/
with/persist/restore) is the one versioning model in 8.0.
Survivors and replacements:
- BlobStorage survives (the VFS stores file content through it), relocated
to src/storage/blobStorage.ts with binaryDataCodec.ts; its adapter
interface is now BlobStoreAdapter, slimmed to the consumed surface
(write/read/has/delete/getMetadata + MIME-aware compression policy).
- brain.migrate() backup branches are replaced by persist-before-migrate:
MigrateOptions.backupTo persists a hard-link snapshot of the current
generation before any transform runs; MigrationResult.backupPath reports
it, and brain.restore(path) brings it back wholesale.
- CLI: cow.ts (fork/branch/checkout/history/migrate) is replaced by
snapshot.ts — snapshot <path>, restore <path>, history (tx-log),
generation.
- New public read API: brain.transactionLog({limit}) exposes the reified
tx-log (generation/timestamp/meta, newest first) that backs the CLI
history command; TxLogEntry is exported.
Tests: superseded suites deleted; fork/commit blocks excised from shared
suites; BlobStorage tests relocated + reworked against the slimmed store;
migration tests now prove the backupTo snapshot/restore round trip; new
transactionLog coverage in db-mvcc.
One mechanism replaces the COW and versioning subsystems: immutable
generation-stamped records behind a Datomic-style database value.
Record layer (src/db/generationStore.ts):
- Monotonic generation counter in _system/generation.json; bumped once per
transact() commit and once per single-operation write (storage hook), so
brain.generation() is always a meaningful watermark.
- Commit protocol: stage before-images + tx.json delta -> fsync -> execute
batch via TransactionManager -> atomic tmp+rename of _system/manifest.json
(the rename IS the commit point) -> append _system/tx-log.jsonl.
- Crash recovery on open rolls uncommitted generations back byte-identically
and forces an index rebuild; refcounted pins gate compactHistory(), which
records a horizon (asOf below it throws GenerationCompactedError).
Db API:
- Db: get/find/search/related pinned at a generation, with() speculative
overlays, since() diffs, persist() hard-link-farm snapshots, timestamp,
generation, release() + FinalizationRegistry backstop.
- Brainy: now() O(1) pin, transact(ops, {meta, ifAtGeneration}) atomic batch
(GenerationConflictError CAS), asOf(generation|Date|path), restore(path,
{confirm}), compactHistory(), generation(), static open() + load().
- get()/metadata find()/related() are fully correct at any reachable pinned
generation; index-accelerated queries at historical generations throw
NotYetSupportedAtHistoricalGenerationError - never silently-wrong results.
- VersionedIndexProvider (generation/isGenerationVisible/pin/release) in
plugin.ts: feature-detected, balanced pin/release in lockstep with Db
lifecycle, post-commit applier + replay-gap model documented.
Storage primitives (BaseStorage + filesystem/memory adapters): raw-object
read/write/list/remove, fsync barrier, noun/verb raw before-image capture,
tx-log append, snapshotToDirectory (hard-link farm; byte-copy fallback and
append-in-place exceptions), restoreFromDirectory + derived-state reload.
Proof suite (tests/integration/db-mvcc.test.ts + tests/unit/db/): isolation
across 200 mutations, batch atomicity under injected execution failure,
ifAtGeneration CAS, snapshot immunity to source mutation, compaction safety
under pins, with() overlay isolation, generation monotonicity across
reopen, crash consistency through the real recovery path, and versioned
provider pin/release balance. Design record in
docs/ADR-001-generational-mvcc.md.
GraphIndexProvider now speaks BigInt at the boundary (D.2 mirror):
- getNeighbors/getVerbIdsBySource/getVerbIdsByTarget take entity ints and
return entity/verb ints as bigint[]
- new REQUIRED verbIntsToIds(bigint[]) batch reverse resolver (L.7
identity-fingerprint design — verb ids are UUIDs by contract, so the
provider-side interning is losslessly reversible)
- addVerb(verb, sourceInt, targetInt) returns the interned verb int;
removeVerb(verbId) joins the contract
Coordinator (brainy.ts) owns ALL UUID <-> int conversion: getOrAssign on
writes, getInt on reads (unmapped UUID -> empty result without calling the
provider), getUuid / verbIntsToIds on returns, plus a bounded ~100k-entry
insertion-order warm cache for verb-int -> verb-id pairs fed by addVerb
returns and resolver results. GraphVerb gains derived sourceInt/targetInt
(populated at add time, never persisted). findConnectedSubtype gains a
native fast path that routes single-type single-subtype outgoing BFS
through the provider when available.
JS GraphAdjacencyIndex satisfies the contract while staying string/u32-keyed
internally: entity ints resolve through the shared entity-id mapper (threaded
in by the coordinator on init/fork/checkout), verb ints come from an
in-process append-only interning map re-derived from storage on
rebuild/cold-start. ColumnStoreProvider widens the same way: addEntity/
removeEntity take bigint, sortTopK/filteredSortTopK return bigint[].
relate() now rejects a caller-supplied id with a teaching error — verb ids
are brainy-generated UUIDs by contract in 8.0 (previously a passed id was
silently ignored). No Roaring64 provider-boundary decode site exists yet;
the JS-internal column store stays Roaring32 and the Treemap decoder lands
with the first consumer of provider-returned filter buffers.
Public brain API unchanged. 1413 tests green (+10 new BigInt contract tests).
