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Aura/docs/design/contracts/c13-hot-reload-frozen-deploy.md
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claude 8688a60ded docs(ledger): split the design ledger into an INDEX map, per-contract live files, and history sidecars
The single-file ledger had grown to 2968 lines / ~42k tokens, mixing
current design law with accreted history: 59 cycle-stamped realization
blocks, 18 [HISTORY] passages, 22 supersession markers, and the C10 /
C22 / C24 reframe sagas layered several supersessions deep. A
code-grounding audit (31 agents, adversarially verified) confirmed 11
defects stated as current truth: stale crate homes from the C28 #288
roster split (cost nodes, PositionManagement, PositionEvent, Session),
the renamed InputSpec->PortSpec, the pre-#241 project model in C16 and
the open-threads section, a stale HarnessKind retirement deferral in
C24, and three C28-internal inconsistencies.

New shape, per the ailang precedent:

- INDEX.md stays the sole addressable entry point: foundation, external
  components, a C-id-keyed contract map (one line per contract), and
  only the genuinely open architectural threads.
- contracts/cNN-<slug>.md carries each contract's current truth only:
  Guarantee / Forbids / Why with ratified refinements integrated, plus
  a code-anchored Current state. All confirmed defects are fixed here;
  crate anchors were re-verified against the tree.
- contracts/cNN-<slug>.history.md (18 sidecars) and INDEX.history.md
  preserve every superseded block verbatim, stamps and issue refs
  intact, under a frozen-record banner. Nothing was deleted: superseded
  design intent remains an addressable working-tree artifact, off the
  per-cycle audit walk.
- Ledger discipline is now stated in INDEX.md: live files are edited in
  place at cycle close, superseded text moves verbatim to the sidecar,
  and a supersession marker in a live file is itself an audit finding.

Every contract file was verified against its old text by an independent
zero-loss pass (statement-by-statement) plus a code-accuracy spot check;
C-ids and contract titles are unchanged, so existing C-id citations in
code, tests, and issues resolve as before.
2026-07-21 16:40:36 +02:00

3.2 KiB

C13 — Hot-reload is authoring-only; deploy is frozen

Guarantee. A node/strategy is authored as a native Rust cdylib, hot-reloaded during the authoring loop (Rust-ABI; host and node built with the same toolchain). The live/deploy bot is a statically-linked, versioned, frozen artifact.

Forbids. Hot-swapping a running live bot; loading third-party / foreign- toolchain plugins.

Why. Hot-reload makes the research loop fast; a live artifact must be frozen and reproducible (audit trail: this bot = this commit). A sweep pays no hot-reload tax — params are runtime data (C12), so the cdylib loads once.

Current state

The authoring-loop half is realized; the frozen live/deploy artifact is not yet built.

A research project compiles to an external cdylib exporting one symbol, AURA_PROJECT, a two-tier #[repr(C)] ProjectDescriptor (aura-core::project, crates/aura-core/src/project.rs, emitted by the aura_project! macro). A C tiermagic (AURAPROJ), descriptor_version, the rustc-version and aura-core-version stamps, the namespace, all C-compatible field types — is validated before any Rust-ABI field is touched; a Rust tier — the vocabulary resolver fn(&str) -> Option<PrimitiveBuilder> and the enumerable type-id list — is read only once both stamps match. The stamp cannot certify the channel it rides on, so it does not depend on the Rust ABI it certifies; both stamps are baked at aura-core compile time (build.rs, per consuming build), so host and dylib each carry their own side's truth.

"Hot-reload" reads, in v1, as per-invocation load of the freshest build: the author runs cargo build, and the next aura invocation locates the artifact via cargo metadata (debug default, --release opt-in) and loads it load-and-hold — the Library is leaked, never unloaded, so its 'static strings and fn-pointers stay valid (aura-runner::project::load, crates/aura-runner/src/project.rs). validate_c_tier checks the four stamps front-to-back; a mismatch of either version stamp refuses with exit 1 naming both sides (ProjectError::Incompatible). The project vocabulary is charter-checked at load (check_charter): non-empty namespace, every id <ns>::-prefixed, no duplicate, no collision against the std vocabulary, list↔resolver cross-check — the invariant-9 data-plane discipline (the C24 enforcement-shift note) enforced at this one seam.

Scope boundary. Load-and-hold is trivially sound only because the CLI is a one-shot process. A future long-running host — the local-server thread (C22) — must re-solve reload by host restart or subprocess isolation, never in-process unload.

See also

  • C12 — params are runtime data, so the cdylib loads once across a sweep
  • C16 — engine/project separation; the per-case dependency policy the cdylib boundary serves
  • C22 — the long-running host that must re-solve reload
  • C24 — the enforcement-shift note whose data-plane discipline the charter check applies

History: c13-hot-reload-frozen-deploy.history.md