Files
AILang/design/contracts/roundtrip-invariant.md
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Brummel f683f1aec8 iter design-md-rolesplit.tidy (DONE 7/7): resolve milestone-close audit drift
Gate-first TDD: widened design_index_pin.rs clause-3 to a hand-rolled
FAITHFUL Sweep-1 superset (case-sensitive digit-anchored line anchors
+ Sweep-1's ^[^/]* path-excluded date + the audit-named
decision-record phrases, case-insensitive); no regex dep; the blanket
iter-detector rejected as unworkable. Sentence-level strip of
faithfully-migrated history/decision-record prose out of 5 contract
files (the audit's 3 spot-checked + roundtrip-invariant.md +
data-model.md the exhaustive scan found) into the decision-record
journal, each replaced by its present-tense contract equivalent;
float-semantics.md stale 'see Str ABI below' -> str-abi.md;
architect_sweeps honesty sweeps re-scoped to design/contracts only
(models/ is the narrative tier) + ailang-architect.md lockstep.
Invariant: clause-3 GREEN => Sweep-1 clean in contracts/.

The prior dispatch correctly BLOCKED on a real plan defect (iso_date
lacked Sweep-1's path-exclusion, over-firing on legit
docs/specs/2026-.. citations); per the two+-defects-in-one-iteration
discipline the audit Resolution mechanism+scope were corrected
upstream in lockstep (f2cdd67) before re-dispatch, not patched a
third time.

Boss-verified independently: cargo test --workspace 646/0,
design_index_pin 4/4 (clause-3 RED->GREEN), architect_sweeps.sh exit
0 'All five sweeps clean' (acceptance criterion 9 met), acceptance
grep CLEAN, 3 docs_honesty_pin pinned runs each exactly 1 contiguous
match. Zero spec/quality re-loops. FINAL design-md-rolesplit
iteration — milestone functionally complete, audited, drift-resolved,
hard gate enforces the honesty spirit.
2026-05-19 13:44:37 +02:00

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4.7 KiB
Markdown

# Roundtrip Invariant
## Roundtrip Invariant
Every well-formed AILang module has a canonical `.ail.json`
representation (the hashable, content-addressed JSON-AST) and a
hand-authored `.ail` representation (Form A, the authoring
projection). The JSON-AST is derived from `.ail` in-process by
consumers that need it; the round-trip is now the *property* of
that derivation, not the byte-level agreement of two on-disk forms.
Concretely:
1. **Parse-determinism.** For every well-formed `.ail` text `t`,
`ailang_surface::parse(t)` produces a unique AST. The parser is
a pure function of input — no randomness, no time dependence,
no environment leak. Hashing `canonical::to_bytes(parse(t))` is
therefore well-defined for any `.ail` source.
2. **Idempotency under print.** For every well-formed `.ail` text
`t`, `canonical(parse(t)) == canonical(parse(print(parse(t))))`.
The printer is a left-inverse of the parser modulo canonical
form: print-then-parse is a no-op on the canonical bytes.
3. **CLI-pipeline idempotency.** For every `.ail` fixture, the
public CLI pipeline `ail parse | ail render | ail parse` is
byte-identical to direct `ail parse` of the source `.ail`.
Pins drift that crate-internal tests cannot see.
4. **Carve-out anchor.** Seven `.ail.json`-only fixtures
(subject-matter rejection tests) survive in the corpus by
structural necessity. They participate in their own dedicated
rejection-shape tests, not in the round-trip gate. (The prelude is
embedded as `examples/prelude.ail` in `ailang-surface` and parsed
at compile time via `ailang_surface::parse_prelude`.)
Hashing is the consequence the language depends on: BLAKE3 of the
canonical bytes is well-defined for any `.ail` source via parse-
determinism. An LLM author writes `.ail`; the build derives the
canonical hash without ambiguity.
### Float literals are inside the invariant
Float literals carry an IEEE-754 bit pattern, not a decimal
approximation. The canonical encoding is
`{"kind":"float","bits":"<16-lowercase-hex>"}` and the surface
emits the same bits-hex string. NaN, ±Inf, signed zero, and subnormals all
round-trip exactly because the JSON-number path is bypassed (see
§"Float semantics", "Form-A serialisation"). Floats are not an
exception to the invariant — the bits-hex encoding is the
mechanism that keeps them *inside* it.
### Enforcement
The invariant is workspace-CI-enforced by five tests, each
operating on the `examples/` corpus via dynamic `read_dir`
collection (no hardcoded fixture list, so newly added fixtures
inherit the gate automatically):
- `crates/ailang-surface/tests/round_trip.rs::parse_is_deterministic_over_every_ail_fixture`
— for every `.ail`, parse twice and assert canonical-byte
equality between the two ASTs. Direction 1 above.
- `crates/ailang-surface/tests/round_trip.rs::parse_then_print_then_parse_is_idempotent_on_every_ail_fixture`
— for every `.ail` text `t`, `parse(t)` and `parse(print(parse(t)))`
produce canonical-byte-equal AST. Direction 2 above.
- `crates/ail/tests/roundtrip_cli.rs::cli_parse_then_render_then_parse_is_idempotent`
— for every `.ail`, the public CLI pipeline `ail parse | ail render | ail parse`
reproduces canonical bytes byte-identical to direct `ail parse`.
Pins drift internal tests cannot see.
- `crates/ailang-core/tests/schema_coverage.rs::every_ast_variant_is_observed_in_the_fixture_corpus`
— every variant of `Def`, `Term`, `Pattern`, `Literal`, `Type`,
and `ParamMode` appears in at least one `.ail` fixture. New AST
variants fail compile until the visitor and corpus are extended
in lockstep.
- `crates/ailang-core/tests/carve_out_inventory.rs::examples_ail_json_inventory_matches_carve_outs`
— exactly the seven named carve-out files exist under
`examples/*.ail.json` at any commit. A new `.ail.json` or a
missing carve-out fails the test.
A new fixture or a new AST variant that violates the invariant
fails one of these tests; the fix is in render or parse code,
never by relaxing the test.
### Why this is anchored at top level
The invariant is a property of the language identity, not of any
one surface-design Decision. Decision 6 introduces the `.ail`
surface and lists round-trip-as-property as one of its
constraints, but the property is load-bearing for every
downstream concern that treats the two forms as exchangeable:
content-addressed hashing, the LLM-author's choice of authoring
form, the integrity of fixture cross-references, and the
prerequisite for empirical cross-model authoring-form studies.
Lifting it out of Decision 6 makes the property quotable on its
own and reviewable by the architect agent at every milestone
close.
Ratified by: `crates/ailang-surface/tests/round_trip.rs`.