Phase C: storageAutoConfig.ts rewrite (376 LOC → ~110 LOC). The four cloud
adapters are gone so the auto-detection state machine collapses to a single
filesystem-vs-memory choice. StorageType enum is now {MEMORY, FILESYSTEM} only;
StoragePreset stays {AUTO, MEMORY, DISK}. zeroConfig.ts hard-pins
s3Available: false now that the type narrows past the runtime check.
Phase D: TODO/FIXME sweep in src/. Removed seven stale markers. The CLI cow
migrate command's backup path now uses fs.cp with recursive + force:false
instead of a TODO placeholder.
Phase E: skipped-test deletion + parallel-test race fix.
- storage-batch-operations.test.ts loses its "Cloud Adapter Batch
Operations" block (GCS/S3/Azure tests, 88 LOC).
- cow-full-integration.test.ts loses its skipped "S3 adapter" test.
- create-entities-default.test.ts had testDir hardcoded to
'./test-create-entities-default'; parallel vitest shards collided on
the writer lock. testDir is now os.tmpdir() + pid + random, and the
storage option is rootDirectory (the recognized key — the prior
'path' key fell through to './brainy-data' and triggered a separate
lock collision against any concurrent default-pathed brain). Added
afterEach brain.close() so the lock releases before rmSync.
PHASE A — every @deprecated marker resolved (~25 removed)
src/coreTypes.ts
- GraphVerb: dropped the "@deprecated Will be replaced by HNSWVerbWithMetadata"
note. GraphVerb IS the canonical contract — every public API path speaks
it. Removed the `source` and `target` legacy alias fields (renamed `from`
/ `to` callers years ago; no consumers remain).
- StorageAdapter: dropped the "@deprecated Use getNouns() with filter" notes
from `getNounsByNounType`, `getVerbsBySource`, `getVerbsByTarget`,
`getVerbsByType`. They were never deprecated in spirit — they're useful
non-paginated convenience wrappers over the paginated `getNouns()` /
`getVerbs()` surface. Refreshed JSDoc to explain the role.
src/types/graphTypes.ts
- Mirrored the GraphVerb cleanup: dropped `source` + `target` legacy aliases.
sourceId + targetId are the canonical fields.
src/import/ImportCoordinator.ts
- Deleted the entire DeprecatedImportOptions interface block (130 LOC). It
was a v3 → v4 migration tool using the `?: never` trick to force
compile errors on dropped options. Five major versions in, the
forced-error gate is no longer pulling its weight.
src/triple/TripleIntelligence.ts
- Deleted `TripleIntelligenceEngine = any` alias. No consumers; superseded
by `TripleIntelligenceSystem`.
src/storage/cow/binaryDataCodec.ts
- Deleted `wrapBinaryData()`. The COW dispatch layer in `baseStorage.ts`
routes by key-prefix convention; the old guess-by-JSON-parse codec was
fragile (compressed bytes can accidentally parse as JSON) and unused.
src/storage/baseStorage.ts
- Refreshed JSDoc on `convertHNSWVerbToGraphVerb()` — the method is alive
and used internally; the deprecation note was stale.
src/embeddings/wasm/AssetLoader.ts → DELETED
- File was @deprecated since model weights moved into the Candle WASM
bundle. No consumers. Removed from `embeddings/wasm/index.ts` exports.
src/embeddings/wasm/types.ts
- Dropped @deprecated tags on `TokenizerConfig` + `TokenizedInput` — still
used by `WordPieceTokenizer` (auxiliary tokenization). Deleted
`InferenceConfig` (truly dead). Updated `embeddings/wasm/index.ts`
exports.
src/utils/metadataIndex.ts
- Deleted `getIdsForCriteria()` — pure alias for `getIdsForFilter()`, no
consumers.
src/interfaces/IIndex.ts
- Removed RebuildOptions.lazy (deprecated and unused; lazy mode is auto-
selected by available-memory detection).
src/hnsw/hnswIndex.ts
- Removed `getNouns()` (returned a full Map; deprecated in favor of
pagination years ago and no consumers in src/ or tests/).
PHASE B — cacheManager dead StorageType branches
src/storage/cacheManager.ts
- Collapsed the `isRemoteStorage` flag and its 15 dead conditional branches
spanning calculateOptimalCacheSize() and calculateOptimalBatchSize().
After dropping cloud adapters in step 7, `coldStorageType` is never S3
or REMOTE_API; the branches were dead. Cache sizing and batch sizing now
honor the filesystem-only reality with simpler heuristics.
- Collapsed `detectWarmStorageType()` + `detectColdStorageType()` from
~40 LOC of environment-+-availability branching to 2-line returns of
`StorageType.FILESYSTEM`. Brainy 8.0 ships filesystem + memory only.
NOT YET — Phases C-G in follow-up commits
C: storageAutoConfig.ts + zeroConfig + extensibleConfig + sharedConfigManager
D: TODO/FIXME sweep across src/
E: skipped tests + the parallel-test race condition
F: docs deep clean (BATCHING, augmentations, READMEs)
G: browser support drop (the last 2 @deprecated)
VERIFICATION
- npx tsc --noEmit: clean
- npm test: 1408 / 1409 (same pre-existing race-condition outstanding)
Optimistic concurrency for multi-writer coordination — the read-then-CAS
lock pattern + idempotent-bootstrap singleton inserts. Lands the surface the
SDK scheduler asked for in BRAINY-EXPOSE-TRANSACTIONS, scoped to what ships
cleanly without painting the 8.0 transact() API into a corner.
A. PER-ENTITY _rev FIELD
- src/coreTypes.ts — HNSWNounWithMetadata gains optional `_rev?: number`;
STANDARD_ENTITY_FIELDS includes it so resolveEntityField routes correctly.
