Historical Db values (now()/asOf() pins that history has moved past) now
serve the COMPLETE query surface - vector/hybrid search, graph traversal,
cursor pagination, and aggregation - by materializing ephemeral in-memory
indexes over the exact at-generation record set. The historical-query
throw is gone; NotYetSupportedAtHistoricalGenerationError is deleted.
Materializer (Brainy.materializeAtGeneration):
- Copies the at-G record set (live bytes for ids untouched since the pin,
immutable before-images otherwise) into a fresh MemoryStorage; a final
reconciliation pass under the commit mutex makes the copy exact even
when transactions commit mid-build.
- Opens a read-only Brainy over the copy: init rebuilds the metadata and
graph-adjacency indexes from the records; the vector index is built by
inserting every at-G vector (the at-G HNSW graph never existed on disk,
so there is nothing to restore). Host embedder and aggregate definitions
are shared - no second model load, aggregates backfill at-G values.
- Cost is the documented contract: O(n at G) time and memory, ONCE per Db
(handle cached; freed by release(), with a FinalizationRegistry backstop
that also closes leaked readers). A native VersionedIndexProvider serves
the same reads from retained segments with no rebuild.
Db routing (src/db/db.ts): metadata-level find()/related() keep the free
record path; index-only dimensions (query/vector/near/connected/cursor/
aggregate/includeRelations/non-metadata modes) route to the cached
materialization; unsupported where-operators on the record path re-route
there too instead of erroring. Speculative with() overlays keep the one
honest boundary - SpeculativeOverlayError (overlay entities carry no
embeddings, so index reads over them would be silently incomplete);
metadata find()/get()/filter related() work on overlays.
UpdateParams.vector contract now honored: an explicit pre-computed vector
applies directly (with dimension validation) in update() and transact
update ops, re-indexing HNSW - previously it was silently ignored unless
data also changed.
GraphAdjacencyIndex: adjacency now derives from the two verb-id LSM trees
filtered through the live-verb tombstone set (entity->entity edge trees
deleted - they carried no verb ids, so removeVerb could never tombstone
them and traversal served stale neighbors forever). Neighbor reads batch-
load live verbs via the unified cache; addVerb seeds the cache.
Proofs (tests/integration/db-mvcc.test.ts, 24 green): historical vector
search finds old vector placement including since-deleted entities;
historical graph traversal walks the old wiring after a rewire; historical
aggregation computes at-G group values; asOf() pins get the same surface;
the materialization builds once per Db and release() closes the ephemeral
reader (it refuses reads afterwards); overlays throw the documented error.
ADR-001 updated to the no-throws historical model.
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.
