Andy Dixon
f715d7500b
An archive is data about a mind, not a grant of permissions on this instance. Import now skips the policies table (forks on the same instance keep theirs), reports the omitted rows in the audit log and the mind's history, and the snapshot test proves both paths.
79 lines
4.3 KiB
Markdown
79 lines
4.3 KiB
Markdown
# Snapshots, forks, export/import, replay and experiments
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## Snapshots and forks (spec §42)
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A **snapshot** is a JSON archive of a mind's state at a point in its history:
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identity, personality, configuration, workspace and working memory, drives and
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affect, goals, beliefs (with evidence, versions, alternatives, links), memories
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(with relationships), predictions, entities, corrections, policy rules (kept by forks, never imported from archives) and
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conversations. It records the event sequence number at capture and a SHA-256
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checksum. Cognitive events are **not** copied.
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A **fork** restores a snapshot into a new mind. Every row id is remapped, so
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the fork never shares mutable rows with its source; references to events keep
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pointing at the source's immutable history, which is how the past before the
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fork is shared by reference (`forked_from_mind`, `forked_from_snapshot`,
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snapshot `event_seq`). After the fork the two minds diverge freely.
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**Compare** (`/minds/{a}/compare?with={b}`, `noemactl compare`) is
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deterministic: counts, mean confidence, belief-by-belief differences keyed on
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the normalised proposition, personality and configuration field diffs, and
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the event-type mix.
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## Export / import (spec §43)
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Export produces the same archive (`kind: noema.mind-archive`, `version: 1`,
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checksum). Nothing secret is included: provider keys, integration secret
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references, API tokens and sessions are not mind state and are never in an
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archive. Import treats the archive as hostile: size cap (32 MiB), unknown
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top-level fields rejected, allow-listed tables only, row caps, column-name
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validation, checksum must match, every id remapped, `mind_id` forced. Text
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inside an archive is data; a prompt-injection string in a memory is imported
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as a memory, never executed.
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## Replay (spec §41)
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`Replay` rebuilds a mind from a snapshot into a **disabled sandbox mind**,
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then re-injects the source's recorded stimuli (perception and operator events
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after the snapshot) one at a time, stepping the real cycle code synchronously
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until the mind settles. Each step compares the events the source produced
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after that stimulus with the events the sandbox produced, ignoring
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bookkeeping types and normalising ids and numbers:
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| Label | Meaning |
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|---|---|
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| **exact** | same events, and every model call was served from a recording |
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| **approximate** | a live model call was needed; the recorded response did not match the request hash |
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| **diverged** | no live model call, yet the deterministic code produced different events |
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Divergence is reported, not hidden. Its usual causes are honest ones: the
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working memory changed between snapshot and stimulus, retrieval scores depend
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on wall-clock recency, or the code changed since the recording.
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The replaying router serves recorded responses by request hash
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(`llm_calls.request_hash`) and records the replayed call with `replayed=true`.
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Replays run under a forbidden capability context; no action can execute.
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## Experiments (spec §57)
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An experiment is a snapshot, optional configuration and personality
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overrides, a stimulus script, expectations, a seed and a duration cap. Running
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it forks the snapshot into a disabled subject mind, applies overrides, feeds
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the stimuli and records: events by type, produced-event digests per stimulus,
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subject beliefs, memory and goal counts, expectation outcomes, model-call
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counts (live/replayed), the LLM role routing in force, duration and cycles.
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Results are stored and exportable (`/api/v1/experiments/{id}/export` includes
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an archive of the subject). The subject stays for comparison with the
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baseline.
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Different models are compared by changing role routing between runs; the
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routing in force is recorded in each result. The seed is recorded with every
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stimulus for provenance; deterministic code needs no seed, and model
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providers do not honour one reliably.
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## Operating
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- UI: mind → **Snapshots** (take, fork, download, compare, import on the minds page), mind → **Replay**, top-level **Experiments**.
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- API: `/api/v1/minds/{mind}/snapshots`, `/api/v1/snapshots/{id}[/archive|/fork]`, `/api/v1/minds/{mind}/export`, `/api/v1/minds/import-archive`, `/api/v1/minds/{mind}/compare/{other}`, `/api/v1/minds/{mind}/replays`, `/api/v1/replays/{id}`, `/api/v1/experiments[...]`.
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- CLI: `noemactl snapshots`, `noemactl compare`, `noemactl replay`, `noemactl experiments`.
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