- src/types/brainy.types.ts — Entity<T> gains optional `_rev?: number`;
Result<T> mirrors it on the convenience flatten layer.
- src/brainy.ts add() — initializes `_rev: 1` in storageMetadata. New entities
always start at 1.
- src/brainy.ts update() — reads currentRev off the persisted metadata
(falls back to 1 for pre-7.31.0 entities with no _rev), writes
`_rev: currentRev + 1` into the updated metadata. Every successful update()
bumps by exactly 1.
- src/brainy.ts convertNounToEntity + convertMetadataToEntity — both pull
_rev out of the storage metadata and surface it at the top level of Entity.
Pre-7.31.0 entities (no _rev in storage) read as `_rev: 1` so consumers
see a consistent value.
- src/storage/baseStorage.ts — six destructure sites updated to pull _rev
out of the metadata bag so it doesn't leak into customMetadata. Noun-side
returns surface _rev; verb-side destructures correctly but doesn't expose
it on HNSWVerbWithMetadata (verb CAS is future work).
- src/brainy.ts createResult() — flattens entity._rev onto the Result for
backward compat with the existing convenience-field layer.
B. update({ ifRev }) OPTIMISTIC CONCURRENCY
- src/types/brainy.types.ts — UpdateParams<T> gains optional `ifRev?: number`.
- src/transaction/RevisionConflictError.ts (NEW) — carries `{ id, expected,
actual }`. Message names the recipe: refetch with brain.get() and retry
with the latest _rev. Subclass of Error.
- src/brainy.ts update() — when params.ifRev is provided, compares against
currentRev (the rev we just read) and throws RevisionConflictError on
mismatch before any storage write. Omitting ifRev keeps the prior
unconditional-update behavior; existing consumers see no change.
- src/transaction/index.ts — exports RevisionConflictError.
- src/index.ts — public export of RevisionConflictError.
C. add({ ifAbsent }) BY-ID IDEMPOTENT INSERT
- src/types/brainy.types.ts — AddParams<T> gains optional `ifAbsent?: boolean`;
AddManyParams<T> mirrors it as a batch-level flag.
- src/brainy.ts add() — when params.id AND params.ifAbsent, pre-reads
storage.getNounMetadata(id); if present, returns the existing id without
writing. No throw, no overwrite. Ignored when id is omitted (a fresh UUID
can never collide).
- src/brainy.ts addMany() — propagates the batch-level ifAbsent to each
item's add() call. Per-item ifAbsent takes precedence so callers can
override individual rows.
WHAT'S NOT SHIPPED (and why)
A public brain.transaction(fn) wrapper was on the table but was cut. The
internal TransactionManager exposes raw Operation classes (SaveNounMetadata,
etc.) that take StorageAdapter as a constructor argument. A clean high-level
facade in 7.31.0 would have meant either:
(a) Delegate to brain.add() / update() / relate(). Each of those opens its
own internal transaction and commits before the closure returns. Looks
atomic, isn't — a footgun.
(b) Thread an optional `tx?` through every internal write site in
brainy.ts (8 transactionManager.executeTransaction sites). ~2 days of
real refactor with regression surface, and the API shape changes again
in 8.0 anyway.
The SDK scheduler's actual ask (BRAINY-EXPOSE-TRANSACTIONS) is the
read-then-CAS lock pattern. _rev + ifRev solves it completely. Multi-write
atomicity is the 8.0 brain.transact() use case where the Datomic-style
immutable Db makes it atomic by construction — that's the right home.
TESTS
- New tests/integration/rev-and-ifabsent.test.ts (18 tests):
- _rev initialization (1 on add) and surface on get fast/full paths + find
- _rev auto-bump on update across multiple writes
- update({ ifRev }) pass / fail / message format / omitted / legacy-no-rev
- add({ ifAbsent }) writes when absent / no-op when present / id-required
- addMany({ ifAbsent }) propagation + per-item override
- SDK-scheduler scenario: two concurrent CAS updates, one wins one throws
- Unit suite unchanged: 1468/1468.
- All integration subtype + verb + strict + find-limits + new rev suites
pass: 96/96.
DOCS
- New docs/guides/optimistic-concurrency.md (public: true) — full reference:
the lock pattern, read-modify-write retry, idempotent bootstrap, how _rev
interacts with brain.versions, branches/fork, and VFS, what's coming in 8.0.
- docs/api/README.md — add() and update() entries get the new params + tips
pointing at the new guide.
- RELEASES.md v7.31.0 entry.
CORTEX COMPATIBILITY
Zero changes required. _rev is a metadata column already supported by
NativeColumnStore. The auto-bump runs in Brainy JS before any storage call;
Cortex never sees the per-entity counter.
8.0 FORWARD-COMPAT
_rev, ifRev, RevisionConflictError, and ifAbsent survive the 8.0 Db redesign
unchanged. 8.0 layers brain.transact(tx, { ifAtGeneration }) for whole-tx CAS
on top of the same per-entity mechanism — per-entity for single-record
patterns (job locks, idempotent state machines), generation-based for
"did the world move under me." Locked in .strategy/BRAINY-8.0-SUBTYPE-CONTRACT.md § C-6.
