mfowler
985d33dd51
Same pattern + AI-as-adversary verification as builder-adversary-min, but the
role prompts add CONTEXT HYGIENE: /compact at every checkpoint (lossless — state
is on disk), read diffs not trees, spill bulk output to files, adversary loads
only {plan, STATUS, diff}. Loop agents non-resumed → fresh session per phase.
Targets cache-read (the dominant cost in a long loop) without changing what the
agents do or how they verify.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
50 lines
2.7 KiB
Markdown
50 lines
2.7 KiB
Markdown
# Builder/Adversary example — context-lean ("stateless") variant
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Same pattern, same **AI-as-adversary** verification, same gates as
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[`../builder-adversary`](../builder-adversary/) and
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[`../builder-adversary-min`](../builder-adversary-min/) — but the role prompts add a **context
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hygiene** discipline so each loop carries and reloads as little conversation as possible. Nothing
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about *what* the agents do or *how* they verify changes; only how much context they drag from turn to
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turn.
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## Why
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In a long autonomous loop the dominant token cost is **cache-read**: every turn re-sends the
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conversation so far (the unchanged prefix is billed as cache-read, ~10% of input price, but it's
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billed *every turn*). So cost ≈ context length × turns. The role prose is a rounding error against
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that. The win is keeping the conversation short and not carrying it where it isn't needed.
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This protocol already makes that safe: the **durable state is on disk** (git + the plan +
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STATUS/REVIEW/JOURNAL), so the conversation is disposable scratch. These prompts exploit that:
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- **Compact at every checkpoint.** After each gate is committed (Builder) or each verdict is written
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(Adversary), run `/compact` — lossless here, because the agent reloads from git + STATUS/REVIEW.
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- **Read diffs, not trees.** `git diff <last-sha>..HEAD` and only the touched files — never re-read
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the whole repo.
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- **Spill bulk to files.** Long build/test/verification output goes to a file; read back only the
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slice you need, instead of dumping it into context.
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- **Adversary loads only {plan, STATUS, diff}** per gate — full cold AI judgment, tiny footprint.
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## Config note
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Run the loop agents **non-resumed** (the default in this `agents.toml` — loop agents don't set
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`resume = true`), so each time the watchdog restarts a loop (notably at every phase advance) it
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starts a *fresh* session rather than carrying the prior phase's whole conversation forward. The
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in-phase shrinking is done by `/compact` per the prompts above.
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> A natural future engine lever (not yet implemented) would be a watchdog policy that **recycles a
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> loop's session after each checkpoint commit** (claim/review), giving fresh context *per gate*
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> rather than per phase — the same idea, enforced by the harness instead of the prompt.
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## Compared
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The **`agent-orchestrator-benchmark`** repo runs this variant head-to-head against
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`builder-adversary` and `builder-adversary-min` on the same multi-phase task (all on Sonnet),
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reporting tokens per loop — to quantify how much the context discipline saves while keeping identical
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gate outcomes.
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```bash
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python3 ../../agents.py status --config agents.toml
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python3 ../../agents.py up --config agents.toml # needs `claude` on PATH
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```
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