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.
With plugins unset (the default), init() probes for the first-party
accelerator: not installed means plain brainy with zero noise; installed and
healthy means it loads and announces itself; installed but broken (import
failure, invalid shape, failed activation, version mismatch) makes init()
THROW. An installed accelerator never silently vanishes behind the JS engines
- the anti-drift posture of the explicit list, applied to detection.
plugins: []/false stays a true opt-out (no probe); an explicit list keeps its
required-and-loud semantics. The import runs through an importPluginPackage
seam (variable specifier - bundlers cannot static-resolve the optional
package; tests simulate all outcomes without it installed).
Also: when a plugin activates but registers zero native providers (e.g. a
licensing gate declining to engage), the provider summary now warns loudly
instead of leaving every query silently on the JS engines.
Supersedes 8.0.8's explicit-opt-in wording; README/PLUGINS/types now document
the guarded contract. 7 new tests (tests/unit/plugin-autodetect.test.ts).
A clean-room install smoke of the published GA pair caught the README telling
scale-up users the native provider is auto-detected. It is not, by design: the
loader (loadPlugins) does no auto-detection — undefined means no plugins, and
only an explicit plugins: ['@soulcraft/cor'] loads the native engine (loud
failure if it can't). The stale comment on the plugins config field in the
public types claimed auto-detection and is corrected to match the loader; one
phrase in the plugin-author guide likewise.
The 3.0 native engine ships as @soulcraft/cor (brainy 8.x <-> cor 3.x are a
version-matched pair); the old @soulcraft/cortex package stays on the 2.x/7.x
line. Public docs and .d.ts-visible comments now name the correct package.
Historical 2.x contract references (e.g. the 2.3.1 read-side fallback) keep
the old name deliberately.
The installation guide asserted a '5.2x geometric mean speedup' linking a /docs/cortex/comparison
page that does not exist (404) and has no backing benchmark — an unbacked performance claim
shipping in the public package, against the evidence rule. Replaced with a qualitative
native-acceleration statement (no number, no dead link) until a measured, reproducible
open-core-vs-native comparison is published. Also dropped the dead 'cortex/comparison' next-link
from PLUGINS.md frontmatter.
Add YAML frontmatter (slug, public, category, template, order) to 8
existing docs and 2 new getting-started guides (installation, quick-start).
Include docs/**/*.md in npm package files so the portal sync-docs script
can read them from node_modules after publish.
Update CLAUDE.md with docs pipeline trigger phrases and release checklist.
Plugins are no longer auto-detected. Updated README and PLUGINS.md
to show explicit plugins config, document all config values, and
fix manual registration example to use brain.use() API.
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