Verification
- npx tsc --noEmit: clean
- npm test: 1468 / 1468 unit
- All integration suites including new rev-and-ifabsent: 96/96
- npm run build: clean
- Closed-source product reference audit: clean
Brainy 7.30.0 introduced a memory-derived synchronous cap on `find({ limit })`
to prevent OOM. The cap was sound in intent but ~4x too conservative in
calibration: assumed 100 KB per result while typical entity footprint is 7-10 KB
(384-dim float32 vector ≈ 1.5 KB + standard fields + metadata). On a 900 MB
free-memory box the cap derived to 9000 — breaking common safety-cap patterns
like `find({ type, where, limit: 10_000 })` that typically return 10-500
entities. Surfaced as a runtime regression with cascading 500s degrading
production dashboards.
Three concurrent fixes:
A. RECALIBRATE THE FORMULA
- src/utils/paramValidation.ts:175,196,212 — the three memory-derived priorities
(reservedQueryMemory / containerMemory / freeMemory) all divided by
100 * 1024 * 1024 (100 KB per result, ~10-15x over conservative). Replaced
with a new MAX_LIMIT_KB_PER_RESULT = 25 constant that matches observed
entity size.
- Result: 4 GB container cap goes 10_000 → 40_000; 2 GB cap goes 5_000 →
20_000; 900 MB free-memory cap goes 9_000 → ~36_000. 100k hard ceiling
unchanged. `maxQueryLimit` / `reservedQueryMemory` constructor overrides
unchanged in behavior.
B. TWO-TIER ENFORCEMENT (warn-then-throw)
- Below cap (limit <= maxLimit): silent pass, unchanged.
- Soft tier (maxLimit < limit <= 2 * maxLimit): NEW — one-time warning per
call site (dedup keyed on caller stack frame + limit value), query
proceeds. Pre-7.30.2 code that relied on the cap silently allowing typical
safety-cap limits keeps working; the warning teaches the recipe so consumers
can fix it intentionally.
- Hard tier (limit > 2 * maxLimit): throw with the same teaching message
format. Real OOM territory; the cap stops being a recommendation and becomes
a guardrail.
- The 2x soft margin absorbs typical safety-cap patterns (limit: 10_000
against a 9 K-cap box) without disabling OOM protection. Real OOM territory
on a JS in-memory brain is hundreds of thousands of results, not 10x the
safety cap.
C. IMPROVED ERROR / WARNING MESSAGE
- Same shape as the 7.30.1 enforcement-error messages: state the problem,
name the three escape valves (maxQueryLimit / reservedQueryMemory /
pagination), include caller location, link to docs.
- Extracted findCallerLocation() helper from brainy.ts to a new
src/utils/callerLocation.ts so both the subtype enforcement (7.30.1) and
the limit enforcement (7.30.2) share one implementation without circular
imports.
DOCS
- New docs/guides/find-limits.md (public: true) — full reference: why the cap
exists, the four memory sources the auto-config considers, the three escape
valves with when-to-use-which guidance, and an explicit "pagination is the
future-proof pattern" callout (8.0 may tighten the cap further; pagination
keeps working unchanged).
- docs/api/README.md find() entry gets a one-paragraph `limit` tip + pointer
to the new guide.
- RELEASES.md v7.30.2 entry.
TESTS
- New tests/integration/find-limits.test.ts (9 tests): below-cap silent pass;
soft-tier warns once per call site (dedup verified by exercising same vs.
different source lines via wrapper closures); soft-tier message format
(names all three escape valves + docs link); soft-tier message includes
caller location; hard-tier throws; hard-tier message format same as
soft-tier; consumer maxQueryLimit override raises the cap and shifts both
tiers accordingly; pre-7.30.2 regression scenario explicitly covered.
- tests/unit/utils/memoryLimits.test.ts — 4 tests updated for the recalibrated
cap values (hardcoded expected numbers bumped 4x to match new 25 KB/result
assumption).
- tests/unit/utils/paramValidation.test.ts — auto-limit test extended to cover
the three-tier semantics (below-cap pass / soft-tier silent / hard-tier
throw).
- Existing suites unchanged: subtype-and-facets 26/26, verb-subtype-and-
enforcement 30/30, strict-mode-self-test 13/13. Unit 1468/1468.
CORTEX COMPATIBILITY
- Zero Cortex changes required. Every change is JS-side: formula recalibration
runs in ValidationConfig.constructor(), two-tier enforcement runs in
validateFindParams(), both fire before any storage / index / Cortex call.
- The new guide notes that Brainy 8.0's Datomic-style Db.find() may tighten
per-call limits to keep snapshot semantics cheap; pagination remains the
pattern that's guaranteed to keep working.
REPO-WIDE CLEANUP
Brainy is the only Soulcraft project that is open source. This commit also
scrubs closed-source product names and product-specific class/field references
from every tracked file in the repo (src/, docs/, tests/, RELEASES.md,
CHANGELOG.md). Consumer-reported bugs, regression scenarios, and release
notes now refer to "a consumer", "a downstream application", "a production
deployment", or "an internal report" — never to the named product. Two
product-named test files renamed to neutral diagnostic names. CLAUDE.md gains
a project-level guard rule documenting the policy and an example list of the
identifiers that may not appear in tracked code.
Verification
- npx tsc --noEmit: clean
- npm test: 1468 / 1468 unit
- All four integration subtype + verb + strict + find-limits suites: 78/78
- npm run build: clean
- Closed-source product reference audit: clean
Brainy 7.30 shipped opt-in subtype enforcement; SDK 3.20.0 then registered
SDK_CORE_VOCABULARY on every consumer's brain (Event, Collection, Message,
Contract, Media, Document NounTypes). On 2026-06-08 Venue's /book flow went 500
because their brain.add({ type: NounType.Event, ... }) call sites lacked
subtype. An audit of Brainy's OWN source revealed 14 HIGH-risk internal write
paths that also omit subtype — any consumer running the same vocabulary would
have hit Brainy's infrastructure paths next. 7.30.1 closes both gaps before
8.0 makes strict mode the default.
Additive across the board. Zero behavior change for consumers not using strict
mode. Every change is JS-side — Cortex needs no work for 7.30.1.
NEW — brain.audit() diagnostic
- Read-only method walking storage.getNouns() / getVerbs() pagination
- Returns { entitiesWithoutSubtype: { type: count }, relationshipsWithoutSubtype,
total, scanned, recommendation }
- VFS infrastructure entities excluded by default (they bypass enforcement via
isVFSEntity marker); pass { includeVFS: true } to surface them
- The companion to migrateField (7.x) and fillSubtypes (8.0): tells consumers
exactly what would break under strict enforcement, deterministically
NEW — Improved enforcement error messages
- Caller's source location extracted from Error().stack so users see their own
call site, not a Brainy internal frame
- Specific guidance branches: registered vocabulary → "Pass one of: a, b, c";
brain-wide strict mode → mentions the except clause; otherwise → registration
recipe via brain.requireSubtype()
- Documentation link to the canonical migration recipe
- Same shape for noun and verb enforcement
NEW — CLI --subtype flag
- brainy add and brainy relate gain -s/--subtype <value>
- Defaults to 'cli-add' / 'cli-relate' so the CLI works against strict-mode
brains without the user needing to know the vocabulary in advance
INTERNAL — every Brainy write path now sets subtype
- VFS Contains edges (5 sites at lines 503/905/1694/1772/1886) → 'vfs-contains'
- VFS symlink entity → 'vfs-symlink' (NEW — distinct from 'vfs-file')
- VFS copy-file → preserves source subtype, falls back to 'vfs-file'
- VFS symlink also adopts the isVFSEntity infrastructure marker so it bypasses
enforcement in strict mode
- Aggregation materializer (Measurement entities) → 'materialized-aggregate'
- ImportCoordinator (3 sites): document → 'import-source'; entities →
options.defaultSubtype ?? 'imported'; placeholder → 'import-placeholder'
- SmartImportOrchestrator (4 entity sites + 2 batch relate sites): same
precedence (extractor → options.defaultSubtype → 'imported')
- EntityDeduplicator → candidate.subtype ?? 'imported'
- UniversalImportAPI → extractor → 'extracted' for both entities and relations
- NeuralImport → adds defaultSubtype to NeuralImportOptions; precedence same
- GoogleSheetsIntegration → request body 'subtype' ?? 'imported-from-sheets'
- ODataIntegration → request body 'Subtype' ?? 'imported-from-odata'
- MCP client message storage → 'mcp-message' (also fixes pre-existing missing
data field and missing type by aliasing from the prior text field)
Side-effect fix: storage.getNouns() paginated now surfaces subtype to top-level
- Single-noun getNoun() already did this in 7.30; the paginated path was missed
- Without this fix brain.audit() saw missing subtype on entities that actually
had one (caught by the strict-mode self-test before release)
NEW — tests/integration/strict-mode-self-test.test.ts (13 tests)
- Creates a brain under the exact SDK_CORE_VOCABULARY shape Venue hit + brain-
wide strict mode
- Exercises every internal Brainy path: VFS root + mkdir + writeFile + cp + mv
+ ln + symlink; aggregation engine; audit diagnostic with includeVFS toggle
- Validates error message UX: caller location, vocabulary guidance, brain-wide
strict mode guidance, off-vocabulary value reporting
Docs
- New "Strict mode in practice" section in docs/guides/subtypes-and-facets.md
covering the SDK_CORE_VOCABULARY pattern, 4-step migration recipe
(audit → migrateField → hand-fix → re-audit), the Brainy-internal label
reference table, and an 8.0 forward-look on fillSubtypes()
- docs/api/README.md: new audit() entry, strict-mode tips on add() and relate()
- RELEASES.md: full 7.30.1 entry
Cortex parity (forward-looking, not blocking 7.30.1)
- 6th open question added to .strategy/BRAINY-8.0-SUBTYPE-CONTRACT.md: native
fast path for audit() and fillSubtypes() via column-store null-subtype
bitmap for billion-scale brains
- Cortex should add a parity test mirroring strict-mode-self-test.test.ts
against their native paths to catch any latent bug where native writes
bypass JS validation
- Brainy-internal subtype labels become a documented part of the 8.0 contract
(useful for Cortex telemetry surfacing Brainy-managed infrastructure %)
Verification
- npx tsc --noEmit: clean
- npm test: 1468/1468 unit
- 7.29 noun integration suite: 26/26 (no regression)
- 7.30 verb subtype + enforcement integration suite: 30/30 (no regression)
- New strict-mode-self-test integration suite: 13/13
- npm run build: clean
- Closed-source product reference audit: clean
Addresses VE-SUBTYPE-MIGRATION (Venue's reported request) and ships internal
labels Venue did NOT ask for but that would have broken them next under their
own vocabulary registration.
Promotes `subtype?: string` to a top-level standard field on every entity,
alongside `type` / `confidence` / `weight`. Flat string, no hierarchy — the
consumer-chosen vocabulary for sub-classifying entities within a NounType
(Person → employee/customer, Document → invoice/contract, etc.).
Layer 1 — subtype field + rollup
- HNSWNounWithMetadata.subtype + STANDARD_ENTITY_FIELDS entry
- Entity / Result / AddParams / UpdateParams / FindParams threading
- add()/update() persist subtype on storageMetadata + entityForIndexing
- get()/find() route through the standard-field fast path
- subtypeCountsByType (Map<NounTypeIdx, Map<subtype, count>>) on
BaseStorage, mirrored after nounCountsByType with the same self-heal
rebuild and persisted to _system/subtype-statistics.json
- brain.counts.bySubtype(type, subtype?) — O(1) point + breakdown
- brain.counts.topSubtypes(type, n) — top-N by count
- brain.subtypesOf(type) — distinct subtypes seen
- find({ type, subtype }) and find({ subtype: ['a','b'] }) on the fast path
Layer 2 — trackField for other facets
- brain.trackField(name, { perType?, values? }) registers a field for
cardinality + per-NounType breakdown stats. Backed by the aggregation
engine (auto-defines __fieldCounts__<name>), backfill-on-define applies.
- brain.counts.byField(name, { type? }) returns value frequencies
- Optional vocabulary whitelist rejects off-vocabulary writes at add/update
Layer 3 — generic migrateField
- brain.migrateField({ from, to, readBoth?, batchSize?, onProgress? })
streams every entity, copies the value from one path to another, and
(unless readBoth) clears the source. Supports top-level standard fields,
metadata.X, and data.X paths. Idempotent — safe to re-run.
Docs
- New guide: docs/guides/subtypes-and-facets.md (Layer 1 + 2 + 3)
- README, DATA_MODEL, QUERY_OPERATORS, api/README, finite-type-system,
quick-start all treat subtype as a core primitive with anonymous example
vocabularies (employee/customer/invoice/milestone).
Tests
- 26 new integration tests covering write/read/update/delete round-trips,
counts rollup decrement + re-route on mutation, trackField + byField
with and without perType, vocabulary whitelist enforcement, and
migrateField for metadata.X → subtype and data.X → subtype paths
including readBoth deprecation-window semantics.
Unit suite: 1468/1468 passing. Type-check + build clean.
Introduce a first-class binary-blob storage primitive on the StorageAdapter
contract and implement it across all storage backends. This stores opaque byte
payloads verbatim instead of base64-in-JSON, eliminating the ~33% inflation and
full-materialization cost of the JSON envelope. It unblocks zero-copy,
mmap-able column-store segments and batch vector I/O at billion scale.
New methods (declared abstract on BaseStorageAdapter, the class that implements
StorageAdapter, and added to the StorageAdapter interface):
saveBinaryBlob(key, data) raw write, atomic on real filesystems
loadBinaryBlob(key) exact bytes, or null if absent
deleteBinaryBlob(key) idempotent (missing is ignored)
getBinaryBlobPath(key) real local fs path where one exists, else null
Shared key -> location convention across every adapter: the key's
"/"-separated segments nest under a `_blobs/` prefix and are suffixed with
`.bin`, e.g. "graph-lsm/source/sstable-123" ->
"<root>/_blobs/graph-lsm/source/sstable-123.bin". Blobs are not branch-scoped
(COW): they are immutable producer-managed segments.
Per-adapter behavior:
- FileSystemStorage: writes under <rootDir>/_blobs via tmp+rename; returns the
real on-disk path so native code can mmap it directly. Path convention matches
the existing MmapFileSystemStorage subclass byte-for-byte.
- S3CompatibleStorage / R2Storage / GcsStorage / AzureBlobStorage: put/get/delete
raw octet-stream objects; getBinaryBlobPath returns null (remote stores have no
local path).
- MemoryStorage: defensive-copied Map<string, Buffer>; null path; cleared on
clear().
- OPFSStorage: stores raw bytes in the OPFS tree; null path.
- HistoricalStorageAdapter: read-only — save/delete throw; load resolves the
blob from the historical commit tree; null path.
Tests: tests/unit/storage/binaryBlob.test.ts exercises save/load round-trip
(byte-identical, incl. non-UTF8 bytes), overwrite, delete-then-load, load-missing,
and getBinaryBlobPath behavior for all eight adapters. Cloud adapters run against
in-memory client fakes that drive the real adapter code; OPFS runs against an
in-memory FileSystem Access API mock; the historical adapter commits a blob into
a real COW tree. 59 new tests; full unit suite (1398 tests) green.
Two production correctness defects fixed together so consumers can land
one upgrade.
BR-FIND-WHERE-ZERO — find() returned [] and stats() reported 0 entities
for any workspace whose data was written after the 7.20.0 column-store
refactor. Root cause: getStats() and the getIds() fallback still read
from the deleted sparse-index path. Separately, BaseStorage.getNounType()
was hardcoded to return 'thing', poisoning type-statistics.json with
every noun attributed to that bucket.
- MetadataIndex.getStats() reads from ColumnStore + idMapper.
- MetadataIndex.getIdsFromChunks() throws BrainyError(FIELD_NOT_INDEXED)
when neither store has the field. getIdsForFilter() catches per
clause, logs once, returns [].
- BaseStorage.nounTypeByIdCache populated in saveNounMetadata_internal
and consumed in saveNoun_internal. flushCounts() now persists the
Uint32Array counters too, so readers see fresh per-type counts.
- Self-heal at init: loadTypeStatistics() auto-rebuilds when the
poisoned signature is detected. rebuildTypeCounts() is now public for
use from `brainy inspect repair`.
- Dead state removed: dirtyChunks, dirtySparseIndices,
flushDirtyMetadata().
BR-DEFENSIVE-INTERFACE — 7.21.0 called supportsMultiProcessLocking()
unconditionally, crashing on older Cortex storage adapters that predate
the method. New hasStorageMethod(name) helper gates every new-method
call site. Older adapter triggers a one-line warning at init pointing
at the recommended plugin version.
Tests:
- new tests/integration/find-where-zero.test.ts (7 cases)
- new tests/integration/cortex-compat.test.ts (5 cases)
- multi-process-safety.test.ts updated to enforce correct counts
- 1329/1329 unit + 24/24 new integration tests passing
Filesystem storage now enforces single-writer, many-reader semantics.
A second writer on the same data directory throws at init time with the
holder's PID, hostname, and heartbeat — replacing the previous silent
stale-reads failure mode.
- New: `Brainy.openReadOnly()` — coexists with a live writer, every
mutation throws clearly.
- New: writer lock at `<rootDir>/locks/_writer.lock` with 10s heartbeat
and stale-detection (PID liveness + heartbeat freshness).
- New: cross-process flush-request RPC (filesystem-based, no signals)
so inspectors can force fresh state on demand.
- New: `brain.stats()`, `brain.explain(findParams)`, `brain.health()`
for operator-facing introspection.
- New: `brainy inspect` CLI with 13 subcommands (stats, find, get,
relations, explain, health, sample, fields, dump, watch, backup,
repair, diff), all read-only by default.
- Same-PID re-opens allowed with a warning (preserves test "simulate
restart" patterns).
- Storage instances passed directly via `storage: new MemoryStorage()`
are now honoured instead of silently falling through to the
filesystem auto-detect path.
Brainy + Cortex compose under this model — the lock covers both because
they share `rootDir`, Cortex segments are immutable mmap files, and
MANIFEST updates use atomic-rename.
Fix critical wiring bugs that prevented plugin-provided implementations
from being used at runtime. All CRUD operations, fork/checkout/clear,
batch embedding, neural APIs, and VFS path resolution now properly
dispatch through the plugin registry.
Changes:
- Wire graphIndex to storage for getVerbsBySource() fast path
- Replace instanceof checks with duck-typing (indexIsTypeAware flag)
so plugin HNSW indexes work in add/update/delete/search
- Add createIndex() shared helper for plugin HNSW factory
- Fix fork/checkout/clear to use plugin factories for metadataIndex,
graphIndex, and HNSW instead of hardcoding JS constructors
- Add three-tier embedBatch priority: embedBatch > embeddings > WASM
- Skip WASM warmup/eagerEmbeddings when plugin provides embeddings
- Fix PathResolver metadataIndex access (was looking on storage)
- Use global UnifiedCache in SemanticPathResolver
- Wire plugin distance function through neural APIs
- Add diagnostics() method and CLI command for provider inspection
- Add requireProviders() for production fail-fast assertions
- Add init-time provider summary log
- Add plugin developer documentation (docs/PLUGINS.md)
- Export DiagnosticsResult type
brain.add() was generating 26-40 immediate cloud writes per call, causing
HTTP 429 rate limit errors and high latency on GCS/S3/R2/Azure. Three-layer
fix: (1) deferred metadata writes with dirty-marking, (2) MetadataWriteBuffer
for write coalescing, (3) retry/backoff on all cloud storage adapters.
All metadata index files were stored under a single _system/ prefix, causing
per-prefix rate limiting on GCS/S3/R2/Azure during cold starts and bulk imports.
Distributes high-volume system keys across 256 sub-prefixes using FNV-1a hash.
Backward-compatible with legacy path fallback.
The __words__ keyword index stores 50-5000 entries per entity (one per
word), which inflated avg entries/entity well above the corruption
threshold of 100. This caused:
1. validateConsistency() to falsely detect corruption on every startup,
triggering unnecessary clearAllIndexData() + rebuild() cycles
2. getStats() to log false "Metadata index may be corrupted" warnings
and report inflated totalEntries/totalIds stats
Both methods now skip __words__ when counting, so stats and health
checks reflect metadata fields only (noun, type, createdAt, etc.).
Keyword search is unaffected since the __words__ field index itself
is not modified.
Bug: After brain.clear(), VFS operations failed with
"Source entity 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 not found"
Root causes fixed:
- VFS instance remained in memory pointing to deleted root entity
- FileSystemStorage.clear() set blobStorage=undefined but didn't reinit
- Write-through cache returned stale entity data after clear()
Changes:
- Re-initialize COW (BlobStorage) after storage.clear() in brainy.ts
- Reset and reinitialize VFS following checkout() pattern
- Add clearWriteCache() to BaseStorage, call in Memory/FileSystem adapters
- Add 7 integration tests for VFS clear functionality
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
BREAKING: This is a critical architectural fix for the VFS tree corruption bug
reported by Soulcraft Workshop team. The fix addresses the root cause: dual
ownership of GraphAdjacencyIndex causing verbIdSet to be out of sync.
## Root Cause Analysis
The bug was caused by TWO separate GraphAdjacencyIndex instances:
1. Storage.graphIndex (created in BaseStorage.init())
2. Brainy.graphIndex (created in Brainy.init())
When verbs were saved, both instances were updated. But if Storage's graphIndex
was recreated (via ensureInitialized()), the new instance had an empty verbIdSet.
Queries filtered through this empty verbIdSet returned nothing - making data
appear lost even though it existed in the LSM-trees.
## Fix Summary
1. **GraphAdjacencyIndex Singleton Pattern**
- Removed direct creation from BaseStorage.init()
- Brainy now uses `storage.getGraphIndex()` instead of creating its own
- getGraphIndex() has proper singleton pattern with concurrent access protection
- Added `invalidateGraphIndex()` for branch switches
2. **Auto-rebuild verbIdSet Defense**
- Added check in ensureInitialized(): if LSM-trees have data but verbIdSet
is empty, automatically populate verbIdSet from storage
- This is a safety net for edge cases
3. **Removed Double-Add Bug**
- Removed graphIndex.addVerb() from saveVerb_internal()
- Graph index updates now happen ONLY via AddToGraphIndexOperation in
Brainy.relate() transaction system
- This prevents duplicate counting in relationshipCountsByType
4. **PathResolver Cache Invalidation**
- Added invalidateAllCaches() method to PathResolver and SemanticPathResolver
- checkout() now clears VFS caches before recreating VFS for new branch
## Files Changed
- src/storage/baseStorage.ts: Removed graphIndex creation from init(), added
invalidateGraphIndex(), removed addVerb from saveVerb_internal()
- src/brainy.ts: Use storage.getGraphIndex() in init/fork/checkout
- src/graph/graphAdjacencyIndex.ts: Auto-rebuild verbIdSet in ensureInitialized()
- src/vfs/PathResolver.ts: Added invalidateAllCaches()
- src/vfs/semantic/SemanticPathResolver.ts: Added invalidateAllCaches()
## Testing
All VFS tests pass (7/7), including:
- mkdir() should not corrupt VFS index
- Delete and recreate folder cycles
- Contains relationship queries
🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code)
Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
Bug 1: verbCountsByType optimization skipping requested verb types
- After restart, stale statistics could cause VerbType.Contains to be skipped
- readdir() would return empty/incomplete results
- Fixed by never skipping verb types explicitly requested in filter
- Added fast path for sourceId + verbType combo (common VFS pattern)
- Save statistics on first entity of each type (not just every 100th)
Bug 2: UnifiedCache not invalidated on path deletion
- rmdir() cleared local caches but NOT the global UnifiedCache
- When folder recreated, resolve() returned stale entity ID
- Caused "Source entity not found" errors
- Fixed by adding deleteByPrefix() to UnifiedCache
- Fixed invalidatePath() to also clear UnifiedCache entries
Files modified:
- src/storage/baseStorage.ts (verbCountsByType fix + fast path)
- src/utils/unifiedCache.ts (deleteByPrefix method)
- src/vfs/PathResolver.ts (cache invalidation fix)
Tests added:
- tests/unit/storage/vfs-mkdir-bug.test.ts (7 tests)
Reported by: Soulcraft Workshop team
🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code)
Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
Root cause: lazyLoadCounts() was reading from stats.nounCount (SERVICE-keyed)
instead of the sparse index (TYPE-keyed), and had a race condition (not awaited).
Changes:
- Fix lazyLoadCounts() to compute counts from 'noun' sparse index
- Move lazyLoadCounts() call from constructor to init() (properly awaited)
- Add getNounCountsByType()/getVerbCountsByType() getters to BaseStorage
- Add regression tests (7 tests)
Fixes Workshop bug where counts.byType({ excludeVFS: true }) returned {}
even when 48 entities existed in the database.
🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code)
Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
CRITICAL FIX for production blocker in v6.0.0:
Root Cause:
- BaseStorage.init() set isInitialized = true at the END of initialization
- If any code during init called ensureInitialized(), it triggered init() recursively
- This caused infinite loop on fresh workspace initialization
Fix:
- Set isInitialized = true at START of BaseStorage.init()
- Wrap in try/catch to reset flag on error
- Prevents recursive init() calls while maintaining error recovery
Impact:
- Fixes all 8 storage adapters (FileSystem, Memory, S3, R2, GCS, Azure, OPFS, Historical)
- Init now completes in ~1 second on fresh installation (was hanging)
- Workshop team can now use v6.0.0 features without infinite loop
- No new test failures (1178 tests passing)
Files:
- src/storage/baseStorage.ts: Move isInitialized = true to top of init()
- CHANGELOG.md: Document v6.0.1 hotfix
Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
Implements comprehensive batching infrastructure (brain.batchGet, storage.getNounMetadataBatch, storage.getVerbsBySourceBatch) with native cloud adapter APIs for GCS, S3, R2, and Azure. VFS operations now use parallel breadth-first traversal with batching, reducing directory reads from 22 sequential calls to 2-3 batched calls. Improves cloud storage performance by 90%+ (12.7s → <1s for 12 files). Fully compatible with type-aware storage, sharding, COW, fork(), and all indexes.
🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code)
Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
Workshop team reported that brain.clear() doesn't fully delete persistent storage.
After calling clear() and creating a new Brainy instance, all data was restored
from storage. This is a CRITICAL data integrity bug.
Root causes (3 bugs fixed):
1. **FileSystemStorage deleting wrong directory**: Data stored in branches/main/entities/
but clear() was only deleting old pre-v5.4.0 structure (nouns/, verbs/, metadata/)
2. **COW reinitialization after clear()**: Setting cowEnabled=false on old instance
doesn't affect new instances. Fixed with persistent marker file.
3. **Metadata index cache not cleared**: find() with type filters returned stale data
after clear(). Fixed by recreating MetadataIndexManager.
Changes:
- FileSystemStorage: Clear branches/ directory (where data actually lives)
- All storage adapters: Add checkClearMarker()/createClearMarker() methods
- BaseStorage: Check for cow-disabled marker before initializing COW
- Brainy: Recreate metadataIndex after clear() to flush cached data
- Tests: Comprehensive regression suite (8 tests) to prevent recurrence
Fixes Workshop bug report: /media/dpsifr/storage/home/Projects/workshop/BRAINY_V5_10_2_CLEAR_BUG.md
🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code)
Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
